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Genesis Chapter
Nine
Genesis 9
Chapter Contents
God blesses Noah, and grants flesh for food. (1-3) Blood,
and murder forbidden. (4-7) God's covenant by the rainbow. (8-17) Noah plants a
vineyard, is drunken and mocked by Ham. (18-23) Noah curses Canaan, blesses
Shem, prays for Japheth, His death. (24-29)
Commentary on Genesis 9:1-3
The blessing of God is the cause of our doing well. On
him we depend, to him we should be thankful. Let us not forget the advantage
and pleasure we have from the labour of beasts, and which their flesh affords.
Nor ought we to be less thankful for the security we enjoy from the savage and
hurtful beasts, through the fear of man which God has fixed deep in them. We
see the fulfilment of this promise every day, and on every side. This grant of
the animals for food fully warrants the use of them, but not the abuse of them
by gluttony, still less by cruelty. We ought not to pain them needlessly whilst
they live, nor when we take away their lives.
Commentary on Genesis 9:4-7
The main reason of forbidding the eating of blood,
doubtless was because the shedding of blood in sacrifices was to keep the
worshippers in mind of the great atonement; yet it seems intended also to check
cruelty, lest men, being used to shed and feed upon the blood of animals,
should grow unfeeling to them, and be less shocked at the idea of shedding
human blood. Man must not take away his own life. Our lives are God's, and we
must only give them up when he pleases. If we in any way hasten our own death,
we are accountable to God for it. When God requires the life of a man from him
that took it away unjustly, the murderer cannot render that, and therefore must
render his own instead. One time or other, in this world or in the next, God
will discover murders, and punish those murders which are beyond man's power to
punish. But there are those who are ministers of God to protect the innocent,
by being a terror to evil-doers, and they must not bear the sword in vain, Romans 13:4. Wilful murder ought always to be
punished with death. To this law there is a reason added. Such remains of God's
image are still upon fallen man, that he who unjustly kills a man, defaces the
image of God, and does dishonour to him.
Commentary on Genesis 9:8-17
As the old world was ruined, to be a monument of justice,
so this world remains to this day a monument of mercy. But sin, that drowned
the old world, will burn this. Articles of agreement among men are sealed, that
what is promised may be the more solemn, and the doing of what is covenanted
the more sure to mutual satisfaction. The seal of this covenant was the rainbow,
which, it is likely, was seen in the clouds before, but was never a seal of the
covenant till now it was made so. The rainbow appears when we have most reason
to fear the rain prevailing; God then shows this seal of the promise, that it
shall not prevail. The thicker the cloud, the brighter the bow in the cloud.
Thus, as threatening afflictions abound, encouraging consolations much more
abound. The rainbow is the reflection of the beams of the sun shining upon or
through the drops of rain: all the glory of the seals of the covenant are
derived from Christ, the Sun of righteousness. And he will shed a glory on the
tears of his saints. A bow speaks terror, but this has neither string nor
arrow; and a bow alone will do little hurt. It is a bow, but it is directed
upward, not toward the earth; for the seals of the covenant were intended to
comfort, not to terrify. As God looks upon the bow, that he may remember the
covenant, so should we, that we may be mindful of the covenant with faith and
thankfulness. Without revelation this gracious assurance could not be known;
and without faith it can be of no use to us; and thus it is as to the still
greater dangers to which all are exposed, and as to the new covenant with its
blessings.
Commentary on Genesis 9:18-23
The drunkenness of Noah is recorded in the Bible, with
that fairness which is found only in the Scripture, as a case and proof of
human weakness and imperfection, even though he may have been surprised into
the sin; and to show that the best of men cannot stand upright, unless they
depend upon Divine grace, and are upheld thereby. Ham appears to have been a
bad man, and probably rejoiced to find his father in an unbecoming situation.
It was said of Noah, that he was perfect in his generations, 9; but this is meant of sincerity, not of a
sinless perfection. Noah, who had kept sober in drunken company, is now drunk
in sober company. Let him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall. We
have need to be very careful when we use God's good creatures plentifully, lest
we use them to excess, Luke 21:34. The consequence of Noah's sin was
shame. Observe here the great evil of the sin of drunkenness. It discovers men;
what infirmities they have, they betray when they are drunk; and secrets are
then easily got out of them. Drunken porters keep open gates. It disgraces men,
and exposes them to contempt. As it shows them, so it shames them. Men say and
do that when drunken, which, when sober, they would blush to think of. Notice
the care of Shem and Japheth to cover their father's shame. There is a mantle
of love to be thrown over the faults of all, 1 Peter 4:8. Beside that, there is a robe of
reverence to be thrown over the faults of parents and other superiors. The
blessing of God attends on those who honour their parents, and his curse lights
especially on those who dishonour them.
Commentary on Genesis 9:24-29
Noah declares a curse on Canaan, the son of Ham; perhaps
this grandson of his was more guilty than the rest. A servant of servants, that
is, The meanest and most despicable servant, shall he be, even to his brethren.
This certainly points at the victories in after-times obtained by Israel over
the Canaanites, by which they were put to the sword, or brought to pay tribute.
The whole continent of Africa was peopled mostly by the descendants of Ham; and
for how many ages have the better parts of that country lain under the dominion
of the Romans, then of the Saracens, and now of the Turks! In what wickedness,
ignorance, barbarity, slavery, and misery most of the inhabitants live! And of
the poor negroes, how many every year are sold and bought, like beasts in the
market, and conveyed from one quarter of the world to do the work of beasts in
another! But this in no way excuses the covetousness and barbarity of those who
enrich themselves with the product of their sweat and blood. God has not
commanded us to enslave negroes; and, without doubt, he will severely punish
all such cruel wrongs. The fulfilment of this prophecy, which contains almost a
history of the world, frees Noah from the suspicion of having uttered it from
personal anger. It fully proves that the Holy Spirit took occasion from Ham's
offence to reveal his secret purposes. "Blessed be the Lord God of
Shem." The church should be built up and continued in the posterity of
Shem; of him came the Jews, who were, for a great while, the only professing
people God had in the world. Christ, who was the Lord God, in his human nature
should descend from Shem; for of him, as concerning the flesh, Christ came.
Noah also blesses Japheth, and, in him, the isles of the gentiles that were
peopled by his seed. It speaks of the conversion of the gentiles, and the
bringing of them into the church. We may read it, "God shall persuade
Japheth, and being persuaded, he shall dwell in the tents of Shem." Jews
and gentiles shall be united together in the gospel fold; both shall be one in
Christ. Noah lived to see two worlds; but being an heir of the righteousness
which is by faith, he now rests in hope, waiting to see a better than either.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Genesis》
Genesis 9
Verse 1
[1] And
God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply,
and replenish the earth.
And God blessed Noah and his sons — He assured them of his good-will to them, and his gracious intentions
concerning them. The first blessing is here renewed, Be fruitful, and multiply,
and replenish the earth, and repeated, Genesis 9:7; for the race of mankind was as it
were to begin again. By virtue of this blessing mankind was to be both
multiplied and perpetuated upon earth; so that in a little time all the
habitable parts of the earth should be more or less inhabited; and tho' one
generation should pass away, yet another generation should come, so that the
stream of the human race should be supplied with a constant succession, and run
parallel with the current of time, 'till both be swallowed up in the ocean of
eternity.
Verse 2
[2] And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the
earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and
upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
He grants them power over the inferior
creatures. He grants, 1. A title to them; into your hands they are delivered -
For your use and benefit. 2. A dominion over them, without which the title
would avail little; The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every
beast - This revives a former grant, Genesis 1:28, only with this difference, that
man in innocency ruled by love, fallen man rules by fear. And thus far we have
still the benefit of it, 1. That those creatures which are any way useful to us
are reclaimed, and we use them either for service or food, or both, as they are
capable. 2. Those creatures that are any way hurtful to us are restrained; so
that tho' now and then man may be hurt by some of them, yet they do not combine
together to rise up in rebellion against man.
Verse 3
[3]
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb
have I given you all things.
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat
for you — Hitherto man had been confined to feed
only upon the products of the earth, fruits, herbs and roots, and all sorts of
corn and milk; so was the first grant, Genesis 1:29. But the flood having perhaps
washed away much of the virtue of the earth, and so rendered its fruits less
pleasing, and less nourishing, God now enlarged the grant, and allowed man to
eat flesh, which perhaps man himself never thought of 'till now. The precepts
and provisos of this charter are no less kind and gracious, and instances of
God's good-will to man. The Jewish doctors speak so often of the seven precepts
of Noah, or of the sons of Noah, which they say were to be observed by all
nations, that it may not be amiss to set them down. The first against the worship
of idols. The second against blasphemy, and requiring to bless the name of God.
The third against murder. The fourth against incest and all uncleanness. The
fifth against theft and rapine. The sixth requiring the administration of
justice. The seventh against eating flesh with the life. These the Jews
required the observation of, from the proselytes of the gate. But the precepts
here given, all concern the life of man. Man must not prejudice his own life by
eating that food which is unwholsome, and prejudicial to his health.
Verse 4
[4] But
flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
But flesh with the life thereof, which is the
blood thereof, shall ye not eat — Blood made atonement
for the soul, Leviticus 17:11. The life of the sacrifice was
accepted for the life of the sinner. Blood must not be looked upon as a common
thing, but must be poured out before the Lord, 2 Samuel 23:16. Mr. Henry indeed has a strange
conceit, That this is only a prohibition to eat flesh. This does such apparent
violence to the text, that to mention it, is sufficient.
Verse 5
[5] And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every
beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's
brother will I require the life of man.
And surely your blood of your lives will I
require — Our own lives are not so our own, that we
may quit them at our own pleasure; but they are God's, and we must resign them
at his pleasure. If we any way hasten our own deaths, we are accountable to God
for it. Yea, At the hand of every beast will I require it - To shew how tender
God was of the life of man, he will have the beast put to death that kills a
man. This was confirmed by the law of Moses, Exodus 21:28, and it would not be unsafe to
observe it still.
And at the hand of every man's brother will I
require the life of a man — I will avenge the blood of the murdered
upon the murderer. When God requires the life of a man at the hand of him that
took it away unjustly, he cannot render that, and therefore must render his own
in lieu of it, which is the only way left of making restitution.
Verse 6
[6]
Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of
God made he man.
Whoso sheddeth man's blood — Whether upon a sudden provocation, or premeditated, (for rash anger is
heart-murder as well as malice prepense, Matthew 5:21,22), by man shall his blood be shed
- That is, by the magistrate, or whoever is appointed to be the avenger of
blood. Before the flood, as it should seem by the story of Cain, God took the
punishment of murder into his own hands; but now he committed this judgment to
men, to masters of families at first, and afterwards to the heads of countries.
For in the image of God made he man — Man is a creature dear to his Creator, and therefore ought to be so to
us; God put honour upon him, let us not then put contempt upon him. Such
remains of God's image are still even upon fallen man, that he who unjustly
kills a man, defaceth the image of God, and doth dishonour to him.
Verse 9
[9] And
I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;
We have here the general establishment of
God's covenant with this new world, and the extent of that covenant.
Verse 11
[11] And
I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any
more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to
destroy the earth.
There shall not any more be a flood — God had drowned the world once, and still it is as provoking as ever;
yet he will never drown it any more, for he deals not with us according to our
sins. This promise of God keeps the sea and clouds in their decreed place, and
sets them gates and bars, Hitherto they shall come, Job 38:10,11. If the sea should flow but for a
few days, as it doth twice every day for a few hours, what desolations would it
make? So would the clouds, if such showers as we have sometimes seen, were
continued long. But God by flowing seas, and sweeping rains, shews what he
could do in wrath; and yet by preserving the earth from being deluged between
both, shews what he can do in mercy, and will do in truth.
Verse 13
[13] I do
set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me
and the earth.
I set my bow in the clouds — The rainbow, 'tis likely was seen in the clouds before, but was never a
seal of the covenant 'till now. Now, concerning this seal of the covenant, observe,
(1.) This seal is affixed with repeated assurances of the truth of that
promise, which it was designed to be the ratification of; I do set my bow in
the cloud, Genesis 9:13. It shall be seen in the cloud, Genesis 9:14. and it shall be a token of the
covenant, Genesis 9:12,13. And I will remember my
covenant, that the waters shall no more become a flood, Genesis 9:15. Nay, as if the eternal Mind needed
a memorandum, I will look upon it that I may remember the everlasting covenant,
Genesis 9:16. (2.) The rainbow appears when the
clouds are most disposed to wet; when we have most reason to fear the rain
prevailing, God shews this seal of the promise that it shall not prevail. (3.)
The rainbow appears when one part of the sky is clear, which imitates mercy
remembered in the midst of wrath, and the clouds are hemmed as it were with the
rainbow, that it may not overspread the heavens, for the bow is coloured rain,
or the edges of a cloud gilded. As God looks upon the bow that he may remember
the covenant, so should we, that we also may be ever mindful of the covenant
with faith and thankfulness.
Verse 20
[20] And
Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
And Noah began to be an husbandman — Heb. a man of the earth, a man dealing in the earth, that kept ground in
his hand and occupied it. Sometime after his departure out of the ark he
returned to his old employment, from which he had been diverted by the building
of the ark first, and probably after by the building an house for himself and
family.
And he planted a vineyard — And when he had gathered his vintage, probably he appointed a day of
mirth and feasting in his family, and had his sons and their children with him,
to rejoice with him in the increase of his house, as well as in the increase of
his vineyard; and we may suppose he prefaced his feast with a sacrifice to the
honour of God. If that was omitted, 'twas just with God to leave him to himself,
to end with the beasts that did not begin with God: but we charitably hope he
did. And perhaps he appointed this feast with design in the close of it to
bless his sons, as Isaac, Genesis 27:3,4. That I may eat, and that my soul
may bless thee.
Verse 21
[21] And
he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
And he drank of the wine and was drunk — 'Tis highly probable, he did not know the effect of it before.
And he was uncovered in his tent — Made naked to his shame.
Verse 22
[22] And
Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two
brethren without.
And Ham saw the nakedness of his father, and
told his two brethren — To have seen it accidentally and
involuntarily would not have been a crime. But he pleased himself with the
sight. And he told his two brethren without - In the street, as the word is, in
a scornful deriding manner.
Verse 23
[23] And
Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and
went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were
backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and went
backward, and covered the nakedness of their father - They not only would not
see it themselves, but provided that no one else might see it; herein setting
an example of charity, with reference to other men's sin and shame.
Verse 25
[25] And
he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
A servant of servants — That is, the meanest and most despicable servant shall he be, even to
his brethren. Those who by birth were his equals, should by conquest be his
lords. This certainly points at the victories obtained by Israel over the
Canaanites, by which they were all either put to the sword, or put under
tribute. Joshua 9:23; Judges 1:28,30,33,35, which happened not 'till
about eight hundred years after this. God often visits the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children, especially when the children inherit the fathers
wicked dispositions, and imitate the father's wicked practices.
Verse 26
[26] And
he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
The God of Shem —
All blessings are included in this. This was the blessing conferred on Abraham
and his seed, the God of heaven was not ashamed to be called their God, Hebrews 11:16. Shem is sufficiently recompensed
for his respect to his father by this, that the Lord himself puts this honour
upon him to be his God; which is a sufficient recompense for all our services
and all our sufferings for his name.
Verse 27
[27] God
shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan
shall be his servant.
God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell
in the tents of Shem — His seed shall be so numerous and so
victorious, that they shall be masters of the tents of Shem, which was
fulfilled when the people of the Jews, the most eminent of Shem's race, were
tributaries to the Grecians first, and after to the Romans, both of Japhet's
seed. This also speaks the conversion of the Gentiles, and the bringing of them
into the church; and then we should read it, God shall persuade Japheth; (for
so the word signifies) and being so persuaded, he shall dwell in the tents of
Shem - That is, Jews and Gentiles shall be united together in the gospel-fold:
after many of the Gentiles shall have been proselyted to the Jewish religion,
both shall be one in Christ, Ephesians 2:14,15. When Japheth joins with Shem,
Canaan falls before them both: when strangers become friends, enemies become
servants.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on
Genesis》
GOD’S
COVENANT WITH NOAH.
A Covenant
usually means a compact between two parties, delivered in solemn form, and
requiring mutual engagements. As employed in Scripture, from the nature of the
case, it must also the be extended to mean God’s promise by which He binds
Himself to His creatures without terms, absolutely (Jer.33:20; Ex.34:10).
Gesenius derives the term from the verb “ to cut” (Isa.57:8,margin), as it is a
Hebrew phrase “ to cut a covenant,” and it was customary for the purpose of
ratifying such, to divide an animal in parts ( Gen.15:10,17). Others derive it from
the verb “ to eat together,” thus explaining the phrase “ covenant of salt”
(Num.18:19; 11. Chron.13:5).
Ⅰ. Divine Covenant. “ I, behold, I,” ＆c.(verse
9). The origin of the covenant is in God Himself. He also is the One who
undertakes to fulfil all the conditions of the covenant. As illustrating this,
notice how often the Lord uses the pronoun “ I .”
The “ I ” of
gift (verse 3).
The “ I ” of
requirement (verse 5).
The “ I ” of
establishment (verse 9,11).
The “ I ” of
making (verse 12).
The “ I ” of setting
(verse 13).
The “ I ” of
bringing (verse 14).
The “ I ” of
remembering (verse 15,16).
The “ I ” of
looking (verse 16).
The “ I ” of
assuring (verse 17).
“ Thou shalt”
is a command, but no power to perform. “ I will” is the Lord acting as we trust
Him, and fulfilling His own word.
Ⅱ. Sure Covenant. God assures Noah there shall not “ any more” be a
flood, ＆c. Note the “ any more’s”
of verse 11, and the “ no more” of verse 15. When the Lord says “ no more”
there is an end to the matter, and we may be sure that He will fully fulfil His
word. When we have a “ Thus saith the Lord” for anything we have a rock upon
which we can build, and no storm can overthrow us. Notice three “ no more’s ”
of the New Testament as illustrating: Atonement (Heb.10:18,26). Absolution
(Heb.10:17; 8:8). Abiding (John 15:4).
Ⅲ. Ratified Covenant. The bow in the cloud is God’s sign and seal that
He will surely keep to His covenant. God has set the how of Christ’s atonement
in the dark cloud of our sin. He has set the bow of His consolation in the dark
cloud of trial; the bow of His promise in the cloud of difficulty; and the bow
of His coming again in the dark cloud of bereavement. Law says, “ How can we
render thanks enough for this superadded pearl in our diadem of encouragements!
We are thus led to look for our bow on the cloud of every threatening storm. In
the world of nature it is not always visible; but in the world of grace it ever
shines. When the darkest clouds thicken around us the Sun of Righteousness is
neither set nor has eclipse, and His ready smile converts the drops into an
arch of peace.”
Ⅳ. Extent of the Covenant. “Every
living creature,” ＆c. (verse 15). The covenant
extends to “ all flesh.” The animal creation was destroyed, excepting those who
were in the ark, but God says it shall not be so again. The animal creation has
come under the curse of sin, but under Christ and in the Millennium it will be
“ delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:19-23),
and the scene depicted in Isaiah 11.shall be literally fulfilled.
Ⅴ. Perpetual Covenant. “ Everlasting covenant” (verse 16), that is, to
last until it shall be needed no more. We cannot apply the adjective
“everlasting” to nothing. As long as the covenant is needed it is in force.
When the conditions that called forth the covenant no longer exist, then it can
no longer apply. This, which would at first sight seem to be against “ eternal
punishment,” is really an illustration of it, for the sinner can never cease to
be; therefore the punishment (whatever it is ) is always applied. How comforting
it should be to the child of God that he is related to the eternal God, saved
in an eternal salvation, quickened in an eternal life, comforted with eternal
consolation, indwelt by the eternal Spirit, united to the eternal Saviour, kept
for an eternal inheritance, and secured by an eternal covenant.
── F.E. Marsh《Five Hundred Bible Readings》
09 Chapter 9
Verses 1-7
God blessed Noah and his sons
The Divine benediction on the new humanity
I.
PROVISION
FOR THE CONTINUANCE OF ITS PHYSICAL LIFE. This divinely appointed provision for
the continuance of man upon the earth--
1. Raises the relation between the sexes above all degrading
associations.
2. Tends to promote the stability of society.
3. Promotes the tender charities of life.
II. PROVISION FOR
ITS SUSTENANCE. The physical life of man must be preserved by the ministry of
other lives--animal, vegetable. For this end God has given man dominion over
the earth, and especially over all other lives in it. We may regard this
sustenance which God has provided for man’s lower wants--
1. As a reason for gratitude. Our physical necessities are the most
immediate, the most intimate to us. We should acknowledge the hand that
provides for them. We may regard God’s provision herein--
2. As an example of the law of mediation. Man’s life is preserved by
the instrumentality of others. God’s natural government of the world is carried
on by means of mediation, from which we may infer that such is the principle of
His moral government. That “bread of life” by which our souls are sustained
comes to us through a Mediator. Thus God’s provisions for our common wants may
be made a means of educating us in higher things. Nature has the symbols and
suggestions of spiritual truths.
3. As a ground for expecting greater blessings. If God made so rich
and varied a provision to supply the necessities of the body, it was reasonable
to expect that He would care and provide for the deeper necessities of the
soul.
III. PROVISION FOR
ITS PROTECTION.
1. From the ferocity of animals.
2. From the violence of evil men.
IV. PROVISION FOR
ITS MORALITY.
V. PROVISION FOR
ITS RELIGION.
1. Mankind were to be educated to the idea of sacrifice.
2. Mankind were to be impressed with the true dignity of human
nature.
3. Mankind must be taught to refer all authority and rule ultimately
to God. (T. H. Leale.)
Noah a representative person
1. In the earliest fauna and
flora of the earth, one class stood for many. The earliest families combined
the character of several families afterwards separately introduced. This is
true, for instance, of ferns, which belong to the oldest races of vegetation.
Of them it has been well said that there is hardly a single feature or quality
possessed by flowering plants of which we do not find a hint or prefiguration
in ferns. It is thus most interesting to notice in the earliest productions of
our earth the same laws and processes which we observe in the latest and most
highly-developed flowers and trees.
2. At the successive periods of the unfolding of God’s great
promise, we find one individual representing the history of the race, and
foreshadowing in brief the essential character of large phases and long periods
of human development. Hence it is that here Noah becomes the representative of
the patriarchal families in covenant with God. He is the individual with whom
God enters into covenant, in relation to the successive generations of the
human race.
3. And in this respect Noah is a retrospective type of Him who, in
the eternal ages, consented to be the representative of redeemed humanity, and
with whom the Father made an everlasting covenant; and a prospective type of
that same Representative who, in the fulness of time, received the Divine
assurance that in Him should all nations of the earth be blessed. (W.
Adamson.)
The new world and its inheritors--the men of faith
1. The first is the new
condition of the earth itself, which immediately appears in the freedom allowed
and practised in regard to the external worship of God. This was no longer
confined to any single region, as seems to have been the case in the age
subsequent to the Fall. The cherubim were located in a particular spot, on the
east of the garden of Eden; and as the symbols of God’s presence were there, it
was only natural that the celebration of Divine worship should there also have
found its common centre. But with the Flood the reason for any such restriction
vanished. Noah, therefore, reared his altar, and presented his sacrifice to the
Lord where the ark rested. There immediately he got the blessing, and entered
into covenant with God--proving that, in a sense, old things had passed away,
and all had become new. But this again indicated that, in the estimation of
Heaven, the earth had now assumed a new position; that by the action of God’s
judgment upon it, it had become hallowed in His sight, and was in a condition
to receive tokens of the Divine favour, which had formerly been withheld from
it.
2. The second point to be noticed here is the heirship given of this
new world to Noah and his seed--given to them expressly as the children of
faith. A change, however, appears in the relative position of things, when the
flood had swept with its purifying waters over the earth. Here, then, the
righteousness of faith received direct from the grace of God the dowry that had
been originally bestowed upon the righteousness of nature--not a blessing
merely, but a blessing coupled with the heirship and dominion of the world.
There was nothing strange or arbitrary in such a proceeding; it was in perfect
accordance with the great principles of the Divine administration. Adam was too
closely connected with the sin that destroyed the world, to be reinvested, even
when he had through faith become a partaker of grace, with the restored
heirship of the world. Nor had the world itself passed through such an ordeal
of purification, as to fit it, in the personal lifetime of Adam, or of his more
immediate offspring, for being at all represented in the light of an
inheritance of blessing.
3. The remaining point to be noticed in respect to this new order of
things is the pledge of continuance, notwithstanding all appearances or
threatenings to the contrary, given in the covenant made with Noah, and
confirmed by a fixed sign in the heavens. There can be no doubt that the
natural impression produced by this passage in respect to the sign of the
covenant is, that it nowfor the first time appeared in the lower heavens. The
Lord might, no doubt, then, or at any future time, have taken an existing
phenomenon in nature, and by a special appointment made it the instrument of
conveying some new and higher meaning to the subjects of His revelation. But in
a matter like the present, when the specific object contemplated was to allay
men’s fears of the possible recurrence of the deluge, and give them a kind of
visible pledge in nature for the permanence of her existing order and
constitution, one cannot perceive how a natural phenomenon, common alike to the
antediluvian and the postdiluvian world, could have fitly served the purpose.
In that case, so far as the external sign was concerned, matters stood
precisely where they were; and it was not properly the sign, but the covenant
itself, which formed the guarantee of safety for the future. We incline,
therefore, to the opinion that, in the announcement here made, intimation is
given of a change in the physical relations or temperature of at least that
portion of the earth where the original inhabitants had their abode; by reason of
which the descent of moisture in showers of rain came to take the place of
distillation by dew, or other modes of operation different from the present.
The supposition is favoured by the mention only of dew before in connection
with the moistening of the ground (Genesis 2:6); and when rain does come to
be mentioned, it is rain in such flowing torrents as seems rather to betoken
the outpouring of a continuous stream, than the gentle dropping which we are
wont to understand by the term, and to associate with the rainbow. (P.
Fairbairn, D. D.)
Verse 6
Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.
Death for murder a Divine decree
I. First, I
ASSERT THAT THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH FOR MURDER IS A DIVINE DECREE. As some
persons are opposed to the execution of any murderer, it is well to examine
both the objections they urge and the command by which this law is asserted.
Death for murder is recognized from the beginning of the world. It seems to be
written on the conscience of man by God that such a doom rightly awaits a
murderer. The case of Cain--the strong case of the opposers of death for murder--is,
when rightly understood, a strong case against them. Cain declared that the
first person that met him would slay him. Who but God had written this in the
tables of his heart? who save He could have engraven this on his conscience? It
was a recognized principle from the beginning that the murderer should not
live. But it is objected, “God interfered and saved his life.” Quite true. But
then, if God had not interfered, his life would have been justly taken in
obedience to the general laws of God implanted in the consciences of all men;
and therefore, unless God similarly interferes now by a special and marked
revelation, the original rule holds good, and the murderer is put to death.
Observe, in order to save Cain, “God set a mark upon” the man. Why? Because
without this he was liable to death. The exception in this case clearly proves
the rule! Again: you cannot but be struck with the remarkable care which God
manifests in His laws to Israel concerning blood. He warns them against
suffering their “land to become polluted with blood.” The law of inquest is
founded upon one part of the Jewish law; and the humane provisions which
rendered the owner of any infuriated animal a loser of a vast fine if the
animal caused the death of any person not only commends itself for its justice,
but again shows the value which is set upon human life. And with a view, I
deem, yet further to impress this truth upon mankind, the blood even of the
animal, since “it is the life thereof,” is distinctly ordered to be in nowise
eaten, but to be “poured upon the ground like water.” You may say that these
were laws to the Jewish nation, and it is true; but I am persuaded that the
polity of the Jewish nation is given as a specimen for all nations to follow.
It involves a very great principle, namely, the care which is to be taken over
life. It is important also on physiological grounds, or rather physiology
supports the great wisdom of this command, for it is known that disobedience to
it produces pernicious results on the body and the mind of man.
II. And now,
secondly, WE HAVE TO INQUIRE INTO THE REASON WHY THIS COMMAND OF DEATH FOR
MURDER IS GIVEN. It might suffice indeed for our guidance to know what God had
decreed, and in some instances we have His direction given without any reason
being added; yet it is not so here. God, in giving this universal law, has
added a reason equally universal. Man is to put the murderer to death because
in the image of God man was made. I have heard men contend, “Oh! let the
murderer live, for life will be more miserable to him than death; and if he is
so unfit to live, surely he is unfit to die; why, therefore, put him to death?”
There is here a strange fallacy, however; for the argument presumes, in the
first place, that the sparing of the man aggravates his woe, while the
concluding sentence intimates a desire to prevent this agony. Others, again,
contend that the murderer being locked up in perpetual prison, society is as
safe as though he were executed. This also may be true as far as the individual
felon is concerned, but is incorrect probably so far as the example to others
is regarded. But the truth of the matter simply is, you have nothing at all to
do with it. God has decreed it, and God has assigned a reason for that decree.
It is no question about society, or policy, or necessity at all--it is a matter
of revelation. God asserts that man was made by Him in His own glorious image;
and “therefore,” and without any other reason, you are to execute death upon
every murderer. And mark you, God watches to see that this is done.
III. And, in the
third place, I must ask you to observe A REMARKABLY IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE WHICH
IS INVOLVED IN THE REASON WHICH GOD ASSIGNS TO ORDERING DEATH AS THE PUNISHMENT
FOR MURDER. To those who have been accustomed to view this matter as a simple
act of the community in defence of social safety, the principle which I am
about to allude to cannot, of course, have presented itself; but to the
attentive student of the reason appended in the text, it will follow, I think,
as a matter of necessity. It is there plainly enough commanded that death shall
by man be inflicted upon the murderer, because man was made in the image of
God; so that death is thus inflicted because that which was made in the
likeness of God had been destroyed. Now, you need not be reminded that the
great destroyer of man as the image and glory of God is sin. I will not detain
you on a subject which you all agree upon. “By one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin.” What then follows? Sin must be destroyed. It is the
thing which brought destruction upon man; it is the defiler of that which was
the temple of the Holy Ghost; it is the murderer of man, both body and soul.
How shall it be destroyed? By one man it entered: can it be by one Man punished
and removed? God Himself has, in the text, announced a principle on earth to
man. This principle on earth is only a material image of that which is true in
the spiritual kingdom. How shall it be made manifest? Behold, then, slowly
toiling up the ascent to Golgotha, One whom the Eternal has singled out as “the
Man that was His Fellow,” and who Himself had said, “Lo, I come.” The sin which
ruined us all and secured our destruction is there borne by Him. “God made
Him,” though sinless, “to be sin for us”; and when at that hour “it pleased the
Father to bruise Him, to put Him to grief,” and to “lay on Him the iniquities
of us all”--when thus bearing that on Him in our stead, which would murder us,
He suffered the penalty, and was “cursed” as He “hung upon the tree.” He was at
once thus suffering that we might have the means of escape, and was as a
personal Being, on whom all sin was placed in its highest and most spiritual
meaning, undergoing the penalty of that law which enacts, “Whoso sheddeth man’s
blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man.”
All nature, every physical law, and every revealed law of God on earth, is but
a material image of the spiritual; “as we have borne the image of the earthly,
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” The heavenly laws are presented
to us in our earthly state in an earthly form, and are images to us of the
spiritual truths which we shall recognize in our heavenly condition. Sin
destroyed the image and glory of God in man. Christ undertook to restore all,
and in doing so must bear sin away. It is man’s destroyer. Christ takes it; and
with it His blood was shed. (G. Venables, S. C. L.)
Capital punishment
“Whoso sheddeth blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” “A
prediction,” say some, “not a command.” Nay, we reply, not so; for what says
God in the preceding verse? “Your blood of your lives will I require.” Yes; and
so sacred is human life, that even the unreasoning beast who kills a man is to
be put to death, and no use made of his carcass. “At the hand of every beast
will I require it, and at the hand of man.” It is, then, a distinct command.
I. Now notice THE
GROUND UPON WHICH THE COMMAND IS BASED and notice also, in passing, how
completely applicable it is to present as well as former times.
1. In the first place, murder is a sin against human brotherhood.
God made men members of one family, and this particular offence strikes at the
very root of the tie which binds us together. “At the hand of every man’s
brother”--he is brother to the man he has slain--“will I require the life of
man.”
2. God made man in His own image; and though man has fallen, he
still retains something of the heavenly resemblance. Murder, in its essence, if
you trace it far enough, is not merely an injury inflicted on our fellow--not
merely an act by which pain and deprivation are caused to the individual, and
loss to society. It is all this, of course; but it is also more than this--it
is a striking at God in the person of him who was made in the image of God. Now
it is obvious that these two reasons assigned for the treatment of the murderer
are of universal and permanent application. Men are brethren now, men are made
in the image of God now; and therefore our conclusion is that this commandment
given to Noah in the days when God was making a covenant with the whole human
race, centred and represented in those eight persons, stands unrepealed on the
statute book of heaven, and will stand there so long as there are men to be
murdered, and other men who for gain or lust or hatred or malice are willing to
murder them.
II. IT IS IDLE TO
OBJECT, as some do, that Christianity forbids revenge. It is worse than
idle--it is a blundering confusion of thought. Revenge is the gratification of
personal feeling, a desire to inflict upon another the suffering which he has
inflicted on you; whilst the act which God here commands is the carrying out of
a solemn, judicial sentence, the assertion of Divine justice, the practical
announcement of God’s eternal wrath against unrighteousness. More idle still is
it to say, as some do, that the murderer too is made in the image of God, and
is therefore to be spared. Accept this view, and the Divine command before us
becomes a nullity. God says expressly that he is not to be spared; God demands his
life in return for the life he has taken; God affirms that the offence
committed will not be expiated except by the murderer’s death, that the land in
which such a thing is done will remain under the curse of pollution, and that
“it cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of
him that shed it.” Now, if the view thus placed before you be really correct,
it follows that there is no room really left for much of the discussion upon
the subject of capital punishment which occasionally goes on about us. Let me
say that we speak only of the crime of murder. We see no warrant in the Word of
God for taking human life for any other offence. But if the view be right, a
people, a nation, professing to serve and obey the God revealed to us in the
Scripture, has really no option in the matter. It is useless to heap up
statistics, to accumulate precedents, to construct elaborate arguments, to make
tender and touching appeals--God has spoken, not to Noah only, but to the whole
human race; not to one generation only, but to the whole of the successive ages
of mankind; and from His authoritative decision there is, and there can be, no
possible appeal. And let me say, in conclusion, that I dread these humanitarian
views, for this reason, among others--because they seem to shift the basis on
which human society rests, and on which alone it can permanently stand. They go
upon the assumption that what men decide shall be right, thus ignoring God’s
eternal laws of right and wrong. But you must go up to God ultimately for the
decision of such a question as this. (G. Calthrop, M. A.)
Our relationships
The terms of the passage are too general to make any narrowing of
them down within family limits legitimate. They contain the very advanced truth
that every man belongs to every other man; that there is but one great human
family; and that our action is not according to the will of God when it is
conducted on lines of exclusion. Whether we see it or not, the fact is
everywhere assumed in Scripture that that which is good for the whole humanity
is good for each member of it. Our policy is to be broadly sympathetic. In
Church, in State, religiously, politically, everywhere. The charge is put upon
us to preserve human life, not simply our own individual life, but to do all we
can to preserve human life everywhere. And this is every man’s duty. “The life
of man,” what is it?
The true human life, what is it? That which is fitting and proper
to you and me and all men, what is it? Because that is the life we have to
preserve. We are not allowed to live in the front of great human problems we
never so much as touch with the tip of our finger. Almighty God will not have
that. It is contrary to His idea of man and his responsibility. But how many,
how very many, even now, in these Christian times, live on a very much lower
plane than that! How often do we find ourselves saying, “It’s no concern of
mine whether people are this, that, and the other; if only I can be let alone
to do my own business and enjoy my own life, that is all I ask.” But that is
not all that God asks; it is not all of which our nature is capable; and every
man is accountable to God for the capability within him. We live in a world
indefinitely improvable. In a right condition of society we live in a world
capable of supporting an almost countless population. Now, in this movement the
Christian Church has a very important place to fill, and for this simple
reason, that it is the trustee of the truth which is to leaven the mass of
human opinion and feeling. No life ever yields comfort to its possessor until
it is conformed to the idea which He had for it who originally gave it.
Everything has its state of fixity, and there is no content and no satisfaction
until that state is reached. This is specially and emphatically true of the
life of man. We are members of a great human race, in every one of whom there
is the feeling of something attainable which has not yet been attained. As to
what the something is there is endless diversity of opinion. Now, the Church
has something more to do than to take care of itself. Very little good can it
do on the principle of simply caring for itself. It has to sound in the ear of
humanity, of men everywhere, the truth that is in these words, “At the hand of
every man’s brother will I require the life of man.” It has to illustrate by
its spirit and temper and by its deeds this fact, that all men belong to all
other men. Missionary it must be or die. It has to declare God’s ideas, God’s
favour, God’s will to the world, as these have come to us in Jesus. It has to
live those ideas before the world, and thus gradually but surely renew the
world. It has to be the leaven in the meal. It must be that every man is
accountable for the right use of the noblest ideas which ever come into his
soul. Quench them he must not. Stifle them he must not. He must nourish them
into growth, or his soul will be a graveyard in which are buried the murdered
innocents which would have grown into manhood but for the strangling hand of
his scepticism. And so, while I speak of the Church as the collective of all
God-inspired souls, I beseech you to note that in our text there is no
absorption of the individual into the mass. “At the hand of every man’s brother
will I require the life of man.” The whole life of man concerns each of us--all
of us. That is the truth at the base of universal suffrage. We are responsible
for the high or low tone of the life of man in the community in which we live,
in the town, in the city, in the state, in the nation. “At the hand of every
man’s brother will I require the life of man.” Why, says one, should I be
punished for what another man does? Because we are all partakers of one life,
and are related, and are a family, and the law is that if one member suffer,
all the members shall suffer with it. And so, if there be small-pox in the poor
streets, you who live in the better streets begin to be concerned. You don’t
ask, What have I to do with that man’s small-pox? You say to the authorities,
“Get the man off to the hospital; disinfect his house. Go in and do it.” But
what right have you to enter that man’s house and haul him away to the
hospital? What right have you to send the health officer with his disinfectant?
You see, your doctrine of individualism breaks down in presence of a contagious
and desolating disease, and very properly so. But is it not a miserable
confession to make, that we have to learn the doctrine of our relationship to
others on the lowest side of it, because we will not recognize it on its
highest side? Soul and body are so closely married in this life that no one can
divorce them. They act and react on each other. Organization does not produce
life; life produces organization. We cannot separate the material and the
spiritual. The life of a man is too much of a unit to allow us to do that. And,
says the Almighty One, “At the hand of every man’s brother will I require the
life of man.” We are part of a nation’s life. All its questions are our
questions; all its struggles are our struggles; all its failures are our
failures; all its triumphs are our triumphs. Not till the regenerated
brotherhood of the Church rises above its sectisms and boldly puts itself in
the fore-front of the nation’s life as the truth teller, the evangelizer,
claiming the life of man for Christ, and testing everything by the principles
of life He has given us, does it do its duty or fulfil its mission. (R.
Thomas.)
Verses 8-11
I establish My covenant with you
God’s covenant with Noah
I.
The
covenant God made with Noah was intended to remedy every one of the temptations
into which Noah’s children’s children would have been certain to fall, and into
which so many of them did fall. They might have become reckless from fear of a
flood at any moment. God promises them, and confirms it with the sign of the
rainbow, never again to destroy the earth by water. They would have been likely
to take to praying to the rain and thunder, the sun and the stars. God declares
in this covenant that it is He alone who sends the rain and thunder, that He
brings the clouds over the earth, that He rules the great awful world; that men
are to look up and believe in God as a loving and thinking Person, who has a
will of His own, and that a faithful and true and loving and merciful will;
that their lives and safety depend not on blind chance or the stern necessity
of certain laws of nature, but on the covenant of an almighty and all-loving
Person.
II. This covenant
tells us that we are made in God’s likeness, and therefore that all sin is
unworthy of us and unnatural to us. It tells us that God means us bravely and
industriously to subdue the earth and the living things upon it; that we are to
be the masters of the pleasant things about us, and not their slaves as sots
and idlers are; that we are stewards or tenants of this world for the great God
who made it, to whom we are to look up in confidence for help and protection. (C.
Kingsley, M. A.)
The covenant with Noah
I. GOD’S SYMPATHY
WITH MAN AND LOVE FOR HIM. Verse 8.
II. THE
TRANSMISSION OF PARENTAL BLESSINGS TO CHILDREN. Verse 9. Dispositions of good
or evil are almost sure to transmit themselves to succeeding generations. The
descendants of a single vicious man and his wife, in the state of New York,
numbered by scores, have been paupers and criminals. Put against this another
illustration. The grandfather of Mary Lyon, the devoted principal of Mount
Holyoke Seminary, was accustomed to pray daily for the blessing of God upon his
children and the generations that should follow. Nearly all his descendants
have been earnest Christians. In one graveyard lie fifty who died in the Lord.
So when God covenants with Noah, it is with his children also. Here was the
ground of circumcision in the Jewish Church. But it was because of this Divine
principle that Peter said, “The promise is unto you and to your children.” We
ought to expect that our children will grow up Christians, and labour for it.
III. THE ADVANTAGE
ENJOYED BY OTHER CREATED BEINGS IN THE BLESSINGS GIVEN TO GOD’S PEOPLE. Verse
10. Men often enjoy privileges that are solely due to a Christianity at which
they scoff. Certain scientific unbelievers, who deride prayer and declare man
an automaton, and seek to prove the blight of Christian influence on society in
the Middle Ages, would find no market for their books but for the quickened
intellect that Christianity has induced. They are basking in the gospel’s
sunlight. There are heathen nations that are pierced through and through with
Divine rays of light. Japan will illustrate this fact. A while since an embassy
from Japan was in this country (United States of America), studying our
national characteristics. It carried back for use in its own land our systems
of education, of railroading, of manufacturing, of newspaper publication, of
post office management, and what not beside. In doing this, it carried back
Christian influences, for as Joseph Neesima, himself a Japanese, assured the
embassy, our civilization is built upon the Bible. Today every prison warden in
Japan has been studying a book furnished him for his guidance by the Japanese
Government. That book was written by a missionary and contains a chapter on
Christianity as an influence in managing prisons. Thus do the Divine shafts of
the gospel fling themselves into the most inaccessible places. Even the animals
are blessed through our religion. To be sure, some heathen nations have
considered certain animals to be gods, and cared for them in consequence. But
the tenderness of Christian people toward the inferior creation extends to all
forms of sentient life and springs from reverence to God and a religious desire
to spare His creatures suffering.
IV. GOD’S PROMISE
OF CARE AND PROTECTION. Verse 11. We distrust God when the lightning affrights
us, or when we tremble in a storm at sea. Let us seek the spirit of the
Christian sailor, who, when asked, as the waves were raging, how he could have
so little fear, replied, “Though I sink, I shall only drop into my heavenly
Father’s hand, for He holds all these waters there.”
V. NATURE APPEARS
IN THE NARRATIVE AS A TEACHER OF MORALS AND RELIGION. Verses 12-14. God designs
that we should learn spiritual truths from the open pages of creation. His
power and wisdom, His plans for man’s good, are manifest in sky and earth and
sea. The world is a most elaborate and perfect machine, fashioned by the hand
of a Master. It is as manifestly fitted for man’s needs as is a mansion
furnished with the luxurious contrivances of modern ingenuity. (A. P.
Foster.)
God’s covenant with the new humanity
I. A COVENANT
ORIGINATING WITH GOD HIMSELF.
1. Men have no right to dictate to God.
2. God reserves the power to bestow goodness.
3. The character of God leads us to expect the advances of His
goodness towards men.
4. When God enters into covenant with His creatures, He binds
Himself.
II. A COVENANT OF
FORBEARANCE.
1. This was an act of pure grace.
2. Human history is a long comment upon the forbearance of God. Acts 14:15; Romans 3:26.)
3. This forbearance of God was unconditional. It was not a command
relating to conduct, but a statement of God’s gracious will towards mankind.
4. This forbearance throws some light upon the permission of evil.
We ask, why does God permit evil to exert its terrible power through all ages?
Our only answer is that His mercy triumphs over judgment.
III. IT WAS A
COVENANT WHICH, IN THE FORM AND SIGN OF IT, WAS GRACIOUSLY ADAPTED TO MAN’S
CONDITION. Man was weak and helpless, his sense of spiritual things blunted and
impaired by sin. He was not able to appreciate Divine truth in its pure and
native form. God must speak to him by signs and symbols, and encourage him by
promises of temporal blessing. In this way alone he can rise from sensible
things to spiritual, and from earthly good to the enduring treasures of heaven.
1. The terms of the covenant refer to the averting of temporal
punishment, but suggest the promise of higher things.
2. The sign of the covenant was outward, but full of deep and
precious meaning. Covenants were certified by signs or tokens, such as a heap
or pillar, or a gift (Genesis 31:52; Genesis 21:30). The starry night was the
sign of the promise to Abraham (Genesis 15:1-21). Here, the sign
of the covenant was the rainbow; a sign beautiful in itself, calculated to
attract attention, and most fitting to teach the fact of God’s constancy, and
to encourage the largest hopes from His love. All this was an education for
man, so that he might adore and hope for the Divine mercy.
Divine covenants
God’s covenants show--
1. That He is willing to contract duties towards man. Man can
therefore hope for and obtain that which he cannot claim as a right. Thus
“Mercy rejoiceth against judgment” (James 2:13).
2. That man’s duty has relation to a personal Lawgiver. There is no
independent morality. All human conduct must ultimately be viewed in the light
of God’s requirements.
3. That man needs a special revelation of God’s love. The light of
nature is not sufficient to satisfy the longings of the soul and encourage
hope. We require a distinct utterance--a sign from heaven. The vague sublimities
of created things around us are unsatisfying, we need the assurance that behind
all there is a heart of infinite compassion.
4. That every new revelation of God’s character implies
corresponding duties on the part of man. The progress of revelation has refined
and exalted the principle of duty, until man herein is equal unto the angels,
and learns to do “all for love, and nothing for reward.” (T. H. Leale.)
The covenant with Noah
I. THE PARTIES OF
THE COVENANT.
1. The all-loving and everlasting God.
2. Noah and his sons and their posterity, and every living thing.
II. THE BENEFITS
OF THE COVENANT.
1. The regularity of the seasons is guaranteed.
2. Food for man and beast.
III. THE TOKEN OF
THE COVENANT.
1. The beauty of the token is suggestive.
2. The permanency of the token is suggestive.
3. Its heavenly sphere is suggestive.
LESSONS:
1. God’s most endearing title: our covenant-God.
2. As covenant-God He is full of grace and truth.
3. The centre of both grace and truth is He whose blood is the blood
of the covenant. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)
God’s covenant with Noah
We see here--
1. The mercy and goodness of God, in proceeding with us in a way of
covenant. He might have exempted the world from this calamity, and yet not have
told them He would do so. The remembrance of the flood might have been a sword
hanging over their heads in terrorem. But He will set their minds at
rest on this score, and therefore promises, and that with an oath, that the
waters of Noah should no more go over the earth. Thus also
He deals with us in His Son. Being willing that the heirs of
promise should have strong consolation, He confirms His word by an oath.
2. The importance of living under the light of revelation. Noah’s
posterity by degrees sank into idolatry, and became “strangers to the covenants
of promise.” Such were our fathers for many ages, and such are great numbers to
this day. So far as respects them, God might as well have made no promise: to
them all is lost.
3. The importance of being believers. Without this, it will be worse
for us than if we had never been favoured with a revelation.
4. We see here the kind of life which it was God’s design to
encourage--a life of faith. “The just shall live by faith.” If He had made no
revelation of Himself, no covenants, and no promises, there would be no ground
for faith; and we must have gone through life feeling after Him, without being
able to find Him: but having made known His mind, there is light in all our
dwellings, and a sure ground forbelieving not only in our exemption from
another flood, but in things of far greater importance. (A. Fuller.)
The scheme of Providence--the promise and pledge of the Divine
forbearance
The scheme of Providence, in the world after the flood, is of the
nature of a dispensation of forbearance, subservient to a dispensation of
grace, and preparatory to a dispensation of judgment; and of this forbearance,
on the part of God, Noah receives a promise and a pledge.
I. Looking, then,
to the original purpose, of which we read as existing in the mind of God (Genesis 8:21-22), HIS DETERMINATION TO
SPARE THE EARTH IS EXPLAINED ON TWO PRINCIPLES, WHICH IT IS IMPORTANT TO
OBSERVE. The first of these principles is the inveterate and desperate
depravity of man. “Why should ye be stricken any more?” is the indignant voice
of God to Israel by His servant Isaiah;--ye will but increase revolt, “ye will
revolt more and more.” “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From
the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness at all; but
wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores” (chap. 1:5, 6). Why, then, should ye
be stricken any more? There is no sound part in you on which the stroke can
take effect; discipline, correction, chastisement, is thrown away upon you; ye
are beyond the influence of its salutary efficacy; ye become worse and worse
under its infliction; I will strike no more, for ye are too far gone to be thus
reclaimed. So also the Lord says in His heart respecting the world after the
flood;--I will not again curse the earth--I will not again visit it with so
desolating a judgment. Why should I? What good purpose would it serve? Thus
considered, this Divine reasoning is, in many views, deeply affecting. It
rebukes the presumptuous security of unbelief (Ecclesiastes 8:11). Again, this argument,
as thus used by God, places in the clearest light the extreme depravity of man.
The disorder of his nature is too inveterate, inborn, and inbred, to be
remedied by a discipline of correction and chastisement. Undoubtedly there is
an efficacy in the chastisements which God ordains, to amend, to purify, and
sanctify the soul; but this efficacy depends upon there being some health and
soundness, some principle of life, in those to whom such chastisements are
applied. Therefore the Lord chastens and corrects His own people. But on the
heart of man, as it is by nature, the Lord here emphatically testifies that the
warnings and visitations of judgment will never effectually tell. Why should I
smite the earth any more The imagination of man’s heart is so thoroughly evil
from his youth, that My smiting is altogether in vain. There is a tremendous
truth involved in this argument;--it shuts forever the door of mercy on the
impenitent and unbelieving. But while this saying of God presents on one side a
dark and ominous aspect, on the other side it reflects a blessed gleam of
light. It indicates the purpose of God, that in His treatment of the world,
during the remainder of its allotted time, He is not to deal with its
inhabitants according to their sins, nor to reward them after their iniquities.
His providence over the earth is to be conducted, not on the principle of penal
or judicial retribution--the human race being too corrupt to be thus reclaimed
or amended--but on another principle altogether, irrespective of the merits or
the works of man. What that other principle is, appears from the relation which
the Lord’s decree bears to the sacrifices offered by Noah, by which He is said
to be propitiated (Genesis 8:20-21). These sacrifices
undoubtedly derive their efficacy from the all-sufficient sacrifice of
atonement which they prefigured. And it is that sacrifice, offered once for
all, in the end of the world--the sacrifice of the Lamb virtually slain from
the foundation of the world--which alone satisfactorily explains the Lord’s determination
to spare the earth. It does so in two ways. In the first place, the
interposition of that sacrifice vindicates and justifies the righteous God in
passing by the sins of men (Romans 3:25)--in exercising forbearance,
and suspending judgment. It is this alone which renders His long suffering
consistent with His justice;--otherwise as the righteous Judge, He could not
spare the guilty for a single hour. Secondly, that sacrifice of Christ reaches
beyond mere forbearance, and is effectual to save. The very design of it--its
direct and proper object--is not merely to provide that the barren tree may be
let alone, but to secure that it shall be cultured and revived, so as to become
fruitful. Therefore God spares the earth on account of the sacrifice of Christ,
that those for whom it is offered may be saved, and that in them Christ may see
of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.
II. Afterwards, in
its announcement or publication to the human family Genesis 9:8-17), THIS DECREE IS EMBODIED
IN THE FORM OF A COVENANT AND RATIFIED BY A SIGNIFICANT SEAL. In the first
place, the Lord establishes a covenant on the earth. “My covenant,” saith the
Lord. And what covenant can that be, but the covenant of grace? “Not by works
of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He sayeth us.”
This, and this alone, is preeminently His covenant; always the same in its
character and terms, whatever may be the kind of salvation meant. In the
present instance, it is exemption, or deliverance from the temporal judgment of
a flood. But still this is secured to the earth, and to all the dwellers on the
earth, by the very same covenant in which the higher blessings of life eternal
are comprehended. Then again, secondly, the covenant, as usual, has a, seal, or
an outward token and pledge; designed, as it were, to put the Lord in
remembrance of His promise, and to settle and confirm the confidence of men. It
is God’s proof of His faithfulness to the children of men--the pledge that He
is keeping, and will keep, His covenant. He looks on the bow, that He may
remember the covenant. And as the covenant, being made by sacrifice, not only
secures a season of forbearance to the earth, but looks to an end infinitely
more important, to which that forbearance is subordinate and subservient;--as
it is the covenant of grace or the covenant of redemption, of which the promise
of exemption from the judgment of another flood forms a part;--so the rainbow
becomes the seal of the covenant in this higher view of it also--and is the
token and pledge of its spiritual and eternal blessings. Hence, among the
ensigns and emblems of redeeming glory, the rainbow holds a conspicuous place (Ezekiel 1:28; Revelation 4:3; Revelation 10:1); and hence, moreover,
the covenant which it seals, respecting the days and seasons of the earth’s
period of long suffering, gives to God’s faithful people an argument of
confidence, not for time only, but for eternity. He is true to His covenant, in
sparing the world; will He not much more be true to the same covenant, in
saving those for whose sake the world is spared? Isaiah 54:9-10; Jeremiah 33:20-25). (R. S. Candlish,
D. D.)
Verses 12-17
This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you
and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set
My bow in the cloud
The rainbow the type of the covenant
I.
Among
the many deep truths which the early chapters of the Book of Genesis enforce,
there is none which strikes the thoughtful inquirer more forcibly than does THE
CONNECTION BETWEEN THE DISORDER OCCASIONED BY MAN’S SIN AND THE REMEDY ORDAINED
BY THE WISDOM AND THE MERCY OF GOD. This connection may be traced in a very
remarkable manner in the appointment of the rainbow as sign and pledge of the
covenant. Rainbow equally dependent for its existence upon storm and upon
sunshine. Marvellously adapted, therefore, to serve as type of mercy following
upon judgment--as sign of connection between man’s sin and God’s free and
unmerited grace. Connected gloomy recollections of past with bright
expectations of future. Taught by anticipation the great lesson which it was
reserved for Christ’s Gospel fully to reveal, that as sin had abounded, so grace
should “much more abound.”
II. Further, not
only is the rainbow, as offspring equally of storm and sunshine, a fitting
emblem of covenant of grace, it is also type of that equally distinctive
peculiarity of Christ’s Gospel, THAT SORROW AND SUFFERING HAVE THEIR APPOINTED
SPHERE OF EXERCISE BOTH GENERALLY IN THE PROVIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION OF THE
WORLD, AND INDIVIDUALLY IN THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONAL HOLINESS.
Other religions have enforced lessons of patience and of submission beneath the
pressure of irremediable ill. It is the Gospel of Christ Jesus alone which
converts sorrow and suffering into instruments for the attainment of higher and
more enduring blessings. In all God’s dealings with His people, when He brings
a cloud upon the earth, He sets His bow in that cloud, insomuch that they cease
to fear when they enter into it by reason of the presence of Him whose glory
inhabits it (Isaiah 54:9-10).
III. For the full
comprehension of the bow, given as a sign of the covenant to Noah and beheld in
vision by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:4; Ezekiel 1:28), we must turn to the New
Testament. There we read of One in the midst of a throne, round about which
“there was a rainbow, in sight like unto an emerald” Revelation 4:3). And in close conjunction
with this we must have regard to the “mighty angel” beheld by the same seer,
“clothed with a cloud and a rainbow upon his head” (Revelation 10:1). Here we seem to find
the explanation which is needed of the close and inseparable connection between
the cloud and the rainbow--i.e., between judgment and mercy; between the
darkness of the one and the brightness of the other. In the person and work of
the atoning Mediator we find the only solution of that marvellous combination
of judgment and of mercy which is the distinctive characteristic of the whole
of the Divine economy. As the rainbow spans the vault of the sky and becomes a
link between earth and heaven, so, in the person and work of Christ, is beheld
the unchangeableness and perpetuity of that covenant of grace which, like
Jacob’s ladder, maintains the communication between earth and heaven, and thus,
by bringing God very near to man, ushers man into the presence chamber of God.
IV. NECESSARY
IMPERFECTION IN ALL EARTHLY TYPES OF HEAVENLY THINGS. In nature continued
appearance of rainbow is dependent on continued existence of cloud. In heaven,
the rainbow will ever continue to point backward to man’s fall, and onward to
the perpetuity of a covenant which is” ordered in all things and sure.” But the
work of judgment will then be accomplished, and therefore the cloud will have
no more place in heaven. (E. B. Elliot, M. A.)
The flood and the rainbow
I. GOD SENT A
FLOOD ON THE EARTH God set the rainbow in the cloud for a token. The important
thing is to know that the flood did not come of itself, that the rainbow did
not come of itself, and therefore that no flood comes of itself, no rainbow
comes of itself, but all comes straight and immediately from one living Lord
God. The flood and the rainbow were sent for a moral purpose: to punish
sinners; to preserve the righteous; to teach Noah and his children after him a
moral lesson concerning righteousness and sin concerning the wrath of God
against sin--concerning God, that He governs the world and all in it, and does
not leave the world or mankind to go on of themselves and by themselves.
II. THE FLOOD AND
THE RAINBOW TELL US THAT IT IS GOD’S WILL TO LOVE, TO BLESS, TO MAKE HIS
CREATURES HAPPY, IF THEY WILL ALLOW HIM. They tell us that His anger is not a
capricious, revengeful, proud, selfish anger, such as that of the heathen gods;
but that it is an orderly anger, and therefore an anger which in its wrath can
remember mercy. Out of God’s wrath shines love, as the rainbow out of the
storm. If it repenteth Him that He hath made man, it is only because man is
spoiling and ruining himself, and wasting the gifts of the good world by his
wickedness. If God sends a flood to destroy all living things, He will show, by
putting the rainbow in the cloud, that floods and destruction and anger are not
His rule; that His rule is sunshine and peace and order.
III. The Bible
account of the flood will teach us HOW TO LOOK AT THE MANY ACCIDENTS WHICH
STILL HAPPEN UPON THE EARTH. These disasters do not come of themselves, do not
come by accident or chance or blind necessity; God sends them, and they fulfil
His will and word. He may send them in anger, but in His anger He remembers
mercy, and His very wrath to some is part and parcel of His love to the rest.
Therefore these disasters must be meant to do good, and will do good to
mankind. (C. Kingsley, M. A.)
The sign of the covenant
The appointment of the sign of the covenant, or of the rainbow as
God’s bow of peace, whereby there is at the same time expressed--
1. The elevation of men above the deification of the creature (since
the rainbow is not a divinity, but a sign of God, an appointment which even
idolatrous nations appear not to have wholly forgotten, when they denote it
God’s bridge, or God’s messenger).
2. Their introduction to the symbolic comprehension and
interpretation of natural phenomena, even to the symbolizing of forms and
colours.
3. That God’s compassion remembers men in their dangers. 4 The
setting up of a sign of light and fire, which, along with its assurance that
the earth will never be drowned again in water, indicates at the same time its
future transformation through light and fire. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
The bow in the cloud
I. THAT GOD
DELIGHTETH NOT IN JUDGMENTS.
1. Because they imply the existence of evil.
2. Because suffering is connected with them.
3. Because they are the last means employed to humble the proud and
impenitent.
II. THAT GOD
PROVIDES FOR THE WELL-BEING OF MAN.
1. By removing every cause of fear.
2. By giving us perfect liberty of action.
III. THAT GOD
EMPLOYS MEANS TO WIN THE CONFIDENCE OF MAN.
1. By giving us a ground for trust in Him.
2. By the comprehensiveness of the covenant
3. By giving us visible evidence of His faithfulness.
IV. GOD’S
COVENANTS WILL NEVER BE BROKEN.
1. Because they are freely given.
2. Because there is power to perform them.
3. Because the honour of His government is pledged in their
performance. (Homilist.)
The bow of promise
I. THE SACRIFICE.
A token of--
1. Gratitude.
2. Penitence.
3. Good resolve. Dedication of himself and family to God’s service.
II. THE COVENANT.
1. A renewal of the primal blessing.
2. Animal food permitted to be used, with a particular restriction.
3. A strict law is given against murder, implying that men are
responsible both to God and to their fellow men, for any violence done.
4. A promise is given by God, that there shall be no more a flood to
destroy the earth.
III. THE TOKEN OF
THE COVENANT. The rainbow: the light of sunshine on a departing storm. A
cheering, gladdening sight. Fit symbol of mercy, and of hope. LEARN:
1. From the sacrifice, self-consecration to God our Saviour.
2. From the covenant, obedience to God, and love to our fellow men.
3. From the beautiful token of God’s faithfulness, an undying hope
in His mercy which endureth forever. (W. S. Smith, B. D.)
The bow in the cloud
How often after that terrible flood must Noah and his sons have
felt anxious when a time of heavy rain set in, and the rivers Euphrates and
Tigris rose over their banks and submerged the low level land! But if for a
while their hearts misgave them, they had a cheering sign to reassure them, for
in the heaviest purple storm cloud stood the rainbow, recalling to their minds
the promise of God.
I. If it be true
that God’s rainbow stands as a pledge to the earth that it shall never again be
overwhelmed, is it not also true that HE HAS SET HIS BOW IN EVERY CLOUD THAT
RISES AND TROUBLES MAN’S MENTAL SKY? Beautiful prismatic colours in the rainbow
that shines in every cloud--in the cloud of sorrow, in the cloud of spiritual
famine, in the cloud of wrong-doing.
II. We are too apt
in troubles to settle down into sullen despair, TO LOOK TO THE WORST, INSTEAD
OF WAITING FOR THE BOW. There are many strange-shaped clouds that rise above
man’s horizon and make his heavens black with wind and rain. But each has its
bow shining on it. Only wait, endure God’s time, and the sun will look out on
the rolling masses of vapour, on the rain, and paint thereon its token of God’s
love. (S. Baring-Gould, M. A.)
Lessons from the rainbow
Whenever we see a rainbow, let us--
The bow in the cloud
I. IT IS LIKE OUR
GOD TO GIVE THE CLOUD IT IS ALSO LIKE HIM TO PLACE A BOW IN THE CLOUD (Lamentations 3:32).
1. The cloud turns our attention to God who sends it.
2. The bow kindles again our faith and love.
II. IN THE NATURE
OF THINGS, WHERE THERE IS NO CLOUD THERE CAN BE NO BOW. The clouds of suffering
make the promises precious.
III. THOUGH THE
CLOUD MAY COVER AND OVERWHELM US, THE BOW SPANS THE ENTIRE CLOUD, AND REACHES
ON BOTH SIDES, FROM EARTH TO HEAVEN.
IV. THOUGH WE
PRIZE THE BOW AND FEAR THE CLOUD, THE REAL VALUE IS GENERALLY IN THE CLOUD
RATHER THAN IN THE BOW, WHICH IS GIVEN TO HELP US TO ENDURE THE CLOUD.
V. THE CLOUD AND
THE BOW BELONG NOT MERELY TO THE TIME WHEN WE ARE UNDER THEM, BUT TO ALL TIME.
When Noah first saw the bow after the deluge, he would be delighted; many
storms, and many bows, and many deliverances, would go to perfect faith and to
establish love. So our trials and testings on Divine words and deliverances
consolidate themselves into our life and become part of our permanent manhood.
VI. THE CLOUD WILL
FORCE ITSELF ON THE ATTENTION OF ALL WHO ARE UNDER IT, AND THE BOW MAY BE
ADMIRED BY EVERY BEHOLDER, BUT THE REAL VALUE OF THE CLOUD AND THE TRUE BEAUTY
OF THE BOW CAN ONLY BE KNOWN TO THOSE WHO CONTEMPLATE THEM IN THE LIGHT OF GOD.
1. Affliction, when it comes personally, will force the attention
and thought of the most stoical. But suffering is not necessarily sanctifying,
or devils might exceed the angels ill holiness.
2. Many from various causes, and with various motives, read the
Scriptures. The true beauty of the Divine words can only be beheld in the light
of Him who spake them. (F. G. Marchant)
The bow in the cloud
I. THERE IS A
DIVINE USE OF VISIBLE AND MATERIAL THINGS FOR SPIRITUAL PURPOSES.
II. THE BOW IN THE
CLOUD SUGGESTS GRACE AFTER JUDGMENT.
III. THE BOW IN THE
CLOUD IS A SIGN OF THE STABILITY OF THE DIVINE COVENANT, THE CHANGELESS
CHARACTER OF THE GRACIOUS PURPOSE WHICH EMBRACES HUMANITY.
IV. THE BOW IN THE
CLOUD SYMBOLIZES THE DIVINE ELEMENT OF BRIGHTNESS IN THE DARKEST AND SADDEST OF
HUMAN HISTORIES--THE PROMISE WHICH ENCIRCLES DIVINE DISPENSATIONS AND GLADDENS
THE DESOLATE HEART. (The Preacher’s Monthly.)
The covenant connection between the cloud and the bow
I. IN A WORLD
LIKE THIS IT IS TO BE EXPECTED, AS A THING OF COURSE, THAT CLOUDS SHOULD ARISE.
It is a matter inseparable from the constitution of things here existing. And
just so it is in the world of Providence, with those trims and afflictions of
which we may consider the clouds of heaven as an illustration. We are here in a
vale of tears, in which “it must needs be that afflictions will come.” There
are causes at work here which must as necessarily lead to this result, as in
the world of nature the operation of the sun’s heat on the water’s surface must
give rise to clouds.
II. WHENEVER THESE
CLOUDS ARISE, AND WHATEVER COURSE THEY TAKE, THEY ARE ALWAYS UNDER DIVINE
GUIDANCE. How much like a thing of chance it seems when the moisture arises,
almost imperceptibly to human vision, and floats away into the air of heaven!
But there is nothing casual or chanceful about it. God is as truly present in
that silent operation as He was when the world was made. The language of the
text is true of every cloud that forms in the air--“I do bring it.” And as He
brings it, so He guides it. “Doubtless the sailing of a cloud hath Providence
for its pilot.” The hand which forms them as they rise is never removed from
them while they exist. They go where God directs: they do what God designs; and
when God wills, they dissolve and disappear. And just so it is with the clouds
of trial and affliction which rise and float in the Providential firmament.
From whatever source they come; whatever character they assume; or whatever
instrumentality is employed to produce them, still, we are to look beyond all
these, and to consider that it is God alone who brings them.
III. THERE EXISTS
AN INSEPARABLE COVENANT CONNECTION BETWEEN THE CLOUDS THAT RISE, EITHER IN THE
NATURAL OR PROVIDENTIAL FIRMAMENT, AND THE BOW OF GOD’S PROMISE. In conclusion,
several important practical questions are suggested by this subject: we may
inquire--
1. What is needed in order that the bow should appear in the
heavens? The cloud, the sun and the rain must exist, and that, too, in a
certain relation with each other. The cloud is needed as the canvas on which
the bow of beauty shall be painted. The sun is needed to give the light, the
colours, of which the painting is composed; and the drops of falling rain are
needed, as the pencil by which those colours are applied--the medium required
to decompose the rays of light, and spread out their varying hues in blended
loveliness. And in the spiritual world, to which we are applying the subject,
there must be that which answers to these three requirements. There must be cloud,
a ground work of human guilt and sorrow, on which the bow can be projected.
There must be a Sun of Righteousness--a Divine Saviour causing the beams of His
favour to shine forth; and there must be the descending showers of Divine grace
to refract those glorious rays, and illumine with their brightness the dark
horizon of man’s prospects.
2. But what is necessary to the seeing of this bow when it does
appear? A man must be led to see himself a ruined sinner; he must turn, under a
sense of this ruin, in true penitence to Christ; he must submit himself,
without reserve, to Him; he must seek pardon through His blood, and acceptance
in His merits; he must be led to the exercise of heart-felt living faith in Him
and His precious word; he must have a personal and saving interest in the
blessings of His covenant, and then he will be occupying the proper point of
view from which to see distinctly the bow of the covenant, and feel the
covenant and delight which that view can give.
3. But what is implied in seeing this bow? It denotes a thorough,
inwrought, abiding conviction, that God’s hand is in every rising, threatening
cloud, and that it is there for good. It denotes a lively, vigorous hope,
entering within the vail, trod keeping the soul steady in her heavenward
course, whatever storms may burst and beat around it. (R. Newton, D. D.)
The token of the covenant
I. THE TIME WHEN
IT WAS MADE WAS JUST AFTER THE FLOOD AND CONSEQUENTLY:
1. A time of desolation. A father runs to the comfort of a
frightened child; so our heavenly Father is never so ready to come to our
comfort, as when the soul is filled to the full with a trembling fear of Him.
“The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them His
covenant.”
2. In confirmation of this, observe again, the Lord made this
covenant with Noah, when Noah was humbling himself as a sinner before Him.
II. BUT WHAT WAS
THIS COVENANT THAT THE LORD ENTERED INTO WITH NOAH AT THIS TIME? It is
remarkable that, though detailed in this chapter with much minuteness, it
relates only to temporal blessings. Not one spiritual promise does it contain.
All it stipulates is, that there shall never again be a general flood or famine
on the earth. And yet, notwithstanding this, it bears in many particulars so
close a resemblance to that everlasting covenant established in Christ between
Jehovah and His Church, that we cannot look at the one without thinking of the
other; we see the same God acting in both on the same principles; making in
fact the one almost a type or counterpart of the other.
1. This covenant had God alone as its author.
2. This covenant was a disclosure to Noah of God’s secret thoughts
and purposes. The history describes it as such, for it traces it not simply to
God, but to the heart and mind of God.
3. This covenant with Noah was connected with a sacrifice; it was,
indeed, founded on one.
III. Let us pass on
now to THE APPOINTED TOKEN OF THIS COVENANT. Now, what is there resembling this
in the Christian covenant? We may turn to the sacrament of the Lord’s supper.
It is of the same character. It is a memorial to us of our sinfulness and
danger, and of the promises God has given us in our crucified Lord of security
from that sinfulness and danger. It is, too, like the rainbow, a memorial of
God’s own appointment; and being such, we may safely look on it in the same
light in which He holds up this shining bow to us, as a memorial to God Himself
of His promises. On our part, it is a reminding Him of them, a pleading of them
before Him; and it is like an assuring of us on His part, that He will never
forget them. Hence we sometimes call it a seal of God’s covenant of grace.
Every time it is celebrated among us, it confirms and ratifies anew that
covenant, as a seal ratifies the earthly contract to which it is affixed. And
hence our Church tells us that our Lord “instituted and ordained these holy
mysteries as pledges of His love, as well as for a continual remembrance of His
death.” (C. Bradley, M. A.)
The bow in the cloud
I. THE
CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH THE BOW APPEARS IN THE CLOUD.
1. God does not display the bow upon a blue and cloudless sky, but
when there are clouds, and there is rain. The bow does not remove the clouds,
but beautifies and illumines them. So the promises of God do not remove, but
beautify and illumine, the darkness and mysteries of earth. The cloud of guilt
is arched with the bow of pardon. The cloud of sorrow has the promise of
support and relief; for bereavement, there shall be reunion; for cross bearing,
crown wearing; for conflict, victory; for labour, rest; for pilgrimage, home.
The cloud of mystery has the bow of providence arching it. The cloud of death
has the bow of hope.
2. The bow can be seen only when the sun is shining. So the promises
of God which arch the clouds of sin, sorrow, death, are produced by the light
of the benign countenance of God, who is a sun and shield, and gives both grace
and glory.
3. The bow can only be seen when the beholder looks up.
II. THE
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE APPEARANCE OF THE BOW IN THE CLOUD.
1. To remind God of His covenant.
2. To remind man of his comfort.
Divinely appointed sacrifice.
The rainbow
We have to talk of two things--first, the tenor of the covenant,
and secondly, the token of it--running parallel all the way through between the
two covenants.
I. First, then,
the covenant itself: WHAT IS ITS TENOR?
1. We reply that it is a covenant of pure grace. There was nothing
in Noah why God should make a covenant with him.
2. The covenant, we note, in the next place, was all of promise. You
will be struck, if you read these verses, how it runs over and over again: “I
establish”--“it shall come to pass”--“I will”--“it shall”--“I will.” “I will
sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your iniquities
will I save you.”
3. There is this about Noah’s covenant, and about the covenant of
grace, that it does not depend in any degree at all upon man; for, if you will
notice, the bow is put in the cloud, but it does not say, “And when ye shall
look upon the bow, and ye shall remember My covenant, then I will not destroy
the earth,” but it is gloriously put not upon our memory, which is fickle and
frail, but upon God’s memory, which is infinite and immutable. “The bow shall
be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting
covenant.” Oh! it is not my remembering God, it is God’s remembering me; it is
not my laying hold of His covenant, but His covenant laying hold on me.
4. And hence--for all these reasons it is an everlasting covenant.
For ever has God established this covenant in heaven. Even so the covenant of
grace is not intended to be fleeting and temporary. “Forever, O Lord, Thy word
is settled in heaven.” “He hath made with us an everlasting covenant, ordered
in all things and sure.” “He will ever be mindful of His covenant.”
II. THE TOKEN OF
THE COVENANT. The covenant needs no token, as far as God is concerned; tokens
are given for us, because of our littleness of heart, our unbelief, our
constant forgetfulness of God’s promise. The rainbow is the symbol of Noah’s
covenant; and Jesus Christ, who is the covenant, is also the symbol of that
covenant to us. He is the Faithful Witness in heaven.
1. Briefly, upon this part of the subject let us notice when we may
expect to see the token of the covenant.
2. What do we see in our covenant witness in heaven? We see in Him
what we see in the rainbow.
3. How ought we to act with regard to this rainbow, and Jesus Christ
as the symbol of the covenant?
The bow in the cloud
I. LET US NOTICE
THE CLOUDS WHICH FREQUENTLY COME OVER OUR PATH.
1. Whoever may claim exemption from afflictions personal and
relative, it is not the Christian, for, “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.”
2. Believers, in a peculiar manner, like their Lord, are exposed to
temptations from the great adversary.
3. And frequently are they exposed to persecution from the world.
II. THERE IS A BOW
TO BE SEEN IN THE CLOUDS. God’s promises Zechariah 13:9; James 1:12; Matthew 5:10; Isaiah 50:10).
III. THIS LEADS US
TO INQUIRE WHAT THE BOW IN THE CLOUD BETOKENS.
1. Have not the clouds of affliction ever proved to be big with
blessings in the experience of all true children of God?
2. Temptation has proved a blessing when it has been met with in the
path of duty, and when it has been combated with the sword of the Spirit, which
is the Word of God.
3. Persecution, when it has come upon the Church, has always
purified it, and in like manner its effect has been, in the case of all sincere
Christians, to make them more earnest than ever in the Divine life.
4. Clouds of spiritual darkness are not permitted to come upon the
believer in vain. (The Evangelical Preacher.)
God’s covenant and its token
I. THE COVENANT.
II. THE TOKEN. The
rainbow. “My bow.”
1. An old thing invested with a new meaning. To the Christian common
things are remembrancers of higher truths. The vine, the sun, etc., speak of
Christ. Birds and flowers speak of Providence. They are silent on these matters
to the worldly man.
2. Conspicuous. The rainbow, an object vast and visible. Spanning
the heavens.
3. Attractive. Beautiful in shape and colour. Though often seen,
always looked upon with a new delight.
4. Universal. Wherever the falling rain could bring the flood to
mind, there the rainbow preaches of the mercy and faithfulness of God. LEARN:
I. The
condescension of a covenant making God.
II. The
faithfulness of a covenant keeping God.
III. The obligation
we are under of covenanting to serve God, and of keeping that covenant.
IV. To see in natural
objects remembrancers of Divine thoughts and truths. (J. C. Gray.)
The bow in the cloud
1. The cloud of speculative
doubt.
2. The cloud caused by secular occupation.
3. The cloud of social distress.
4. The cloud caused by spiritual depression--“Cast thy burden on the
Lord.” (A. F. Barfield.)
The bow in the cloud
How many spiritual lessons concerning the covenant itself are
shadowed forth in this beautiful emblem. I would we never looked on it without
remembering them.
1. “The bow shall be seen in the cloud.” We make too much of clouds:
the prophet tells us “the clouds are the dust of His feet” (Nahum 1:3); and the Psalmist tells us He
maketh the clouds His chariot oftentimes, as He once came to His disciples
walking upon the waters; the clouds are the way by which He comes down to
people’s hearts, or brings them up to Him. It may be a cloud in our families, a
cloud impending over our circumstances, a cloud in our experience, some
conflict, some temptation it may be; but if God has brought the cloud, do not
fear; the bow shall be seen in the cloud. And we cannot have the bow if we have
not the cloud. We make too much of clouds; welcome the cloud, if the bow of
your God is seen there.
2. Again observe, the bow surrounds the cloud, encompasses it; it is
crowned with the bow; the bow is coloured rain, the edge of the cloud gilded.
3. Again, it is not from earth that bow comes, but from the heavens.
The clouds all arise from the earth, the sun made by God shines down upon them,
and they reflect its beauty; and so it is the Sun of Righteousness that gilds
the clouds arising from our own murky hearts; the promise of a time to come,
when rain and clouds shall be over and gone.
4. We may learn another lesson from the bow. Some people are puzzled
with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity; they wonder very much if so
difficult and seemingly contradictory a doctrine can be true. Why, God has hung
up in the heavens a natural trinity to remind us of the covenant of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, for the sinner’s salvation. See how the three
primal colours blend in that arch in all the varieties of beauty. There are
three in one in that beautiful arch. Whenever you are puzzled as to the
Trinity, look at the rainbow, God’s natural emblem of the fulness of the
Father, the fulness of the Son, and the fulness of the Holy Ghost, pledged for
the salvation of poor sinners.
5. Yet again, look at the rainbow. It is a gateway without gates
between heaven and earth. The beautiful arch lies open; no bolted gates hang
there on golden hinges; it is a doorway without a door; for the rent veil has
made a new and living way, and God has come down to us that He might have
fellowship with us. “Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man
can shut it.”
6. And again, consider the rainbow. It is a bow not bent towards us,
but bent from us heavenwards, a bow without an arrow, a window in heaven, that
our prayers may go up and enter in, and be presented by Him who stands before
the throne, that we and they may be accepted.
7. Once again, the earth hides half of that beauteous bow. If you
were above the earth, away beyond its mists, beyond its clouds and darkness,
and beyond its hills and vales, the bow would appear a circle to you; now earth
hides half of it, but by-and-by, when we are in heaven, the rainbow will be
seen all round the throne. Now we see in part, we understand in part, we know
in part; the mists of earth, and the earthliness of earth, hide much of the
splendour and of the glory that our God has pledged Himself to bestow, but we
shall see as we are seen, and know as we are known, where the rainbow is about
the throne, and round about the head of Him who sits upon the throne.
8. Lastly, we read of another circle round about the throne, the
company of the redeemed! There they are under the shadow of the rainbow, which
was to them the pledge of the love and care of the God in whom they trusted. (M.
Rainsford, B. A.)
The rainbow
Well may we adopt the language of the author of the book of
Ecclesiasticus, and say, “Look upon the rainbow and praise Him who made it. It
compasseth the heaven about with a glorious circle: and the hands of the Most
High have bended it” (Genesis 43:11-12). The prophet Isaiah has
also a very remarkable reference to the rainbow, when speaking of the strength
and perpetuity of the Church (Isaiah 54:7, etc.). Never more shall
calamities overspread the whole Church, and threaten its complete destruction.
Times of trial and persecution must, indeed, come, but Zion will always be
safe. As the rainbow is only to be seen painted upon a cloud, so when the
conscience is covered with thickest, darkest gloom, at the remembrance of many
and grievous sins, Christ Jesus is revealed as the covenant rainbow, displaying
all the loveliest attributes of the Divine character, and betokening peace. The
bow in the cloud is not a mere general assurance that God will keep His
promises with His people, but it is a special token of His grace; and as we
gaze upon the beautiful iris arching the eastern horizon, and resting on its
dark background of clouds, our thoughts reach far beyond the covenant made with
Noah, to a more glorious covenant of grace, and we may read in its glorious
colourings, as in an illuminated Bible, a pledge of the provisions of mercy
secured to us by His death and sacrifice. “Many years ago,” says a pastor in
his sketch book, “I was intimately acquainted with a man of uncommon
intellectual powers and social qualities, which endeared him to a large circle
of friends. He had keen wit; was a close observer of character; courteous in his
manner: he was without a personal enemy in the world. His parents were people
of simple but fervent piety, and he was accustomed from childhood to attend
public worship, and continued the practice--though not regularly--when he
became a man. A lawyer by profession, his circumstances were so easy that he
had no occasion to apply himself to business, and his social qualities proved a
snare, and led to his ruin. In the meridian of life he was seized with a fatal
disease, and slowly sank into the grave. His minister was attentive in visiting
him, but the sick man seemed in good spirits, and even made a jest of the
emaciation of his limbs. As death drew nearer, however, this careless state of
mind gave place to a horror of great darkness. His Christian friends watched
with sleepless anxiety, and prayed with earnest importunity for some token of
mercy, but the sick man still wandered in the wilderness where there was no
way. A sister’s gentle voice inquired if he felt no relief; his uniform reply,
given in broken and despairing accents, was, ‘Not a ray of hope yet! Not a ray
of hope!’ Among his near relatives was an aged Christian who lived in a distant
city, and, on one occasion, the silence of the chamber was disturbed by an
exclamation from the sick man, who seemed to have been musing upon the dreary
hopelessness of his condition: ‘I used to laugh at uncle’s prayers: but I would
give the world for an interest in them now.’ In this state of fearful
apprehension and despair, the poor man went down to the grave, his last
intelligible words being but a repetition of his oft-repeated complaint, ‘Not a
ray of hope yet!’” God has set His bow in the cloud as a token of His covenant
of grace, and the most undeserving of us may now find acceptance in the
Beloved. Aye, even amidst the awful scenes of the judgment, we shall not be
disappointed of our hope, when we behold the Redeemer in whom we have trusted,
coming with power and great glory; for there shall be “a rainbow round about
the throne, in sight like unto an emerald!” (J. N. Norton, D. D.)
The rainbow and its lessons
Well might a reflecting mind look with wonder at the marvellous
arch, which in magic swiftness, and in more magic colours, encompasses the
still cloud covered part of heaven; whilst the radiant sun sends his glorious
beams from the other part, already restored to its usual serenity. Its beauty
delights the eye, whilst its grandeur elevates the mind; it teaches the
omnipotence of God, but still more His love; when the flashes of lightning have
ceased, and the roaring of the tempest is silent, its chaste brilliancy falls
like morning dew on the desponding heart; admiration and gratitude mingle in
the breast; and when the pearly bow then appears, like an eternal bridge, to
connect heaven and earth, the soul rises on the soft wings of veneration,
disturbed by no doubt, and awed by no fear, to those regions where love and
beauty never cease. Almost all ancient nations, therefore, have connected
religious ideas with the appearance of the rainbow. The Greeks considered it
generally as the path on which Iris, the messenger of the king and queen of
Olympus, travelled from heaven to earth; Homer describes it as fixed in the
clouds to be a sign to man, either of war or of icy winter. But Iris herself
was very frequently identified with the rainbow, and she was considered to be
the daughter of Thaumas (Wonder)
, by Electra (Brightness)
, the daughter of Oceanus, which parentage describes appropriately the nature
and origin of the rainbow. Her usual epithets are “swift-footed,” and
“gold-winged”; and the probable etymology of her name points either to the
external, or, perhaps, to the internal connection between earth and heaven,
between man and the deity; and thus she is the conciliating, the
peace-restoring goddess, and is represented with the herald staff in her left
hand. The Persians seem likewise to have connected the office of divine
messenger with that phenomenon; for an old picture represents a winged boy on a
rainbow, and before him kneels an old man in a posture of worship. The Hindoos
describe the rainbow as a weapon in the hands of Indras, with which he hurls
flashing darts upon the impious giants, and the Chinese consider it as
foreboding troubles and misfortunes on earth; but the former regard it as also
the symbol of peace, which appears to man when the combat of the heavens is
silenced. These analogies are sufficient to prove the generality with which
higher notions were attached to the rainbow; they account for its application
in the Pentateuch to a very remarkable purpose; they explain why the New
Testament represented the rainbow as an attribute of the Divine throne (Revelation 4:3), or of angels sent as
messengers upon the earth (Revelation 10:1); but they are likewise
clear enough to manifest in this point also the great superiority of Biblical
conceptions. In the Mosaic narrative every superstitious element is banished;
it serves no other end but to remind God of His merciful promise never again to
destroy the earth and its inhabitants; it is, indeed, appointed more for God
than for the sake of man; God sees it, and remembers thus the everlasting
covenant with the earth; and if the men are rejoiced at the sight of that
beautiful phenomenon, it is merely because it gives them the certainty that the
covenant is not forgotten; when torrents of rain begin to inundate the earth,
and the thunder rolls through the heavy air, when lowering clouds conceal the
light of the orb of day, and the heart of man begins to despond and to tremble,
the rainbow appears suddenly like a thought from a better world; it announces
the peace of nature, and the renewal of the eternal promise. And this implies
another proof that the Noachian covenant imposed no obligations upon man, and
that it was a pure act of mercy. (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.)
The bow in the cloud
The bow, which cheers us in the first pages of our Bible, shines
brightly to the last. We read in the Revelation that John was in the Spirit; a
door was opened before him in heaven; and, behold, a throne was set. But what
encircled it? The rainbow (Revelation 4:3; Revelation 10:1). Thus in the fullest
blaze of the Gospel, the bow continued the chosen emblem of the grace and truth
which came by Jesus Christ. Let a few eases from the diary of experience
illustrate this. In our journey through the wilderness, the horizon is often
obscured by storms like these; terrors of conscience--absence of
peace--harassing perplexities--crushing burdens of difficulties. But from
behind these dusky curtains, the bow strides forth in its strength. It is
indeed a cheerless day, when errors of conscience pour down pitiless peltings.
Spectres of past sins start up. A grim array of bygone iniquities burst their
tombs; and each terrifies by hideous form, and each points to eternal death as
its due. The light of life seems excluded by She dread, Can there be hope, when
sins have been so many and so grievous, and against the clearest knowledge, and
after such tender pardons, and such healings of mercy? Wild is this tempest’s roar;
but in its midst faith can still look upwards, and see Jesus with outstretched
arms before the throne of God. There is a rainbow upon His head, and the bright
colours write, “Father, forgive them.” “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son
cleanseth us from all sin.” The darkness vanishes, and clear joy returns.
Absence of peace, too, is a heavy cloud. Many a cross of spiritual distress
lies in the believer’s path. Today he may recline joyously on the sunny slopes
of the Gospel; tomorrow the thunders of Sinai affright. Today David sits high
at the banquet of the king; tomorrow he is an outcast in the cave of Adullam.
But in these dreary hours the gladdening bow, which crowns the Redeemer’s head,
will suddenly appear. In letters of light the truth is emblazoned, “Jesus
Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” “I change not; therefore
are ye not consumed.” “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” Again the
darkness vanishes, and clear joy returns. Perplexities are often as a mass of
clouds. The pilgrim would climb the hill of Zion, but impassable rocks are on
either side: the sea is in the front; the Egyptians in the rear. He sighs, as
the lepers of Samaria, “If we say, we will enter into the city, then the famine
is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit still here, we die 2 Kings 7:4). He is in the straits
of David. The enemy has left him desolate; his friends are ready to stone him (1 Samuel 30:6). But he looks aloft
to Jesus, and the bow is bright. The “faithful and true Witness” cheers him
onward: “This is the way, walk in it.” “I will instruct thee and teach thee in
the way which thou shelf go, I will guide thee with Mine eye.” So, also,
burdens of difficulties often oppress. The believer is ready to sink beneath
the weight. Moses felt this when he said, “Who am I, that I should go unto
Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel?” But a bow was
in the cloud, and it sparkled with the promise, “Certainly I will be with
thee.” He went and prospered. The women on the way to the sepulchre were in
gloom: “Who,” said they, “will roll us away the stone?” But a bow was in the
cloud. Hoping against hope, they advanced, and the stone was gone. Paul
trembled when he was to stand alone before the tyrant and his court. But a bow
was in the cloud, and he took courage: “At my first answer no man stood with
me, but all men forsook me. Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me, and
strengthened me, and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.” (Dean
Law.)
The Rainbow
I. Let us
contemplate the INTERESTING BEAUTY OF THE RAINBOW. The rainbow is an object
with which all are familiar. This beautiful rainbow could not be overlooked by
the ancient heathens. They saw it, and were rapt in admiration. They thought it
must be something Divine. They consecrated it--they fell prostrate and adored
it--they called it Iris, whom they imagined to be the messenger of the gods. It
is worthy of remembrance that, in this undoubted fact, we have another
convincing evidence of the strength of ancient tradition; and of the importance
of revelation being considered as the basis of a great portion of the heathen
mythology. But how beautifully consonant with Divine truth is the idea embodied
in this pagan mystery! The rainbow is, truly, a “messenger” of God--a messenger
of peace and joy--a herald of truth, security, and love.
II. It may be
desirable, in furtherance of our design, to examine the NATURE OF THIS
PHENOMENON and to explain its formation and physical properties. The rainbow is
produced by rays of light falling upon drops of water.
1. There must be rain descending the whole breadth of the rainbow.
2. The sun must shine exactly opposite to the falling shower.
3. The spectator must stand with his back to the sun, placing
himself thus opposite the rainbow. Then the following phenomenon will be
observed:--If the sun shines upon the drops of rain as they are falling, the
rayswhich come from those drops to the eye of the spectator will cause the
appearance of the primary or strongly-coloured rainbow. And the reason of the
colours being exhibited is, that every drop of rain, being globular and
transparent, receives the pencil of light, which, as soon as it touches the
outside of the higher part of the drop, is refracted or bent; it then passes on
through the drop to the inside of the globule at the opposite or back part of
it, where the inner surface acts like a concave mirror, and reflects or throws
back the incident pencil of light to the outer or lower surface, through which
it passes, and so is refracted a second time; and then it comes down to the eye
of the spectator. But, as the rays emerge from the drop, they proceed each in a
divergent line; therefore, one ray only of that pencil can reach the eye,
giving the perception of one of the seven prismatic colours. Those rays which
are contiguous and parallel produce the same colour; and its strength or
vividness will depend upon the number of rays which, being contiguous and
parallel, reach the eye. But, in the rainbow we observe the seven prismatic
colours--red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet; and always in
the same order of arrangement. And this appearance of seven colours, in order,
one above another, is caused by the drops being disposed in the same manner;
and, as each drop makes a different angle with the eye, the different colours
will be perceived in succession; and thus the whole bow will be presented to
view.
III. Our subject
especially requires that we should advance from this general view of the nature
of this phenomenon, to the NOVELTY OF THE SPECTACLE AT THE ERA OF THE DELUGE.
IV. Our serious
reflections are now demanded for the consideration of THE DESIGN AND UTILITY OF
THIS PHENOMENON. This is expressed by the sacred historian: it is “set” as a
sign--the token of a covenant between God and the earth. All the works of God
praise Him--they show His eternal power and Godhead. In some of His works,
Jehovah utters a more significant voice. The bush burns unconsumed; the pillar
of fire goes before the people; the sea makes a pathway through its disparted
waves; the rock send forth its stream in the desert; the manna descends from
the skies; the star guides the magi to Bethlehem; the sun refuses to shine upon
the hour of the Saviour’s crucifixion. So, in the present instance, we behold a
sublime and beautiful phenomenon--a lecture printed in golden letters, on the
tablet of the skies.
1. The rainbow is the memento of a dispensation of mercy and
judgment. To creatures of sense, simple revelation seems insufficient for the
purposes of faith. Feeble and faltering man “seeks after a sign.” He requires
something to impress his organs of perception as well as to convince his
judgment. And He who made man, and considers his frame and constitution--his
wants and fears--gives him sign upon sign, as well as precept upon precept.
Hence, the great value of sacramental symbols. The bow of earth is the emblem of
hostility; and is joined, in martial regalia, with the shield and the sword and
the battle: but the celestial bow has no array of vengeance--no shaft of
perdition. It reminds, most powerfully, of the storm retiring, and the deluge
past to return no more.
2. It is an illustration of the meeting of mercy and judgment.
Behold the glorious arch! it rises heavenward; it descends to earth; it spans
the concave of the skies; it thus brings heaven and earth together. It beams,
like a bond of glory, between the accursed soil and the propitious heaven.
3. It is a demonstration of the triumph of mercy over judgment. To
the spectator, the prismatic bow presents its brightest aspect--its dark side
leans upon the storm--it tells the shelter-seeking husbandman that the sun hath
pierced the clouds, and the winds are driving off the tempest. Its beaming is
the radiance of love.
4. The rainbow is a striking symbol of our glorious Mediator. Come
and behold how heaven and earth are made one in Christ Jesus: yea, believe, for
yourselves, that God is in Christ reconciling you unto Himself, and not
imputing your trespasses unto you! (C. Burton, LL. D.)
The rainbow
A pledge more appropriate or significant it is not possible to
conceive. The theory of the rainbow, physically considered, can be minutely
worked out only by the intricate processes of calculus. Every time the arch is
formed, there comes into harmonious play a multitude of laws; for example, laws
of gravitation, which determine the position of the cloud and the curve of the
descending rain and the size and the shape of each molecule; laws of light,
according to which the solar rays are absorbed and transmitted and reflected
and refracted and polarized, and this, too, in every variety of angle and
direction and velocity; laws of geometry, which determine all the angles of
incidence and reflection and refraction and interference and polarization; laws
of vision and consciousness, by which the beholder perceives on his own retina
the image of the beautiful phenomenon, and recognizes it as a rainbow. In other
words, the bow in the cloud and our perception of it is the natural result of a
perfect adjustment in space and in time of all these multitudinous,
complicated, delicatest processes. What a peculiar appropriateness, then, in
God’s selecting this phenomenon of exquisite beauty as the pledge of His
veracity in respect be the constancy of nature, when we remember that the
rainbow, involving as it does every time it is formed the perfect adjustment of
countless contingencies, is nevertheless of frequent recurrence! What a sublime
testimony each recurrence of the rainbow through the ages that have gone before
us has been to the infinite regularity with which the Lord of nature has
administered His own manifold laws! Had the bow in the cloud never been seen
except when Noah and his family gazed on it, we should have ranked it, like the
flood, among supernatural events. But the frequent recurrence of the
phenomenon, ever and anon spanning our horizon, brings it down within the plane
of the natural. Thus the natural becomes itself a sign of the supernatural. (G.
D. Boardman, D. D.)
Everlasting covenant
The rainbow of the covenant of grace lasts forever; it never
melts. The one on which Noah gazed soon lost its brilliancy. Fainter and
fainter still it grew, until, like a coloured haze, it just quivered in the
air, and then faded from the vision. Ten thousand rainbows since have arched
our earth, and then melted in the clouds; but the rainbow of God’s mercy in
Christ abides forever. It shines with undiminished splendour from all eternity,
and its brilliancy will dazzle the eyes of redeemed humanity through the
countless cycles of the same eternity. As has been said by Guthrie, it gleams
in heaven tonight, yea, it beams sweetly on earth with harmonious hues,
mellowed and blended into each other as fresh as ever. And when the sun has run
his course and given place unto eternity, that bow of grace will still remain
forever, and be the theme of the ceaseless songs of spirits glorified in heaven,
as, wrapt in the radiance of that sinless, sunless land, they realize that the
darkness of earth was but the shadow of God’s wing sheltering them from earth’s
too scorching sun. (W. Adamson.)
Was there a rainbow before?
The covenant is that there shall not be any more a flood to
destroy the earth, and the token of the covenant is bow in the cloud. But was
there not a rainbow before there was a flood? Of course there was. You do not
suppose that the rainbow was made on purpose? There were rainbows, it may be,
thousands of ages before man was created, certainly from the time that the sun
and the rain first knew each other. But old forms may be put to new uses.
Physical objects may be clothed with moral meanings. The stars in heaven and
the sand by the seashore may come to be unto Abraham as a family register. One
day common bread may be turned into sacramental food, and ordinary wine may
become as the blood of atonement! The rainbow which was once nothing but a
thing of evanescent beauty, created by the sun and the rain, henceforward
became the token of a covenant and was sacred as a revelation from heaven. When
you lived in a rich English county the song of the lark was nothing to you, it
was so familiar; you had heard the dinning trill of a hundred larks in the
morning air: but when you went out to the far-away colony, and for years did
not hear the voice of a single home bird, you suddenly caught the note of a
lark just brought, to the land, and the tears of boyhood streamed down your
cheeks as you listened to the little messenger from home. To hear it was like
hearing a gospel. From that day the lark was to you as the token of a covenant!
In speaking to Noah, God did not then create the bow; He turned it into the
sign of a holy bond. The fear is that we may have the bond and not the oath. We
may see physical causes producing physical effects, and yet may see no moral
significations passing through the common scenery of earth and sky. Cultivate
the spirit of moral interpretation if you would be wise and restful: then the
rainhow will keep away the flood; the fowls of the air will save you from
anxiety; and the lilies of the field will give you an assurance of tender care.
Why, everything is yours! The daisy you trod upon just now was telling you that
if God so clothe the grass of the field, He will much more clothe the child
that bears His own image. Very beautiful is this idea of God giving us
something to look at, in order to keep our faith steady. He knows that we need
pictures, and rests, and voices, and signs, and these He has well supplied. We
might have forgotten the word, but we cannot fail to see the bow; every child
sees it, and exclaims at the sight with glad surprise. If anyone would tell the
child the sweet meaning of the bow, it might move his soul to a still higher
ecstasy! And so with all other things God has given us as signs and tokens: the
sacred Book, the water of baptism, the bread and wine, the quiet Sabbath, the
house of prayer; all these have deeper meanings than are written in their names;
search for those meanings, keep them, and you will be rich. (J. Parker, D.
D.)
The rainbow like God’s promises
The rainbow arches the sky. A summer or two since, standing on a
hilltop and looking eastward, I saw a wondrous sight. A fierce shower had just
ended, and yonder, arching the heavens from extreme north to extreme south, was
a magnificent rainbow. Each end of it rested on a mountain top, while under its
very centre, in a deep valley between the mountains, nestled a city whose
spires and windows glistened in the reflection of the setting sun. Not more
sublime was this than that which it symbolized. God’s promises span the
universe; they cover all the needs of man. Not a community exists which might
not look up and see the jewels of Divine love arching the sky above them. (A.
P. Foster.)
The bow of the covenant
“Oh,” cries an impassioned lover of nature, “that I, on my
deathbed, may behold a rainbow!” And let every Christian echo the voice, and
say, “Oh, that on my deathbed I may behold the rainbow of the covenant.” (G.
Gilfillan.)
The covenant sign
The native account of the last martyrdom in Madagascar concludes
in these touching words:--“Then they prayed, ‘Oh Lord, receive our spirits, for
Thy love to us hath caused this to come to us; and lay not this sin to their
charge.’ Thus prayed they as long as they had any life, and then they
died--softly, gently; and there was at the time a rainbow in the heavens which
seemed to touch the place of the burning.” (Old Testament Anecdotes.)
I will look upon it
God looking at the rainbow
While we are looking at the objects of nature, as well as at the
events of Providence and the mysteries of grace, from below, God is looking at
them from above. While we are gazing at the thundercloud with terror, and
cowering under it, God sees it from a serene sky, and cast far beneath His
feet. While the shadow of eclipse is darkening whole continents, the sun seems
as bright a mote as ever it did to the eye of God. When a world or a system of
worlds has ceased to shine, it appears to God as the melting of a little patch
of snow on a spring mountain does to us. But while this is true in one view, it
is also in another true; that often what seems little to us is great in the
sight of God. The common order of men see no beauty in the rainbow; the man of
science thinks little of it except as a complete analysis of light; the poet
sings its splendour; the Christian, even while admiring, seldom thinks of it as
a God built bulwark against the return of the waters of Noah; but the Almighty
never rears again its arch, or looks upon it when reared, without remembering
His promise; it is to Him His original oath, cast in aerial architecture,
transcribed in letters of gold. And so, too, with things of a moral kind. The
difference between the famous contradictory conclusions of the two knights in
reference to the golden and silver sides of the shield, is only a type of the
difference between the estimates formed of various subjects by God and by man;
only a type, because both these were right, and right equally; whereas God’s
thoughts are not only not as our thoughts, but are ineffably nearer the truth.
How solemn and how humbling to remember that, whatever we are looking at or
thinking on, whether in the physical or moral world, God is looking at, and
judging of too, from a far superior point of view; that our notions of things
differ from His now by exaggeration, now by diminution, and now by distortion,
but are never exactly the same; and that, even if they differ by a single iota,
they are so far wrong. This consideration might indeed well drive us to
despair, for how can we tell what are God’s views, were it not that in the
Bible, echoing too the voice of conscience, the “God within the breast,” we are
not altogether left to conjecture as to the Divine “thoughts,” and all its
writers justly can boast that they have the mind of God. (G. Gilfillan.)
Verse 18-19
The sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham,
and Japheth
The factors of human culture
Mankind have a common calling as human beings, to which we give
the name of culture.
This comprehends all influences from without that form the human character and
create history. The world of mankind is a complex product which several
elements have helped to form. The names of these progenitors of the new race
are significant of great principles of thought and action, which have guided
the progress and shaped the destinies of mankind. We have here those effective
powers which have been at work throughout the whole course of history.
I. RELIGION. This
is represented by Shorn, which signifies “the name,” i.e. the name of
God with all its fulness of meaning for man. The knowledge of that name was to
be preserved through Shem, for without it the race must fail to reach its
highest perfection. Shem is mentioned first because religion is the chief glory
of man, the only source of his true greatness, and the only worthy end of his
life. Consider religion:
1. As a system of thought. It has certain truths addressed to the
intellect, heart, and conscience. Religion comprises--
2. As a rule of life.
3. As a remedy for sin.
II. THE SPIRIT OF
WORK AND ENTERPRISE. This is another factor which enters into the culture of
the human race. It is represented by Japheth, which signifies “enlargement.”
There was in him an energy by which he could overcome obstacles and expand his
empire over the world. This spirit of work and enterprise has given birth to
civilization. The union of external activity with mental power is the source of
man’s greatness and superiority in the world.
1. It is necessary to material progress. In the division of human
labour the thinkers stand first of all. Mind must survey the work and plan the
means by which it is to be accomplished. But for the practical work of life,
there must be energy to carry out the thoughts of the mind, and render them
effective in those labours which minister to prosperity and happiness.
2. It is necessary to mental progress. By far the larger proportion
of human knowledge has been acquired by the actual struggle with the
difficulties of our present existence. The battle of life has drawn out the
powers of the mind.
3. It is necessary to religious progress, The knowledge of spiritual
truth must be expressed in duty, or man can have no religion. Doctrines are
only valuable as they teach us how to live. Activity without contemplation has
many evils, but united with it is the perfection of spiritual life. True thoughts
of God and ourselves must be manifested in that energy by which we contend with
evil, and perform our duty.
III. THE POWER OF
EVIL. This is represented by Ham, who is the picture of moral inability--of one
who knows his duty, but is unable to perform it. A large portion of the energy
of mankind is spent in contention with evil, in neutralizing the labours of one
another, and but a poor remainder issues in useful work. This power of evil
accounts for--
1. The slow education of the race.
2. The monstrous forms of vice. These are developed even in the
midst of the best influences and restraints.
3. The limited diffusion of religion.
4. The imperfection of the best. Still, our great hope for the race
is that evil is not the strongest power in it. (T. H. Leale.)
Noah began to be an
husbandman and he planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine and was drunken
The lessons of Noah’s fall
I.
THE MORAL DANGERS OF
SOCIAL PROGRESS.
1.
Increased temptations to sensual indulgence.
2. It
exercises a tyranny over us.
3. It
tends to make us satisfied with the present.
II. THE
SPREADING POWER OF EVIL. He who once allows evil to gain the mastery over him,
cannot tell to what degrading depths he may descend.
III. THE
TEMPTATIONS WHICH ASSAIL WHEN THE EXCITEMENT OF A GREAT PURPOSE IS PAST.
IV. THE
POWER OF TRANSGRESSION TO DEVELOP MORAL CHARACTER IN OTHERS.
1. The
sins of others give occasion for fresh sins in ourselves.
2. The
sins of others may give occasion for some high moral action.
V. THE
APPARENT DEPENDENCE OF PROPHECY UPON THE ACCIDENTS OF HUMAN CONDUCT. The words
of Noah take too wide a range and are too awful in their import to warrant the
interpretation that they were the expression of a private feeling. They are a
sketch of the future history of the world. The language is prophetic of the
fate of nations. It may seem strange that so important an utterance should
arise out of the accident of one man’s transgression. The same account, too,
must be given of the greater part of the structure of Scripture. Some portions
were written at the request of private persons, some to refute certain heresies
which had sprung up in the Church. Many of the books in the New Testament owe
their origin to the needs and disorders of the time. But this does not destroy
the authority or Divine origin of the Scripture, for the following reasons:
1. The
Bible has thus imparted to it a human character and interest.
2. The Bible
is unfolded by an inner law.
3. The
Bible shows the advance of history towards an end. (T. H.Leale.)
Noah drunk
I. A
SINFUL ACT CASTING A GLOOM OVER A PURE LIFE.
1. That
sin-stricken humanity cannot reach perfection in the present life.
2. That
a man is not invariably influenced by society. Noah stood firm as a rock
against the multitude, but now in his own tent falls.
3. That
witnessing the greatest judgments, and experiencing the tenderest mercies of
God, will not preserve us from sin.
II. A
SENSUAL ACT RIGHTLY PUNISHED.
1. This
act is an index of a debased mind.
2. It
shows an indifference as to the means of gratifying his sinful propensity.
3. The
punishment is degrading to himself and to his descendants.
III. A
VIRTUOUS ACT WELL REWARDED.
1. The
commendation of their own conscience.
2. The
blessing of an aged father.
3. The
approbation of God. (Homilist.)
Noah’s sin
Noah’s sin brings before
us two facts about sin. First, that the smaller temptations are often the most
effectual. The man who is invulnerable on the field of battle amidst declared
and strong ememies, falls an easy prey to the assassin in his own home. The
temptations Noah had before known were mainly from without; he now learnt that
those from within are more serious. Many of us find it comparatively easy to
carry clean hands before the public, or to demean ourselves with tolerable
seemliness in circumstances where the temptation may be very strong but is also
very patent; but how careless are we often in our domestic life, and how little
strain do we put upon ourselves in the company of those whom we can trust. What
petulance and irritability, what angry and slanderous words, what sensuality
and indolence could our own homes witness to! Secondly, we see here how a man
may fall into new forms of sin, and are reminded especially of one of the most
distressing facts to be observed in the world, viz., that men in their prime
and even in their old age are sometimes overtaken in sins of sensuality from
which hitherto they have kept themselves pure. We are very ready to think we
know the full extent of wickedness to which we may go; that by certain sins we
shall never be much tempted. And in some of our predictions we may be correct;
our temperament or our circumstances may absolutely preclude some sins from
mastering us. Yet who has made but a slight alteration in his circumstances,
added a little to his business, made some new family arrangements, or changed
his residence, without being astonished to find how many new sources of evil
seem to have been opened within him? While therefore you rejoice over sins
defeated, beware of thinking your work is nearly done. (M. Dods, D. D.)
Noah’s husbandry and
excess
1. The
best and holiest of men upon God’s seating them here below, must undertake some
honest calling. So Noah is for husbandry.
2.
Man’s labour and planting must serve God’s providence to bring the fruits of
the earth unto their due use and end (Genesis
9:20).
3.
Feeding or drinking on a man’s own labours is a privilege not denied to man.
4. The
best of men may be apt to exceed in the use of creature comforts.
5. Wine
is a mocker, and may deceive the holiest men that are not watchful Proverbs
20:1).
God hath not spared to discover the worst as the best of his saints (verse 20).
Drink and drunkenness
It is related of a
converted Armenian on the Harpoot mission field, that he was a strong temperance
man. On one occasion, disputing with a drinker of the native wine, he was met
with the rejoinder, “Did not God make grapes?” To this, with native warmth, the
Armenian replied: “God made dogs; do you eat them? God made poisons; do you
suck them?” While not prepared to argue after this fashion, all must admit the
appalling follies of excessive drinking. Thomas Watson says that there is no
sin which more defaces God’s image than drunkenness. And sadly as it mars and
blots the face and form of the body, its deleterious and destructive influences
upon the mental powers and moral principles are more distressing. “Alcohol is a
good creature of God, and I enjoy it,” said a drinker to James Mowatt. To this
he replied, “I dare say that rattlesnakes, boa constrictors, and alligators are
good creatures of God, but you do not enjoy swallowing them by the half dozen.”
As Guthrie says, “No doubt, in one sense, it is a creature of God; and so are
arsenic, oil of vitriol, and prussic acid. People do not toss off glasses of
prussic acid, and call it a creature of God.”
The sin of drunkenness
Noah, as soon as he could
get settled, betook himself to the employment of husbandry; and the first thing
he did in this way was to plant a vineyard. So far all was right; man, as we
have seen, was formed originally for an active, and not an idle life. Adam was
ordered to keep the garden and to dress it; and when fallen, to till the ground
from whence he was taken, which now required much labour. Perhaps there is no
occupation more free from snares. But in the most lawful employments and
enjoyments, we must not reckon ourselves out of danger. It was very lawful for
Noah to partake of the fruits of his labour; but Noah sinned in drinking to
excess. He might not be aware of the strength of the wine, or his age might
render him sooner influenced by it: at any rate, we have reason to conclude
from his general character that it was a fault in which he was overtaken. But
let us not think lightly of the sin of drunkenness. “Who hath woe; who hath
redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine.” Times of festivity require
a double guard. Neither age nor character are any security in the hour of
temptation. Who would have thought that a man who had walked with God, perhaps
more than five hundred years, and who had withstood the temptations of a world,
should fall alone? This was like a ship which had gone round the world, being
overset in sailing into port. What need for watchfulness and prayer! One
heedless hour may stain the fairest life, and undo much of the good which we
have been doing for a course of years! Drunkenness is a sin which involves in
it the breach of the whole law, which requires love to God, our neighbours and
ourselves. The first as abusing His mercies; the second as depriving those who
are in want of them of necessary support, as well as setting an ill example;
and the last as depriving ourselves of reason, self-government, and common
decency. It also commonly leads on to other evils. It has been said, and
justly, that the name of this sin is Gad--a troop cometh! (A. Fuller.)
Drunkenness the way to
ruin
One fine summer evening as
the sun was going down, a man was seen trying to make his way through the lanes
and crossroads that led to his village home. His unsteady, staggering way of
walking showed that he had been drinking; and though he had lived in the
village over thirty years, he was now so drunk that it was impossible for him
to find his way home. Quite unable to tell where he was, at last he uttered a
dreadful oath, and said to a person going by, “I’ve lost my way. Where am I
going?” The man thus addressed was an earnest Christian. He knew the poor
drunkard very well, and pitied him greatly. When he heard the inquiry, “Where
am I going?” in a quiet, sad, solemn way he answered: “To ruin.” The poor
staggering man stared at him wildly for a moment, and then murmured, with a
groan, “That’s so.” “Come with me” said the other, kindly, “and I’ll take you
home.” The next day came. The effect of the drink had passed away, but those
two little words, tenderly and lovingly spoken to him, did not pass away. “To
ruin! to ruin!” he kept whispering to himself. “It’s true, I’m going to ruin!
Oh, God, help me and save me!”
Thus he was stopped on his
way to ruin. By earnest prayer to God he sought the grace which made him a true
Christian. His feet were established on the rock. It was a rock broad enough to
reach that poor, miserable drunkard, and it lifted him up from his
wretchedness, and made a useful, happy man of him.
Saints’ sins
1. As
the photographic art will not make the homely beautiful, nor catch a landscape
without catching the shadow of deformity as readily as the shadow of beauty;
so, says Swing, the historic genius of the Bible gathers up all virtue and vice
equally, and transfers it to the record--the one for human as Divine
commendation--the other for human as Divine condemnation. And thus it comes to
pass that we do not see a Hebrew nation adorned in the gay robes of a modern
fresco, but one that sinned against God: a beacon tower of warning to all
future nations of the earth that the Merciful and All-gracious will by no means
clear the guilty.
2. When
the painters of the last century painted the great heroes of that age, they
threw upon their subjects the costumes of that day; and now, when in our days
their dresses seem ridiculous and create a smile, we rise above the
dress--fasten our eye upon the firm-set lips, the chiselled nose and noble
forehead, and bless God that we have such portraits of such giants. Just so in the
Bible, its great heroes are all represented in the clothes they wore--from
Noah, in the cloak of drunkenness, to Peter, in the robe of equivocation: and
it is for us to let those garments alone, and admire the matchless contour of
their spiritual countenances. (W. Adamson.)
The original home and
diffusion of the vine
The early history of the
vine cannot be traced with any certainty. It is first introduced to our notice,
in the above passage, as the cause of Noah’s shameful drunkenness, and as one
of the articles of provision hospitably offered by Melchizedek to Abraham. It
was, in all probability, a native of the hilly region on the southern shores of
the Caspian Sea, and of the Persian province of Ghilan. The tradition of the
Jews is that the vine was first planted by God’s own hand on the fertile slopes
of Hebron. It has been gradually introduced into other countries, and it has
been said that the great revolutions of society may be traced in its gradual
distribution over the surface of the globe; for wherever man has penetrated, in
that spirit of change and activity which precedes or accompanies civilization,
he has assisted in the dissemination of this useful plant, much more surely and
rapidly than the ordinary agencies of nature. Now, the range of the vine
extends from the shores of the New World to the utmost boundaries of the Old;
its profitable cultivation in the open air, however, being still confined to a
zone about two thousand miles in breadth, and reaching in length from Portugal
to India. (Things Not Generally Known.)
Shem and
Japheth took a garment
Piety in children
1. Piety
in children hastens to cover that which impiety discloseth to reproach.
2. Some
gracious seed is vouchsafed to the saints for their comfort, as wicked for
their grief.
3.
Piety to parents will use lawful means to cover their shame.
4.
Piety turns its back to the discovery of parents’ evils, as unnatural.
5. It
is piety in children to cover the infirmities or nakedness of parents. Yet this
is no rule for all to hide wilful sinners.
6.
Piety turns the face away, and would not willingly see the shame of parents. A
sweet pattern. (G. Hughes, B. D.)
On covering the sins of
others
Charity is the prime grace
enjoined upon us, and charity covers a multitude of sins. And whatever excuses
for exposing others we may make, however we may say it is only a love of truth
and fair play that makes us drag to light the infirmities of a man whom others
are praising, we may be very sure that if all evil motives were absent, this
kind of evil-speaking would cease amoung us. But there is a malignity in sin
that leaves its bitter root in us all, and causes us to be glad when those whom
we have been regarding as our superiors are reduced to our poor level. And
there is a cowardliness in sin which cannot bear to be alone, and eagerly hails
every symptom of others being in the same condemnation. Before exposing
another, think first whether your own conduct could bear a similar treatment,
whether you have never done the thing you desire to conceal, said the thing you
would blush to hear repeated, or thought the thought you could not bear another
to read. And if you be a Christian, does it not become you to remember what you
yourself have learnt of the slipperiness of this world’s ways, of your liability
to fall, of your sudden exposure to sin from some physical disorder, or some
slight mistake which greatly extenuates your sin, but which you could not plead
before another? And do you know nothing of the difficulty of conquering one sin
that is rooted in your constitution, and the strife that goes on in a man’s own
soul and in secret though he show little immediate fruit of it in his life
before men? Surely, it becomes us to give a man credit for much good resolution
and much sore self-denial and endeavour, even when he fails and sins still,
because such we know to be our own case, and if we disbelieve in others until
they can walk with perfect rectitude, if we condemn them for one or two flaws
and blemishes, we shall be tempted to show the same want of charity towards
ourselves, and fall at length into that miserable and hopeless condition that
believes in no regenerating spirit nor in any holiness attainable by us. (M.
Dods, D. D.)
Filial reverence
1.
Lettice would quietly watch for her father, and as quietly lead him home, that
none of the neighbours might see his shame as a drunkard. With what tenderness
she led the reeling form within doors; and when he had flung himself upon his
poor bed, how tenderly she covered him, ere she herself retired to rest. She
could not bear the thought of friends around knowing that her father lived to
drink.
2. Joe
Swayne, the street Arab, had been lured to Sunday school by a teacher on her
way. In conversation he had mocked over his mother’s propensity for drink, and
jocosely described her words and ways when she returned to their wretched
garret after a deep debauch. At school, God’s word taught, and God’s grace
trained him to think otherwise. Child could not be kinder to his mother than he
was. No one ever heard him mention his mother’s shame. (W. Adamson.)
Verses 25-27
Cursed be Canaan
The sons of Noah
I.
The
curse of Canaan was SERVITUDE. Noah saw in Ham and his son some traits of
character that showed a moral inferiority, which he foresaw would have an
effect upon their descendants, and would be visited by God with chastisement
and disapproval.
II. The blessing
of Shem was RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGE. Israel was “alone among the nations” in
respect of their superior knowledge of God. From this “Shemitic” people was in
future days to go forth the “Law” and the “Word” of God (Isaiah 2:3), which were to bring all other
nations to God.
III. The blessing
of Japheth was ENLARGEMENT. His name means “widely-extending”; and his
descendants were great colonizers, spreading over Europe in one direction, over
Persia and India in another. LESSONS:--
1. That the Lord is King ruling over all, and that He judges among
the nations.
2. That the Lord is Saviour, and provides for the way in which His
truth shall be preserved amid the wickedness of men, and shall finally subdue
and renovate the world.
3. That all nations, whether subjected to others, or widely
extending their power, should learn to serve and praise “Jehovah, God of Shem.”
(W. S. Smith, B. D.)
Lessons
1. Gracious souls may sleep
awhile in sin, but they awake again.
2. Awaking saints sadly resent their fails, and depart from evil.
3. God brings to light the wicked practices of ungracious ones
against His saints, and sheweth it to His prophets (Genesis 9:28).
4. Cognisance taken by God and His prophets of wicked practices
foreruns a curse.
5. A father may be a minister of a curse from God upon his own
children, and he must not spare, as here in Noah, and in Jacob.
6. The curse of God on body and soul finds men in their impieties
against Him and their parents.
7. God’s curse pursueth the children that go on in their fathers’
steps (Canaan).
8. Such as abuse sonship in the Church, may justly look to be made
slaves unto it. The vilest of slavery is their portion. Such is the curse of
Ham. (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Scripture predictions
The manner of Scripture here is worthy of particular remark.
1. The prediction takes its rise from a characteristic incident. The
conduct of the brothers was of comparatively slight importance in itself, but
in the disposition which it betrayed it was highly significant.
2. The prediction refers in terms to the near future and to the
outward condition of the parties concerned.
3. It foreshadows under these familiar phrases the distant future,
and the inward, as well as the outward, state of the family of man.
4. It lays out the destiny of the whole race from its very starting
point. These simple laws will be found to characterize the main body of the
predictions of Scripture. (Prof. J. G. Murphy.)
The curse of Canaan, and its fulfilment
Canaan is under a curse of servitude to both Shem and Japheth: the
former was fulfilled in the conquest of the seven nations of Israel; and the
latter in the subjugation of the Tyrians and Carthaginians, who were the
remainder of the old Canaanites, by the Greeks and Romans. So far as the curse
had reference to the other descendants of Ham, it was a long time, as I have
said, ere it came upon them. In the early ages of the world they flourished.
They were the first who set up for empire; and so far from being subject to the
descendants of Shem or Japheth, the latter were often invaded and driven into
corners by them. It was Nimrod, a descendant of Ham, who founded the imperial
city of Babylon; and Mizraim, another of his descendants, who first established
the kingdom of Egypt. These, it is well known, were for many ages two of the
greatest empires in the world. About the time of the Captivity, however, God
began to cut short their power. Both Egypt and Babylon within a century sank
into a state of subjection, first to the Persians, who descended from Shem, and
afterwards to the Greeks and Romans, who were the children of Japheth. Nor have
they ever been able to recover themselves: for to the dominion of the Romans
succeeded that of the Saraeens, and to theirs that of the Turks, under watch
they with a great part of Africa, which is peopled by the children of Ham, have
lived and still live in the most degraded state of subjection. To all this may
be added that the inhabitants of Africa seem to be marked out as objects of
slavery by the European nations. Though these things are far from excusing the
conduct of their oppressors, yet they establish the fact, and prove the
fulfilment of prophecy. (A. Fuller.)
The question of a curse upon children to remote periods
Let us proceed to offer a remark or two on the justice of the
Divine proceeding in denouncing a curse upon children, even to remote periods,
for the iniquity of their parents. It is worthy of notice that the God of
Israel thought it no dishonour to His character to declare that He would “visit
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children in those that hated Him, any more
than that He would show mercy to those that loved Him,” which He did in an
eminent degree to the posterity of Abram. And should any object to this, and to
the Bible on this account, we might appeal to universal fact. None can deny
that children are the better or the worse for the conduct of their parents. If
any man insist that neither good nor evil shall befal him but what is the
immediate consequence of his own conduct, he must go out of the world; for no
such state of existence is known in it.
1. There is, however, an important difference between the sin of a
parent being the occasion of the prediction of a curse upon his posterity, who
were considered by Him who knew the end from the beginning as walking in His
steps, and its being the formal cause of their punishment. The sin of Ham was
the occasion of the prediction against the Canaanites, and the antecedent to
the evil predicted; but it was not the cause of it. Its formal procuring cause
may be seen in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus. To Ham, and perhaps to
Canaan, the prediction of the servitude of their descendants was a punishment:
but the fulfilment of that prediction on the parties was no farther such than
as it was connected with their own sin.
2. There is also an important difference between the providential
dispensations of God towards families and nations in the present world, and the
administration of distributive justice towards individuals with respect to the
world to come. In the last judgment, “everyone shall give an account of himself
to God, and be judged according to the deeds done in the body”: but while we
are in this world we stand in various relations, in which it is impossible that
we should be dealt with merely as individuals. God deals with families and
nations as such; and in the course of His providence visits them with good and
evil, not according to the conduct of individuals, but as far as conduct is
concerned, that of the general body. To insist that we should in all cases be
treated as individuals, is to renounce the social character. (A. Fuller.)
Predictions respecting the sons of Noah
I. WE RETRACE
SACRED HISTORY TO FIND WHEN GOD SPOKE, AND TO KNOW WHAT GOD HAS SPOKEN OF A
PREDICTIVE CHARACTER. Noah “began to be an husbandman.” Upon partaking of the
wine produced from the first full ripe grape, unaccustomed to such a beverage,
and indulging too incautiously in its use, “he was drunken”! Yes, in the most
lawful duties and pleasures we are liable to temptation. Neither age nor
character afford perfect security from spiritual harm. Connected with this evil
of excessive drinking, was the loss of self-government. Shamelessness and
drunkenness are common associates. “He lies uncovered within his tent.” And as
the sins of Israel rarely escape the eyes of the Canaanites, so Ham observed
his father, and, “fool-like,” made “a mock of his sin.” It is a terrible mark
of a vitiated mind when men “not only do evil, but take pleasure in them that
do the same”! Shem and Japheth, displeased at the conduct of their brother, and
concerned for their father’s reputation, “took a garment and laid it upon their
shoulders, and went backward, and cavered the nakedness of their father.”
II. We shall now
proceed to make some remarks relating to THE MEANING OF THESE PREDICTIONS, and
thus prepare the way for marking their agreements with history.
1. The order of names is not the order of the age of the sons of
Noah, but rather of the development of the truth of the predictions relating to
them.
2. These predictions relate to the nations originating in these sons
of Noah, and not to the sons of Noah themselves.
3. These predictions wear a general aspect. Here in some six or
seven sentences we have an epitome of the world’s history. There is no room for
detail. Here are portrayed certain commanding features.
4. In tracing the fulfilment of these predictions we must have
assistance from the geography of the world, over which these descendants of
Noah were scattered. We must see these nations separate; or if together, we
must see some strong physical or philological affinities between the families
issuing from these several parent sources.
5. In tracing the settlement of these descendants of Noah, we must
remember that their first division only embraced a small portion of the earth’s
surface. Now, here is wisdom; as these separate tribes enlarged, they went on
to occupy regions more and more remote from each other.
III. Let us now
consider THE AGREEMENT SUBSISTING BETWEEN THESE PREDICTIONS AND THE GREAT
OUTLINES OF HISTORY.
1. Adopting the order before us, we shall first notice the
descendants of Ham and their servitude. “Cursed be Canaan: a servant of
servants--a slave--shall he be unto his brethren.” Looking at the early history
of his descendants, we see that Nimrod, one of that number, founded the
Babylonian, and some think the Assyrian states. Reading the eleventh verse of
the eighteenth chapter thus: “Out of that land he went forth to Assyria and
built Nineveh”: a reading the more probable, because the historian is there
relating the exploits of “the mighty hunter.” Mizraim established the kingdom
of Egypt. Indeed, Egypt is called, in Scripture, the “land of Mizraim”; and the
Easterns designate it in the same way. My brethren, you are familiar with the
names of Egypt and Babylon. You know that the Hebrews, the seed of Shorn, were
subdued and oppressed for a season by both of these powers. And yet the method
of their deliverance from this servitude afforded a brilliant discovery of
God’s mindfulness of His covenant. What terrible judgments were inflicted upon
Egypt, in order to effect the exodus of the Israelites! How many curses fell
upon the children of Ham, because they oppressed the seed of Shem! The people
that once tyrannized over the Israelites are now under despotic power, taxed in
their produce almost beyond endurance, inflicting injuries upon their own
persons to unfit them for the service of their proud governor: they tell us
that “the sceptre of Mizraim has passed away,” that “Egypt is the basest of
kingdoms.” They serve as slaves, and are wasted by the hands of strangers. May
“He who smote Egypt, heal it.” May they “return to the Lord, and He shall be
entreated of them and shall heal them” (Isaiah 19:1-25). Look at Africa I
See how its better portions have been subjected by the Romans, the Saraceus,
the Turks. It was on her coast that a colony of emigrants from
Tyre--Phoenicians, descendants of Ham, and a people distinguished for
navigation and commerce--sought to make to themselves a name and a kingdom, by
founding the famed city of Carthage. But the proud city was destroyed by the
Romans, and a consul was directed to preside over the province as the deputy of
a Japhetic power. Numbers survived the terrible massacre and ruin. And numbers
still survive these and kindred calamities, and people the interior of that
mighty continent. Still the children of Ham dwell upon Afric’s burning sands;
but what curses follow them.
2. We pass on to notice the descendants of Shem and their privileged
connection with Jehovah. “Blessed be the Lord God of Shorn, and Canaan shall be
his servant.” As there is a special line of descent referred to in the tenth
chapter of Genesis, we shall confine our remarks to the prediction before us as
agreeing with certain facts in the history of the Jewish people. Now, the
prediction refers us not so much to their temporal importance, or to the extent
of their territory, as to certain moral and religious advantages. “Blessed be
the Lord God of Shem.” Some critics render it, “Blessed of Jehovah my God be
Shorn.” Following our oxen version, it amounts to the same; for “blessed is
that people whose God is the Lord.” But there is a difference in the form of
“cursing” and “blessing.” The prophetic patriarch says, “Cursed be Canaan,” for
all evil is from men themselves; and you will remember that the children of Ham
were first wicked and then wretched. But when he speaks of “blessing,” he
ascribes all the praise to that Being “from whom cometh every perfect gift.”
The holiness of Shem must be traced to the free grace of God. And had the
holiest Hebrew been dealt with according to his desert, he would have lost “the
blessing.” “Not unto them, O Lord, but unto Thy name be all the praise, for Thy
mercy and Thy truth salve.” The facts of Jewish history, which we think at
agreement with the prediction before us, are these. The knowledge of the true
religion, the knowledge of God, and covenant relationship to Jehovah as a
visible Church, were confined, from Noah to Christ, two thousand years, almost
entirely to the descendants of Shem, and especially to the Hebrews. It appears
that Eber was living, and bad two sons at the time the earth was divided (Genesis 10:25); and upon the supposition
that his name gave rise to that of the Hebrew language and people, it is likely
that by him and by his posterity the original Adamic and Noahic language
(supposing that the Hebrew) was preserved uncorrupt; that he was the follower
of Shem, his pious ancestor, and that from him proceeded that visible Church
which has remained in “the midst of a crooked and perverse generation” a
“witness” for Jehovah. The sacred historian having told us of “the children of
Eber,” informs us that “then was the earth divided,” and henceforward the
genealogy of Noah’s descendants is confined to the line of Shem. Reading on in
the eleventh chapter of Genesis, we arrive at the Abrahamic era; whence
Matthew, the New Testament historian, traces the ancestry of Messias. As a
pledge to Abram that his seed should possess the land of promise, and to
intimate their religious distinction, we find the patriarch leaving Ur,
entering Canaan, and there “building an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto
him.” It would be easy to show you how God entered into covenant with Abraham,
and renewed the same with the other ancestors of the Jewish people. How He at
length conducted their posterity out of Egypt, established a system of religion
amongst them, caused them to rear a tabernacle and then a temple for His
worship, sanctuaries consecrated by a visible and luminous cloud, the symbol
and token of His peculiar presence. How He raised up prophets for their
instruction, and how “the lively oracles” of His word were preserved amongst
them notwithstanding all their difficulties and dispersions. Brethren, compared
with this favoured nation, all the other nations were “without God.” “Darkness
covered the earth, and gross darkness the people.” Think of their religious
peculiarities; think of the unusual and miraculous interpositions of “the Most
High” so often made for their rescue and supply; think how subservient all the
vicissitudes of surrounding nations were made to their well-being; and say, Did
not Jehovah dwell in Zion, and was not her King in her? And then, when you
remember, “how oft they provoked the Most High, and lightly esteemed the rock
of their salvation,” will you not unite with Noah in the language of adoration,
the ascription of praise, “Blessed be the Lord God of Shem”! Nor is this all.
After the lapse of two thousand years, and “in the fulness of time, God sent
forth His Son as the spiritual Deliverer of a fallen world.” “God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.” “God was manifest in the flesh.”
But “to them is He sent first.” And do you ask His genealogy? He is “the Son of
David, the Seed of Abraham, the Descendant of Shem.” Yes; “of him, as
concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is God over all, and blessed forever.”
“Blessed be the God of Shorn, who remembered us in our low estate, for His
mercy endureth forever.” Let the seed of Abraham, on whose nature He took hold,
say so; for “His mercy endureth for over.”
3. It remains for us to notice the descendants of Japheth, and their
enlargement. The prediction concerning Japheth is, as his name imports,
“enlargement” or “persuasion.” Some expositors prefer the latter rendering.
Then it may be said to have been accomplished in the accession of the Gentiles
to the Church of God. It is an important fact, that Christianity has prevailed
chiefly in the countries of Japheth. Japheth “dwells in the tents of Shem.” Shem
laboured, and Japheth enters into his labours. But few of the descendants of
Ham or Shem have as yet professed the Christian faith in its purity, whilst
multitudes of Japheth’s posterity, in Asia, America, and Europe, “bless the God
of Shem,” and enjoy His former distinction. But as the word, when meaning “to
persuade,” usually has a bad sense; we incline to our version: “God shall
enlarge Japheth.” And we ask you if history is not at agreement with this
ancient prediction? Understand it as referring to multitude, territory, or
dominion, Japheth is enlarged. It appears that Ham had four sons, Shem had
five, and Japheth had seven. We cannot think of the Germanic and northern
nations, without associating the idea of multitude: the invasion of the barbarian
hordes! The northern hive has always been remarkable for its fecundity, sending
forth swarms to colonize the more southern parts both of Europe and Asia.
Consider the nations of Japhetic origin--Median, Grecian, Roman, Turkish, and
many others, and ask whether multitude, if that be the meaning of the
prediction, is not traceable in the history of Japheth’s posterity. We attach
importance to the ideas of territory and influence--dominion. Possibly, in the
early ages of the world, this prediction appeared obscure and its truth
doubtful. Ham and Shem put on strength, and the former was subjected to the
latter, when Canaan was gained for a possession. But where is Japheth? Where is
his enlarged territory or extended sway? I said it might have appeared obscure,
but, possibly, we have not well considered its meaning. God “shall enlarge.”
Then the early, as well as later, history may yet accord with the prediction.
It may, by subsequent enlargement, imply original straitness. God is “wonderful
in counsel, and excellent in working,” but we must sometimes “wait to see”!
Well, since “upon us the ends of the world are come,” let us now look abroad.
Where does Japheth dwell? Take the map in your hand, divide the hemisphere you
tenant pretty nearly equally north and south: the northern half is Japheth’s
home; yes, his alone. Then turn to the new world, the western hemisphere. The
Aborigines seem to be of Shemitic origin; but the civilized parts, the United
States, these acknowledge Japheth. I know not how to avoid anticipating the
closing part of my subject. These “tents of Shem” are the “dwellings of
Japheth,” and so are Australia and Canada and Newfoundland. Finally, the sacred
text intimates one direction of Japheth’s enlargement. “He shall dwell in the
tents of Shorn.”
Conclusion:--
1. From this subject we should learn to dread sin and to repose
implicit confidence in the Word of God. “It is a bitter thing to sin!” See it
in the history of nations, and let Britons not be high-minded, but fear.
2. And learn to trust in God’s Word. Look at these predictions.
Think when they were uttered and how they have been fulfilled; and dare you
think Moses an impostor, or can you suppose that Noah spake these words except
as “moved by the Holy Ghost”?
3. Let us seek the establishment of the kingdom of Christ. He alone
is fit to be “King over all the earth.” (B. S. Hollis.)
Blessed be the Lord God of
Shem
Lessons
1. God by His prophets speaks
good unto the pious, as well as evil to the wicked seed.
2. Noah and the prophets spake of some good to the Church, which
themselves saw not. As here to Shem’s seed.
3. Prophecies of good unto the Church are best given and received
with blessing unto God.
4. The promise of Jehovah’s being the God of His Church is the great
blessing (Psalms 144:15).
5. Jehovah is more peculiarly the God of some men than of others, as
here in Shem.
6. Where God is truly Lord of His people, all adversaries are made
servants to them.
7. The Church shall in its appointed seasons triumph in God, and all
enemies be laid under her foot. (G. Hughes, B. D.)
God shall enlarge Japheth.--
Lessons
1. God hath made known that
some in the Church to the last times shall divide from it.
2. All divisions from the Church are not irreconcileable.
3. God Almighty alone is the cause of making up the breaches of such
as divide from His Church.
4. Prophecy of good to any, as it is by promise, so it is brought
about by prayer.
5. Blessing of posterity in abundance may be to such as divide from
the Church.
6. Heart enlargement toward the ways of God in His promise and work.
7. Souls divided are only persuadable by God to have communion with
His Church.
8. God’s persuasion upon souls is effectual to bring them to the
Church’s tents.
9. The Gentiles’ succession of, and communion with the Jewish
Church, is foretold of God.
10. A tent habitation hath God allotted to His Church below.
11. The world’s palaces will be changed for the Church’s tents when
God works.
12. Subjection of all enemies is surely prophesied to them who join
with the Church of God. (G. Hughes, B. D.)
God shall enlarge Japheth
There is in the original a play upon the word Japheth, which
itself signifies “enlargement.” This enlargement is the most striking point in
the history of Japheth, who is the progenitor of the inhabitants of Europe,
Asia, and America, except the region between the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the
Mediterranean, the Euxine, the Caspian, and the mountains beyond the Tigris,
which was the main seat of the Shemites. This expansive power refers not only
to the territory and the multitude of the Japhethites, but also to their
intellectual and active faculties. The metaphysics of the Hindoos, the
philosophy of the Greeks, the military prowess of the Romans, and the modern
science and civilization of the world, are due to the race of Japheth. And
though the moral and the spiritual were first developed among the Shemites, yet
the Japhethites have proved themselves capable of rising to the heights of
these lofty themes, and have elaborated that noble form of human speech which
was adopted, in the providence of God, as best fitted to convey to mankind that
farther development of Old Testament truth which is furnished in the New. (Prof.
J. G. Murphy.)
And he shall dwell, in the tents of Shem
We regard Japheth as the subject of this sentence; because, if God
were its subject, the meaning would be substantially the same as that of the
blessing of Shem, already given, and because this would intermingle the
blessing of Shem with that of Japheth, without any important addition to our
information. Whereas, when Japheth is the subject of the sentence, we learn
that he shall dwell in the tents of Ahem, an altogether new proposition. This
form of expression does not indicate a direct invasion and conquest of the land
of Shem, which would not be in keeping with the blessing pronounced on him in
the previous sentence. It rather implies that this dwelling together would be a
benefit to Japheth, and no injury to Shorn. Accordingly we find that, when the
Persians conquered the Babylonian empire, they restored the Jews to their
native land. When Alexander the Great conquered the Persians, he gave
protection to the Jews. And when the Romans subdued the Greek monarchy, they
befriended the chosen nation, and allowed them a large measure of
self-government. In their time came the Messiah, and instituted that new form
of the Church of the Old Testament, which not only retained the best part of
the ancient people of God, but extended itself over the whole of Europe, the
chief seat of Japheth; went with him wherever he went, and is at this day,
through God’s blessing, penetrating into the moral darkness of Ham as well as
the remainder of Shem and Japheth himself. (Prof. J. G. Murphy.)
And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he
died
The years of Noah: their solemn lessons
Here is a brief record of a noble life.
There is little besides the simple numeration of years--merely a reference to
the great event of Noah’s history, and his falling at length under the common
fate of all the race. This record, short as it is, teaches us some important lessons.
I. THE SLOW
MOVEMENTS OF DIVINE JUSTICE. Before the flood the wickedness of man had grown
so great that God threatened to cut short his appointed time upon the earth.
His days were to be contracted to one hundred and twenty years--a terrible reduction
of the energy of human life when man lived nearly one thousand years (Genesis 6:3). But, from the instance of
Noah, we find that this threat was not executed at once. Divine justice is
stern and keen, but it is slow to punish.
II. THE ENERGY OF
THE DIVINE BLESSING. God blessed man at the first, and endowed him with
abundant measures of the spirit of life. Even when human iniquity required to
be checked and punished by the curtailing of this sift, the energy of the old
blessing suffered little abatement. God causes the power of that blessing still
to linger among mankind. The hand of Divine goodness slackens but slowly in the
bestowal of gifts to man. How often are the favours of Providence long
continued to doomed nations and men! Underlying all God’s dealings with men
there is the strong power of redemption, which is the life of every blessing.
That power will yet overcome the world’s evil and subdue all things.
III. GOD’S PROVISION
FOR THE EDUCATION OF THE RACE. When men depended entirely upon verbal
instruction, and teachers were few, the long duration of human life contributed
to the preservation and the extending of knowledge. But as the education of the
world advanced, new sources of knowledge were opened and teachers multiplied,
the necessity for long life in the instructors of mankind grew less. The
provisions of God are wonderfully adjusted to human necessity.
IV. AN
ENCOURAGEMENT TO PATIENT ENDURANCE. Here is one who bore the cross for the long
space of nine hundred and fifty years. What a discipline in suffering as well
as in doing the will of God! Time is the chief component among the forces that
try patience, for patience is rather borne away by long trials than overwhelmed
by the rolling wave. If tempted to murmur in affliction, or at our protracted
contest with temptation and sin, let us think of those who have endured longer
than we. (T. H. Leale.)
Noah’s life and death
1. He lived accepted of God, promoted by Him, testifying against
sin, preaching righteousness, giving laws from God to the generation wherein he
was; and sometimes slipping into sin, and falling into bitter afflictions.
2. He died a death beseeming such a man; he died a saint, a
believer, a glorious instrument in Christ’s Church, and so died in hope when by
faith he had seen the promises. (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Review of the Chapter
I. GOD IS ALWAYS
FAITHFUL to His promises, and mindful of those who trust in Him.
II. THE GOODNESS
AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD are further seen in His care for all His creatures, and
in the steadfast order of nature. (Genesis 8:1-22; Genesis 9:9-10.)
III. NOAH’S SIN is
a most solemn warning. (1 Corinthians 10:12; Ephesians 5:18; 1 Peter 5:8.) It is a sad
finish to the history of so eminent a saint; an ominous beginning to the
history of a new world. The first recorded sin after the Fall was a sin of
violence; the first recorded sin after the flood was a sin of self-indulgence
and sensuality. It is hard to say which of these two classes of sin has been,
and is, the greatest curse to mankind. (The Congregational Pulpit.)
Lessons
1. Chronology is given by God’s Spirit. Special uses of it are in
the Church.
2. Times and conditions of His Church God would have us know.
3. In the greatest desolations God hath raised some for His
Church’s good.
4. God extends the life of His saints as He bath use of them (Genesis 9:28).
5. The longest life of saints wades through various conditions (Genesis 9:29).
6. The longest living saint must die, yet like a saint, not fall as
the wicked. (G. Hughes, B. D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》