The new world order
1 ① God blessed Noah and his sons and he said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. 2Fear and dread of you will be in all the animals of the earth and in all the birds of the air, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. They are given to you. 3Everything that moves and lives shall be food for you; as I gave you the green plants, I have now given you everything. 4Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
5But I will also demand a reckoning for your lifeblood. I will demand it from every animal; and from man, too, I will demand a reckoning for the life of his fellow man.
6He who sheds the blood of man shall have his blood shed by man; for in the image of God has God made man.
7As for you, be fruitful and increase. Abound on the earth and be master of it.”
8God spoke to Noah and his son, 9“See I am making a Covenant with you and with your descendants after you; 10also with every living animal with you: birds, cattle, that is, with every living creature of the earth that came out of the ark. 11I establish my Covenant with you. Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12God said, “This is the sign of the Covenant I make between me and you, and every animal living with you for all future generations. 13I set my bow in the clouds and it will be a sign of the Covenant between me and the earth. 14When I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15I will remember the Covenant between me and you and every kind of living creature, so that never again will floodwaters destroy all flesh. 16When the rainbow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting Covenant between God and every living creature of every kind that exists on the earth.” 17God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the Covenant I have made between me and all that has life on the earth.”
Noah and his sons
18 ② The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. Ham is the ancestor of Canaan. 19These were Noah’s three sons and from them the whole earth was peopled.
20Noah, a man of the soil, set about planting a vineyard. 21He drank the wine, became drunk, and lay uncovered in the middle of his tent. 22When Ham, Canaan’s ancestor, saw his father’s nakedness, he told his two brothers outside the tent. 23But Shem and Japheth took a cloak, put it on their shoulders, the two of them, then walked backwards and covered their father’s nakedness. Their faces were turned away and they did not see their father’s nakedness.
24When Noah awoke from his wine he knew what his youngest son had done to him. 25And he said, “Cursed be Canaan! He shall be his brothers’ meanest slave!”
26He then added: “Blessed be Yahweh, God of Shem, let Canaan be his slave! 27May God extend (the territory of) Japheth, and may he live in the tents of Shem! And may Canaan be his slave!”
28Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood. 29In all Noah lived for nine hundred and fifty years. Then he died.
- Gen 9,1 God's blessing on Noah and his children (that is on all humankind) serves as a commentary on the previous promise. Let us note the following points: Man is confirmed in his role as steward of creation (9:2). He may eat the flesh of animals (9:4), but not their blood (compare with 1:29) because for the Hebrews blood was thought to contain the soul, that is the life of a living being. Thus, to eat the flesh of animals without first draining the blood was considered as profaning the very sacredness of life (see Lev 17:10-14). The covenant of God with humankind (v. 8) and with everything that came from the Ark, means that God is interested in everything that people create: their culture, inventions, as well as their legitimate ambitions. God is not only the God of believers, he is the God of everyone. God does not want merely to save souls: through human creativity God enables people to grow in awareness and responsibility and he prepares them for divine union through the Holy Spirit. God has not made himself known to all human groups as he has done for Israel and later for Christians. But to every human in every country, he gives signs of his providence and his goodness through daily events: this is what he expresses when he invites Noah's descendants to see in the rainbow a reminder of his covenant with them (12). I set my bow in the clouds. Hang up one's bow was, at that time, making peace. The rainbow then is the sign of reconciliation between God and humankind. Gen 9,18 In primitive cultures, those seeking supernatural experiences turned drunkenness into a sacred ritual. They believed there were vital forces in wine which would permit them to escape from the passage of time. The Bible accepts these concerns and prefers to honor Noah rather than to condemn him. {N}10,{/}1 Noah's three sons symbolically represent the three human groups which the Israelites believed formed humankind: - Their group, blessed by God, the Semites (including Arabs, among others). They called their ancestor Shem, meaning the Name, the one who knows and keeps the Name, that is to say, the Presence of God. - Another group, Japheth, including the people of Europe, who were to form the Greek and Roman empires. - The other group was that of the African people, especially Mizraim or Egypt and Cush or Ethiopia and also the Canaanites who occupied the Holy Land before its conquest by the Israelites. Since sexual immorality was quite frequent among the Canaanites, a lack of modesty is attributed to their ancestor Ham. In this list of forefathers, names of legendary heroes are mixed with lists of people and cities as sons of this or that race. For example all those mentioned in verses 2-6 are people and tribes, not individuals.
- Gen 9,1 God's blessing on Noah and his children (that is on all humankind) serves as a commentary on the previous promise. Let us note the following points: Man is confirmed in his role as steward of creation (9:2). He may eat the flesh of animals (9:4), but not their blood (compare with 1:29) because for the Hebrews blood was thought to contain the soul, that is the life of a living being. Thus, to eat the flesh of animals without first draining the blood was considered as profaning the very sacredness of life (see Lev 17:10-14). The covenant of God with humankind (v. 8) and with everything that came from the Ark, means that God is interested in everything that people create: their culture, inventions, as well as their legitimate ambitions. God is not only the God of believers, he is the God of everyone. God does not want merely to save souls: through human creativity God enables people to grow in awareness and responsibility and he prepares them for divine union through the Holy Spirit. God has not made himself known to all human groups as he has done for Israel and later for Christians. But to every human in every country, he gives signs of his providence and his goodness through daily events: this is what he expresses when he invites Noah's descendants to see in the rainbow a reminder of his covenant with them (12). I set my bow in the clouds. Hang up one's bow was, at that time, making peace. The rainbow then is the sign of reconciliation between God and humankind. Gen 9,18 In primitive cultures, those seeking supernatural experiences turned drunkenness into a sacred ritual. They believed there were vital forces in wine which would permit them to escape from the passage of time. The Bible accepts these concerns and prefers to honor Noah rather than to condemn him. {N}10,{/}1 Noah's three sons symbolically represent the three human groups which the Israelites believed formed humankind: - Their group, blessed by God, the Semites (including Arabs, among others). They called their ancestor Shem, meaning the Name, the one who knows and keeps the Name, that is to say, the Presence of God. - Another group, Japheth, including the people of Europe, who were to form the Greek and Roman empires. - The other group was that of the African people, especially Mizraim or Egypt and Cush or Ethiopia and also the Canaanites who occupied the Holy Land before its conquest by the Israelites. Since sexual immorality was quite frequent among the Canaanites, a lack of modesty is attributed to their ancestor Ham. In this list of forefathers, names of legendary heroes are mixed with lists of people and cities as sons of this or that race. For example all those mentioned in verses 2-6 are people and tribes, not individuals.
