-14-
Fresh Air
Genesis 9
We left off in the previous study with the ark coming to rest on Mount Ararat. After having lived in the ark for a total period of 382 days (one year plus 17 days)God tells Noah to go out of the ark. For just over a year the family has lived in a closed space. Were the animals all in a state of hibernation?
In Gen 6:21 God is telling Noah to stock the ark with food which would be both for the family and for the animals. So, no, not all the animals were in hibernation. This means that if they were to eat … there would be waste to pile up in the corner of the ark somewhere. After a year of this I am certain that they were wondering what fresh air really smelled like.
God had shut the door and sealed it from the outside. Perhaps God is the one who opened it. At any rate, Noah is not going through that door without knowing that it is God's specific will. After the family exits the ark, God reinstates a similar instruction to Noah that he had given Adam regarding multiplying and filling the earth with living creatures (8:15-19).
The first recorded thing that Noah does after leaving the ark, is to build an altar and sacrifice to God. He did not offer just one animal. He offered one of each kind of clean animal. He offered one of each kind of clean bird.
I am not certain what this says about Noah. Perhaps it shows his extreme gratitude for safety, or it shows his fear of the Almighty based on what he has just seen God do, or it shows his extreme gratitude for the grace of God, or it shows his intense love for God … or all of the above.
It is logical to assume that the regular and repeated offering of animal sacrifices had begun with Adam and had continued to the time that Noah entered the ark. God sacrificed the first animals to provide coverings for the nakedness of Adam and Eve.
It is likely that these two knew a lot more about the meaning of 'substitutionary atonement' than what we find written so far in Genesis. How much do we know about it today? We have the majority of the Old Testament giving us the record that Godly individuals from the time of Adam to the formation of the nation of Israel and right up to the coming of Christ regularly offered sacrifices for their sin.
Specific information and details are given within the first five books of the bible regarding sacrifices. The details do not mean much to us gentile Christians, but if we were to study them in detail we would discover that in some way, whether it is a first-born male lamb or sheep, a bull, a goat, a dove etc., that each type of sacrifice, in some way adds another facet to the offering of Jesus as the lamb of God. In the New Testament we read words like “Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world” and Re 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
In Leviticus 16 God instructed Moses and Aaron to select two goats every year for an offering. One was to be used as a sin offering to atone for the sins and transgressions of the people. Once killed, its blood was to be sprinkled on God’s mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant. There God would view the blood of the sin offering and have Mercy on the people and forgive their sins.
The high priest would then lay hands on the second goat which was allowed to live, and he would confess the sins of the people putting them on the head of the goat. The goat would then bear the blame for all the transgressions of the people and would be set free into the wilderness, where God would remember their sins no more.
The goat that was set free to 'disappear' into the wilderness came to be called the 'scapegoat'. When John the Baptist made reference to the Lamb of God that would carry away the sins of the world he was actually referring to the goat. Well why use a goat for the sacrifice … why not a lamb? For a practical reason … goats could be 'chased' away and they would go and forage for themselves. A lamb cannot effectively be chased … it must be lead. So to give us the proper picture of our sins being taken far from us and remembered no more, God instructed them to use a goat.
So Noah offers an animal sacrifice. How often would he have done this during the course of a year? We do not have that information, but obviously it has been at least a year since his last offering. The practice of bringing an offering to God has several observations that become apparent.
First of all, taking communion is a reminder as we remember the death of Jesus, our substitute … our atoning sacrifice. We can decorate our dwellings with reminders … selected passages of scripture, on the walls, perhaps an artist's conception of Jesus praying for us in the garden, or a picture of Him returning to earth as King of Kings.
Another way to make sure we remember all the aspects of what Jesus' sacrificial death means to us - comes in the form of fellowship. Here are a few passages to shed some light on this:
Malachi 3:16 Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, And the LORD listened and heard them; So a book of remembrance was written before Him For those who fear the LORD And who meditate on His name.
Deuteronomy 6:6-8 "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
And finally, we can do this by 'singing to one another'. Ephesians 5:19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
Noah had a 'God consciousness'. He and his family were all alone in a new world. There was no one else around but the animals that were quickly dispersing in search of food and shelter. How quiet. What a time to talk to God. Jesus said, "But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Matthew 6:6.
God 'smelled' the good odor of the sacrifice and responded by saying … I will never again do what I have just done. He said, “While the earth remains, there will be seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease."
Winter and summer were both unfamiliar words to Noah … that is, in the extremes that winters and summers happen on this present earth.
The words, 'while the earth remains'. Jesus said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.” Mt 24:35. Taking scripture at its word we read that this earth will remain for 1000 years longer after the return of Jesus. There is a growing popular belief today that says this earth will remain forever. The teaching is based on the fact that God said, after creating the world “It is good”. The logic is that God would not destroy something He has just called good. The logic is flawed. God has just destroyed a world full of animals that He had called good. He has just destroyed billions of humans that were called 'very good' at the beginning. It is very clear in scripture that he will start over with a totally new earth.
And it will come—the day of the Lord—as a thief in the night, in which the heavens with a rushing noise will pass away, and the elements with burning heat be dissolved, and earth and the works in it shall be burnt up. 2Pe 3:10 (Young's Literal Translation)
Chapter 9:1-7 1 ¶ So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
2 “And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand.
3 “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.
4 “But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
God is starting over. But God is starting with an imperfect human. He is re-populating the earth with a sinful man. Noah was 'as upright as they come', but he was not perfect as Adam was.
God talks with Noah just as He did with Adam. He instructs them to multiply. He gives them authority over the animal kingdom. He gives them permission to take food that involves killing an animal.
Perhaps the earlier humans also ate red meat, but if they did, it is not recorded. It is also not recorded that God gave permission for man to eat meat at all … until this verse.
We also note that there is no mention of eating only 'clean' animals. The fact some were called clean, to me implies that Adam and Eve had already been instructed by God regarding what meat to eat and what was to be avoided.
The written instruction would come through Moses many years later and it would apply particularly to the nation of Israel. But as we noted earlier, Noah was well aware of a distinction between the clean and the unclean. It is my guess that sacrifices were always chosen only from the 'clean' category.
In verse 4 however, God gives his ruling about eating the flesh … with its blood. That was forbidden. The church of the first century AD may have been reaching back to this verse when their council meeting had to make a ruling about rules for the gentile believers.
5 “Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of everyman’s brother I will require the life of man.
6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.
7 And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; Bring forth abundantly in the earth And multiply in it.”
God takes this opportunity to also lay out some additional truths. He underscores the sacredness of life itself. From verses 5-7 He condemns murder and senseless bloodshed and He ties it in with the fact that we are made in the image of God.
Because this is being said to Noah right at the outset … at the very beginning of the new world, God's law against murder and in support of pro-life is established as a foundation for all laws which would govern the new society.
Noah was the king of the earth. He was more than that. As children were born to the family of Noah, the need for government would soon become apparent. They would need law enforcement. They would need someone to arbitrate (as judge). Until various policies would become established, Noah was 'the law.'
God gives Noah a ruling about capital punishment. If a man took another man's life, (intentionally?) that man was to be put to death. If an animal took a man's life, that animal was to be put down.
8 ¶ Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying:
9 “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you,
10 “and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth.
11 “Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 ¶ And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 “I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.
14 “It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud;
15 “and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 “The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
17 And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
Here we read about the famous 'rainbow of promise'. If you have ever experienced trauma, for example; a terrible automobile accident, an earthquake, a heart-attack … it likely left you thinking … it could happen again! Surely Noah and his family would have had that thought troubling them. As new generations would be born, and as they spread out into the new world they would see evidence everywhere that a global flood had just happened. Future generations would not have to look around at the topography and theorize what must have happened … they would all have heard it first hand from Noah, his wife … their three sons and their wives. God is making it clear from the beginning that another global flood will never happen.
God uses this promise as a guarantee for other promises. In Isaiah 54:1-10 we read comforting words regarding the promise of God toward His church. In chapter 53 are the wonderful verses regarding the death, humiliation of Christ … all the way to His resurrection.
In this chapter it goes on, mentioning the 'barrenness' of Israel but predicts a flourishing of seed, a multiplicity of descendants … upon whom God would never pour out His wrath. He is saying, “Just as I will never again flood the earth with water … even so I will not pour out a flood of wrath upon my children”.
18 Now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth; and Ham was the father of Canaan.
19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.
We close this section with a reminder that the whole earth was populated by this family of eight people.
Coming up we will be reading the genealogies of each of Noah’s sons. As we said previously, these lists are important when it comes to establishing dates and pinpointing the occurrence of certain events. But in verse 18 one grandson of Noah is mentioned, Canaan. He is the son of Ham. He is actually the fourth son of Ham. Why is he singled out here in this verse?
For a very important reason, actually … which we will discover in a future study.
In Gen 6:21 God is telling Noah to stock the ark with food which would be both for the family and for the animals. So, no, not all the animals were in hibernation. This means that if they were to eat … there would be waste to pile up in the corner of the ark somewhere. After a year of this I am certain that they were wondering what fresh air really smelled like.
God had shut the door and sealed it from the outside. Perhaps God is the one who opened it. At any rate, Noah is not going through that door without knowing that it is God's specific will. After the family exits the ark, God reinstates a similar instruction to Noah that he had given Adam regarding multiplying and filling the earth with living creatures (8:15-19).
The first recorded thing that Noah does after leaving the ark, is to build an altar and sacrifice to God. He did not offer just one animal. He offered one of each kind of clean animal. He offered one of each kind of clean bird.
I am not certain what this says about Noah. Perhaps it shows his extreme gratitude for safety, or it shows his fear of the Almighty based on what he has just seen God do, or it shows his extreme gratitude for the grace of God, or it shows his intense love for God … or all of the above.
It is logical to assume that the regular and repeated offering of animal sacrifices had begun with Adam and had continued to the time that Noah entered the ark. God sacrificed the first animals to provide coverings for the nakedness of Adam and Eve.
It is likely that these two knew a lot more about the meaning of 'substitutionary atonement' than what we find written so far in Genesis. How much do we know about it today? We have the majority of the Old Testament giving us the record that Godly individuals from the time of Adam to the formation of the nation of Israel and right up to the coming of Christ regularly offered sacrifices for their sin.
Specific information and details are given within the first five books of the bible regarding sacrifices. The details do not mean much to us gentile Christians, but if we were to study them in detail we would discover that in some way, whether it is a first-born male lamb or sheep, a bull, a goat, a dove etc., that each type of sacrifice, in some way adds another facet to the offering of Jesus as the lamb of God. In the New Testament we read words like “Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world” and Re 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
In Leviticus 16 God instructed Moses and Aaron to select two goats every year for an offering. One was to be used as a sin offering to atone for the sins and transgressions of the people. Once killed, its blood was to be sprinkled on God’s mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant. There God would view the blood of the sin offering and have Mercy on the people and forgive their sins.
The high priest would then lay hands on the second goat which was allowed to live, and he would confess the sins of the people putting them on the head of the goat. The goat would then bear the blame for all the transgressions of the people and would be set free into the wilderness, where God would remember their sins no more.
The goat that was set free to 'disappear' into the wilderness came to be called the 'scapegoat'. When John the Baptist made reference to the Lamb of God that would carry away the sins of the world he was actually referring to the goat. Well why use a goat for the sacrifice … why not a lamb? For a practical reason … goats could be 'chased' away and they would go and forage for themselves. A lamb cannot effectively be chased … it must be lead. So to give us the proper picture of our sins being taken far from us and remembered no more, God instructed them to use a goat.
So Noah offers an animal sacrifice. How often would he have done this during the course of a year? We do not have that information, but obviously it has been at least a year since his last offering. The practice of bringing an offering to God has several observations that become apparent.
- It recognizes the sovereignty of God. It is saying, “God, You are my Lord. You are over me. I am subject to You. 'I am weak, but Thou art strong'.
- It recognizes that we are sinners and that we are in the presence of the holiness of God.
- It indicates an appreciation that we are powerless and lost without Him. It appreciates the fact that we are His possession, and as such He cares for us and protects us.
First of all, taking communion is a reminder as we remember the death of Jesus, our substitute … our atoning sacrifice. We can decorate our dwellings with reminders … selected passages of scripture, on the walls, perhaps an artist's conception of Jesus praying for us in the garden, or a picture of Him returning to earth as King of Kings.
Another way to make sure we remember all the aspects of what Jesus' sacrificial death means to us - comes in the form of fellowship. Here are a few passages to shed some light on this:
Malachi 3:16 Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, And the LORD listened and heard them; So a book of remembrance was written before Him For those who fear the LORD And who meditate on His name.
Deuteronomy 6:6-8 "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
And finally, we can do this by 'singing to one another'. Ephesians 5:19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
Noah had a 'God consciousness'. He and his family were all alone in a new world. There was no one else around but the animals that were quickly dispersing in search of food and shelter. How quiet. What a time to talk to God. Jesus said, "But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Matthew 6:6.
God 'smelled' the good odor of the sacrifice and responded by saying … I will never again do what I have just done. He said, “While the earth remains, there will be seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease."
Winter and summer were both unfamiliar words to Noah … that is, in the extremes that winters and summers happen on this present earth.
The words, 'while the earth remains'. Jesus said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.” Mt 24:35. Taking scripture at its word we read that this earth will remain for 1000 years longer after the return of Jesus. There is a growing popular belief today that says this earth will remain forever. The teaching is based on the fact that God said, after creating the world “It is good”. The logic is that God would not destroy something He has just called good. The logic is flawed. God has just destroyed a world full of animals that He had called good. He has just destroyed billions of humans that were called 'very good' at the beginning. It is very clear in scripture that he will start over with a totally new earth.
And it will come—the day of the Lord—as a thief in the night, in which the heavens with a rushing noise will pass away, and the elements with burning heat be dissolved, and earth and the works in it shall be burnt up. 2Pe 3:10 (Young's Literal Translation)
Chapter 9:1-7 1 ¶ So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
2 “And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand.
3 “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.
4 “But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
God is starting over. But God is starting with an imperfect human. He is re-populating the earth with a sinful man. Noah was 'as upright as they come', but he was not perfect as Adam was.
God talks with Noah just as He did with Adam. He instructs them to multiply. He gives them authority over the animal kingdom. He gives them permission to take food that involves killing an animal.
Perhaps the earlier humans also ate red meat, but if they did, it is not recorded. It is also not recorded that God gave permission for man to eat meat at all … until this verse.
We also note that there is no mention of eating only 'clean' animals. The fact some were called clean, to me implies that Adam and Eve had already been instructed by God regarding what meat to eat and what was to be avoided.
The written instruction would come through Moses many years later and it would apply particularly to the nation of Israel. But as we noted earlier, Noah was well aware of a distinction between the clean and the unclean. It is my guess that sacrifices were always chosen only from the 'clean' category.
In verse 4 however, God gives his ruling about eating the flesh … with its blood. That was forbidden. The church of the first century AD may have been reaching back to this verse when their council meeting had to make a ruling about rules for the gentile believers.
5 “Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of everyman’s brother I will require the life of man.
6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.
7 And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; Bring forth abundantly in the earth And multiply in it.”
God takes this opportunity to also lay out some additional truths. He underscores the sacredness of life itself. From verses 5-7 He condemns murder and senseless bloodshed and He ties it in with the fact that we are made in the image of God.
Because this is being said to Noah right at the outset … at the very beginning of the new world, God's law against murder and in support of pro-life is established as a foundation for all laws which would govern the new society.
Noah was the king of the earth. He was more than that. As children were born to the family of Noah, the need for government would soon become apparent. They would need law enforcement. They would need someone to arbitrate (as judge). Until various policies would become established, Noah was 'the law.'
God gives Noah a ruling about capital punishment. If a man took another man's life, (intentionally?) that man was to be put to death. If an animal took a man's life, that animal was to be put down.
8 ¶ Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying:
9 “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you,
10 “and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth.
11 “Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 ¶ And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 “I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.
14 “It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud;
15 “and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 “The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
17 And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
Here we read about the famous 'rainbow of promise'. If you have ever experienced trauma, for example; a terrible automobile accident, an earthquake, a heart-attack … it likely left you thinking … it could happen again! Surely Noah and his family would have had that thought troubling them. As new generations would be born, and as they spread out into the new world they would see evidence everywhere that a global flood had just happened. Future generations would not have to look around at the topography and theorize what must have happened … they would all have heard it first hand from Noah, his wife … their three sons and their wives. God is making it clear from the beginning that another global flood will never happen.
God uses this promise as a guarantee for other promises. In Isaiah 54:1-10 we read comforting words regarding the promise of God toward His church. In chapter 53 are the wonderful verses regarding the death, humiliation of Christ … all the way to His resurrection.
In this chapter it goes on, mentioning the 'barrenness' of Israel but predicts a flourishing of seed, a multiplicity of descendants … upon whom God would never pour out His wrath. He is saying, “Just as I will never again flood the earth with water … even so I will not pour out a flood of wrath upon my children”.
18 Now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth; and Ham was the father of Canaan.
19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.
We close this section with a reminder that the whole earth was populated by this family of eight people.
Coming up we will be reading the genealogies of each of Noah’s sons. As we said previously, these lists are important when it comes to establishing dates and pinpointing the occurrence of certain events. But in verse 18 one grandson of Noah is mentioned, Canaan. He is the son of Ham. He is actually the fourth son of Ham. Why is he singled out here in this verse?
For a very important reason, actually … which we will discover in a future study.