10 And with every living thing with you, all birds and cattle and every beast of the earth which comes out of the ark with you.
And I will keep in mind the agreement between me and you and every living thing; and never again will there be a great flow of waters causing destruction to all flesh. And the bow will be in the cloud, and looking on it, I will keep in mind the eternal agreement between God and every living thing on the earth.
And the Lord made answer to Job out of the storm-wind, and said, Who is this who makes the purpose of God dark by words without knowledge? Get your strength together like a man of war; I will put questions to you, and you will give me the answers. Where were you when I put the earth on its base? Say, if you have knowledge. By whom were its measures fixed? Say, if you have wisdom; or by whom was the line stretched out over it? On what were its pillars based, or who put down its angle-stone, When the morning stars made songs together, and all the sons of the gods gave cries of joy? Or where were you when the sea came to birth, pushing out from its secret place; When I made the cloud its robe, and put thick clouds as bands round it, Ordering a fixed limit for it, with locks and doors; And said, So far you may come, and no farther; and here the pride of your waves will be stopped? Have you, from your earliest days, given orders to the morning, or made the dawn conscious of its place; So that it might take a grip of the skirts of the earth, shaking all the evil-doers out of it? It is changed like wet earth under a stamp, and is coloured like a robe; And from the evil-doers their light is kept back, and the arm of pride is broken. Have you come into the springs of the sea, walking in the secret places of the deep? Have the doors of death been open to you, or have the door-keepers of the dark ever seen you? Have you taken note of the wide limits of the earth? Say, if you have knowledge of it all. Which is the way to the resting-place of the light, and where is the store-house of the dark; So that you might take it to its limit, guiding it to its house? No doubt you have knowledge of it, for then you had come to birth, and the number of your days is great. Have you come into the secret place of snow, or have you seen the store-houses of the ice-drops, Which I have kept for the time of trouble, for the day of war and fighting? Which is the way to the place where the wind is measured out, and the east wind sent out over the earth? By whom has the way been cut for the flowing of the rain, and the flaming of the thunder; Causing rain to come on a land where no man is living, on the waste land which has no people; To give water to the land where there is waste and destruction, and to make the dry land green with young grass? Has the rain a father? or who gave birth to the drops of night mist? Out of whose body came the ice? and who gave birth to the cold mist of heaven? The waters are joined together, hard as a stone, and the face of the deep is covered. Are the bands of the Pleiades fixed by you, or are the cords of Orion made loose? Do you make Mazzaroth come out in its right time, or are the Bear and its children guided by you? Have you knowledge of the laws of the heavens? did you give them rule over the earth? Is your voice sent up to the cloud, so that you may be covered by the weight of waters? Do you send out the thunder-flames, so that they may go, and say to you, Here we are? Who has put wisdom in the high clouds, or given knowledge to the lights of the north? By whose wisdom are the clouds numbered, or the water-skins of the heavens turned to the earth, When the earth becomes hard as metal, and is joined together in masses?
He is so cruel that no one is ready to go against him. Who then is able to keep his place before me? Who ever went against me, and got the better of me? There is no one under heaven! I will not keep quiet about the parts of his body, or about his power, and the strength of his frame. Who has ever taken off his outer skin? who may come inside his inner coat of iron? Who has made open the doors of his face? Fear is round about his teeth. His back is made of lines of plates, joined tight together, one against the other, like a stamp. One is so near to the other that no air may come between them. They take a grip of one another; they are joined together, so that they may not be parted. His sneezings give out flames, and his eyes are like the eyes of the dawn. Out of his mouth go burning lights, and flames of fire are jumping up. Smoke comes out of his nose, like a pot boiling on the fire. His breath puts fire to coals, and a flame goes out of his mouth. Strength is in his neck, and fear goes dancing before him. The plates of his flesh are joined together, fixed, and not to be moved. His heart is as strong as a stone, hard as the lower crushing-stone. When he gets ready for the fight, the strong are overcome with fear. The sword may come near him but is not able to go through him; the spear, or the arrow, or the sharp-pointed iron. Iron is to him as dry grass, and brass as soft wood. The arrow is not able to put him to flight: stones are no more to him than dry stems. A thick stick is no better than a leaf of grass, and he makes sport of the onrush of the spear. Under him are sharp edges of broken pots: as if he was pulling a grain-crushing instrument over the wet earth. The deep is boiling like a pot of spices, and the sea like a perfume-vessel. After him his way is shining, so that the deep seems white. On earth there is not another like him, who is made without fear. Everything which is high goes in fear of him; he is king over all the sons of pride.
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Commentary on Genesis 9 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 9
Ge 9:1-7. Covenant.
1. And God blessed Noah—Here is republished the law of nature that was announced to Adam, consisting as it originally did of several parts.
Be fruitful, &c.—The first part relates to the transmission of life, the original blessing being reannounced in the very same words in which it had been promised at first [Ge 1:28].
2. And the fear of you and the dread of you—The second part re-establishes man's dominion over the inferior animals; it was now founded not as at first in love and kindness, but in terror; this dread of man prevails among all the stronger as well as the weaker members of the animal tribes and keeps away from his haunts all but those employed in his service.
3. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you—The third part concerns the means of sustaining life; man was for the first time, it would seem, allowed the use of animal food, but the grant was accompanied with one restriction.
4. But flesh … the blood … shall ye not eat—The sole intention of this prohibition was to prevent these excesses of cannibal ferocity in eating flesh of living animals, to which men in the earlier ages of the world were liable.
5. surely your blood of your lives will I require—The fourth part establishes a new power for protecting life—the institution of the civil magistrate (Ro 13:4), armed with public and official authority to repress the commission of violence and crime. Such a power had not previously existed in patriarchal society.
6. Whoso sheddeth man's blood … for in the image of God made he man—It is true that image has been injured by the fall, but it is not lost. In this view, a high value is attached to the life of every man, even the poorest and humblest, and an awful criminality is involved in the destruction of it.
Ge 9:8-29. Rainbow.
13. I do set my bow in the cloud—set, that is, constitute or appoint. This common and familiar phenomenon being made the pledge of peace, its appearance when showers began to fall would be welcomed with the liveliest feelings of joy.
20. And Noah … planted a vineyard—Noah had been probably bred to the culture of the soil, and resumed that employment on leaving the ark.
21. And he drank of the wine, and was drunken—perhaps at the festivities of the vintage season. This solitary stain on the character of so eminently pious a man must, it is believed, have been the result of age or inadvertency.
24. This incident could scarcely have happened till twenty years after the flood; for Canaan, whose conduct was more offensive than that even of his father, was not born till after that event. It is probable that there is a long interval included between these verses and that this prophecy, like that of Jacob on his sons, was not uttered till near the close of Noah's life when the prophetic spirit came upon him; this presumption is strengthened by the mention of his death immediately after.
25. Cursed be Canaan—This doom has been fulfilled in the destruction of the Canaanites—in the degradation of Egypt and the slavery of the Africans, the descendants of Ham.
26. Blessed be the Lord God of Shem—rather, "Blessed of Jehovah, my God, be Shem,"—an intimation that the descendants of Shem should be peculiarly honored in the service of the true God, His Church being for ages established among them (the Jews), and of them, concerning the flesh, Christ came. They got possession of Canaan, the people of that land being made their "servants" either by conquest, or, like the Gibeonites, by submission [Jos 9:25].
27. God shall enlarge Japheth—pointing to a vast increase in posterity and possessions. Accordingly his descendants have been the most active and enterprising, spread over the best and largest portion of the world, all Europe and a considerable part of Asia.
he shall dwell in the tents of Shem—a prophecy being fulfilled at the present day, as in India British Government is established and the Anglo-Saxons being in the ascendancy from Europe to India, from India over the American continent. What a wonderful prophecy in a few verses (Isa 46:10; 1Pe 1:25)!