God's Promise - Part 2 (Genesis 9)

"I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth." - Gen 9:13

This passage is packed, I'm focusing on three main points. The first one will be the focus for today. That would be the promise of the Lord after the flood. This is a continuation from yesterday. The promise that God made was that He will never again flood the earth. (Gen 8:21, 9:13-15)

God gives us a sign of this promise, the rainbow. Many will write this off, and say that the rainbow is scientific and will tell you how the rainbow is formed. Even though science can tell us how the rainbow if formed, it's still a sign from God of the promise that He will never again flood the world.

This promise does not come without a warning. In verses 3-5, God makes three provisions for man. First people were allowed to eat meat (v.3), but were not allowed to consume its life, aka blood (v.4) and finally not to take the life of other men (v.5). Does this mean that men were not warned about killing others? Most certainly not! We can clearly see that God warns about the sin of killing others in Gen 4:7, and we see that there were consequences for killing (Gen 4:11-12). In verse 6, God tells Noah that the punishment for killing another human is death. Does this justify capitol punishment? I see this as being the big difference between Cain's sin and the killing after the flood. Because in chapter 4 we see that the punishment to Cain was not death, but death was to be the punishment after the flood.

The promise to Noah is very similar to the promise with Adam in that God told Adam not to eat of the tree, or he would die (Gen 2:17). Just as God told Noah not to take another man's life or he would die (Gen 9:6). But Christ is the answer to this punishment (Col 1:13-14). When Christ died on the cross, He made payment for the sins of man, including the taking of life.

The second point in this chapter is the blessing of Noah and his family. But Noah sinned. Noah is a picture of Christ, but unlike Christ, Noah had a sinful nature like every other man. In verses 20-21, we see Noah getting drunk and naked, this was viewed a shameless. Do you view getting drunk as shameless? It's sad to see how our society is okay with drunkenness, when the Bible clearly teaches against it. (Pro 26:9, Isa 19:14, Luke 21:34, Rom 13:13, Gal 5:21, Eph 5:18) We can learn many things from this, but for now let’s leave it at this.

The final thing I'm taking from this passage is that of Ham. In verses 22-23, we see that Ham was the first to see his father nakedness, and some say that in verse 23 it’s Ham that made fun of his father. In verse 25, Noah puts a curse on Ham and his descendents. Shem and Japheth were both very respective of their father. Noah's curse on Ham's descendents is fulfilled when the Israelites would conquer them upon entering the Promised Land.

Verse of the day: "For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another." - Romans 12:3-5

For your reading:
The Bible in One Year: Lamentations 3-5 and Hebrews 10:19-39
Daily Bread: Hebrews 10:19-23