Part 4 - The Book of Genesis

 

 

 

The flood comes

7.1-5 (6.17-22) Now God tells Noah to go into the ark with his family because they are the only righteous people on earth. God again tells Noah to take two of every animal into the ark, but now clarifies, “Take seven pairs of every clean animal into the ark, and just two pair of every unclean animal. We will see why later. Noah is told to do all this now because in seven days it is going to rain for forty days and forty nights. Noah obeys.

7.6-12 Noah is 600 years old when he enters the ark. He goes in with his family and it says again, two of all unclean and clean animals, and on the seventh day the deep burst open and the sky burst open with rain (first time it ever rained) for forty nights and forty days.

7.13-16 Noah and his family enter the ark with the beasts of every kind. Then the Lord shut him in.

It is significant to note that “the Lord shut him in.” Noah probably would have opened the door and let in the people who were outside crying for entrance, so the Lord locked the door from outside!

7.17-24 The earth is covered with water and all flesh dies except for Noah and those inside. The waters “swelled” for 150 days.

The flood ends

8.1-14 God remembers Noah and the narrative continues to explain how the waters receded over a period of months. Noah sends out a raven, and a dove twice. The second time the dove came back with a twig, and the next time Noah leaves it go it does not return. Finally on the second month on the 27^th day the earth is dry. If we base the calendar on 30 days per month, we find Noah in the ark for 1 year and 10 days.

On the first day of the first month Noah sees the waters begin to dry. In rabbinic law this is one of four New Year’s Days, the most familiar being Rosh Hashanah (September, Feast of Trumpets). It is also significant that on the first day of the month the tabernacle in the wilderness went up (Exodus 40.2, 17).

8.15-19 God tells Noah to come out of the ark with the family and all the animals.

8.20-22 Noah now builds an altar unto the Lord and makes burnt offerings of every clean animal and bird on it. The Lord smells the burnt offering and is pleased and promises to never destroy the earth with water again.

Now we see why Noah took seven pairs of clean animals into the ark as God commanded (7.1-5). God was going to demand a blood sacrifice of clean animals and instructed Noah to take extra pairs for this purpose. So we see a pattern of God teaching man that He requires blood sacrifice for sin long before Moses instituted the temple sacrifices. This of course is pointing to Jesus sacrificing Himself on the cross.


  NOAH’S LATER LIFE, HIS DESCENDANTS - 9.1-10.32
In the following passages we will see God make an everlasting covenant with Noah and seal it with a rainbow. God also made a covenant with Abraham in Gen 17 which was sealed with circumcision. We will see the sin of Ham and the cursing of his son Canaan. Then we will see the table of 70 nations come from Noah’s three sons.

9.1-7 God blesses Noah and his sons and tells them to be fertile, increase and fill the earth. All animals, fish, and birds will fear them and are given into their hand. Every creature is theirs to eat, along with the green herbs. Blood, they are told, is not to be eaten because the blood is the life. (They are not to be like the pagan nations that will spring up. This is the origin of koshering, the Jewish practice of salting meat so as to absorb the blood before cooking.) Noah is told that God will require a reckoning for every man who takes another man’s life, because man is created in God’s image.

In the Talmud verse 5 is interpreted as a prohibition of killing oneself. Jewish law strictly forbids suicide. Verse 6 is cited in support of the prohibition of abortion.

9.8-17 God says to Noah and his sons that he is establishing a covenant with them and their offspring--and with all the living creatures--that He will never again destroy the earth with flood waters. The sign for all of them will be the rainbow in the sky. God says He will see it and remember this covenant.

Up until then there had been no rain. Now the rainbow will appear when it rains and God will remember.

In the Talmud it says the descendants of Noah--all mankind--are obligated to live by seven commandments. They are: 1. Establish courts of justice. 2. Refrain from blaspheming the God of Israel. 3. Refrain from idolatry. 4. Refrain from sexual perversion. 5. No bloodshed, murder. 6. No robbery, stealing. 7. Not to eat meat cut from a living animal. It is said that Gentiles who observe these “seven commandments of the descendants of Noah” can meet with God’s full approval.

Traditionally, Jews have 613 commandments in total. Here we see the “wall” or “fence” around the Torah beginning to be set up. This is what Jesus scolded the religious leaders of His time for doing. The original reason for setting up these walls or fences was supposed to “help” man not to sin. It got out of hand and became an unnecessary burden on the people. They soon forgot the spirit of the law.

9.18-21 The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. From these three the whole world branched out. Noah was a farmer who grew grapes and he was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank of the wine he made and became drunk and passed out naked in his tent.

9.22-28 Ham, the father of Canaan, sees his father’s nakedness and tells his brothers who are outside. Shem and Japheth take a cloth and walk in backwards and cover their father’s nakedness, without seeing it. When Noah wakes up and finds out what Ham had done he curses Ham’s son Canaan and blesses Shem and Japheth. Then it says Noah lived 350 years after the flood and died at the age of 950.

First the ancient Rabbi’s saw this as a lesson on the dangers of intoxication. The rest of the passage is difficult to understand. It serves as an explanation of the sexual perverseness typical of the pagan and Canaanite tribes Israel would later encounter. The identity of the act in question is murky. Canaan is cursed rather than Ham. To “uncover a man’s nakedness” can mean to have sexual relations with his wife (Leviticus 20.11). That would make Ham guilty of incest. In Lev 20.17, the less common expression, “to see nakedness” means to have sex. That would mean Ham was guilty of homosexual rape.

The midrash sees Ham as castrating his father. That would mean Noah could not have a fourth son, so Ham’s fourth son will be cursed (Gen 10.6). It is a difficult passage to understand but the point is that sexual sin is harmful to those who desire a holy walk.


Next: Part 5