Genesis 8:20-9:17 English Standard Version (ESV) Listen: https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/esv/Gen.8.20-Gen.9.17 God's Covenant with Noah 8:20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. 6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. 7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.” 8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” I've mentioned the word "covenant" a few times now, but since it's the main idea of today's text, I'd like to stop and make sure that I define that term. It's a word still used today in legal circles and means, "a usually formal, solemn, and binding agreement," or "a written agreement or promise usually under seal between two or more parties especially for the performance of some action," or "the common-law action to recover damages for breach of such a contract." In the case of today's text well mostly mean the first definition. More specifically, there are two general types of covenants, conditional and unconditional. Most of the covenants we see between men are conditional covenants that have terms and conditions on each party and penalties that each must pay if they break the covenant and stipulations for when the covenant is considered broken and the other party no longer is bound by the covenant. This is what we're used to in law, but that is not what is going on here. This covenant is between God and man, but God is making and unconditional covenant with man. God swears by His name and His character and says that He alone can and will do this, no matter how unfaithful man becomes. Something else that is important about biblical covenants is that there was usually a sign of the covenant given--something physical to look at and remember the promise that had been made and when you saw that sign of the covenant you were reminded that God's promises were still in effect. Though, in this case, God says that the sign of the covenant is there for Him to remember His covenant with man. Even though we look at the rainbow and remember God's covenant with us, God says that He put it there as a reminder to Himself of this covenant. With all that said, let's see what the details of this covenant are exactly. Notice that the covenant starts with sacrifice and worship. It is this sacrifice that is the propitiation or satisfaction of God's wrath (that will be an important theological word later when we study the book of Romans and some of the other Epistles). Then God laid out the terms of the covenant. Notice that God only lays out conditions on Himself and that these terms seem to be valid until the earth no longer exists, and we can look to the passage of day and night, the passing from one season to another and the changes in temperature and the planting and gathering of crops all as symbols that God has remembered His covenant with Noah and all mankind. It's not quite right to call this an everlasting covenant because there will be a day when there will be an end to the earth and when judgment will once again come, but God swears that even then it will not come in the same form. He will never again flood the entire earth with water. We know from our earlier studies of the Epistles (specifically those of Peter) that this coming judgement will be one of fire, not water. There's then a portion where God speaks to Noah and the animals and tells them what they are to do during this time. While these are commandments they are to obey and there can and will be some punishment for them disobeying these rules, there is nothing stated that says that anything they do will break the covenant and allow God to go back on what He's said. He's sworn by His name and character which are unchanging. So what is required of us now? First to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." This is the exact command that was given to both man and animals in Genesis 1. God is in a way saying that He is starting fresh here. There are some new things though that God says. He says that animals will now be afraid of man--I believe this has to do with them being "wild" and not easy to "tame" or "domesticate." Some animals seem to be impossible to domesticate and the time where man could peacefully coexist with the animals seems to be over. Next, God changes the rules about what man is allowed to eat. Up until this point, man was commanded to only eat what was produced by seed-bearing plants. Now God says that He has given them every living thing for food with the stipulation that they do not eat or drink of the blood because life is in the blood--this is again going to be an important theological concept later. This is the covenant that all men and all nations are under though God would give His people, the children of Israel, additional dietary codes to identify them as a separate and holy people unto Him and to further protect them from disease and sickness. Those rules do not apply to the people that we would call the Gentiles who have only ever had the Noahic covenant. We then see a special condition put on the life of other humans. If anyone, even an animal, kills a man, that animal or man that is guilty of taking that innocent human life must be put to death. Life for life. God makes it known that man is special and while man may kill animals for food, the order of creation is never to be reversed where animals eat men and that the punishment for them doing so is death. Man is to be feared by all the animals because He is made in the image of God and is God's representative to have dominion on this earth, and that fear should come with a fear of death. In case there was any doubt as to what the rule was or why it was in place, God gives it again in a simple poetic form that they could easily repeat to themselves and each other: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.” There are the two commands that God gives man as part of this covenant. Pretty simple, right? Don't kill other humans and put to death those who do so (capital punishment), and be fruitful and multiply.
Now it is time for the sign of the covenant that I mentioned earlier, but before that, God will repeat the terms and conditions of the covenant and who the parties are that are part of the covenant agreement, "“9 Behold, I establish my covenant with you [Noah and his sons] and your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” Then God establishes the rainbow as the sign of this covenant (oh how that symbol has been twisted by man and the devil to mean something else), "“This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” Notice that there is nothing in there about man needing to remember the covenant and do anything. The responsibility for keeping this covenant is all on God, no matter if man keeps the commandments or not. God has said that He knows the heart of man is wicked and will always be sinful and that the earth will never be judged in this way again for the actions of mankind (until the end of the earth and the end of time). Then God repeated, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” That's it. We had a simpler version of a covenant that God made with Adam early on that we didn't really study as such. Covenants are a big part of studying and understanding the Old Testament as We see that each and every time, God reveals a little bit more about Himself and lays and even heavier burden on Himself each time, but we also learn more about what God wants from us each and every time as well. So far we understand from the first two covenants that we've seen in the Bible that man is made in God's image and that he is to have dominion over all creation and was to serve as both "king" and "priest" to rule over creation and to "keep"/"protect" it and that man failed at the one commandment that he was supposed to keep--to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and that through that sin and death entered the world and cursed all living things and even the very ground of the earth. God then judged the earth as man's wickedness grew, but God remembered His promise of a coming Savior and saved a remnant--Noah and his family--along with enough animals to repopulate the earth and put them sealed them inside His ark (we'll learn in the New Testament that this is a picture of being in Christ and the salvation that God will provide from His wrath and judgment). Then God has made a covenant with man that seems to restore much of how things were at creation with a few exceptions. Man and animals will no longer be at peace with one another and man will kill animals for food and if animals kill man or man kills man, the one who takes human life shall pay with its/his life. We are also told that life is in the blood and not to eat or drink blood, and we are told be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth. God gives the sign of the rainbow to remind Himself to never again flood the entire earth and kill every living thing because of the sin of man, though there will come a day when it is time for the earth and all of creation. We'll study more about that later in "the day of the LORD." Aren't you glad we serve a God who is "Faithful and True" and whose every promise is "Yes and Amen"? Isn't it great that when God says it, it's a sure thing? Also, isn't it great that God continues to be faithful even when we are not faithful? Oh what kind of trouble we'd be in if there were requirements put on us in order for God to be required to keep His covenant with us. Now that we've studied this covenant in detail, what similarities do you see at the Last Supper (the Lord's Supper) and the "New Covenant"? Who are the parties involved? What are the commandments given? Is it conditional or unconditional? What is the sign of the covenant? Is there and expiration date on the covenant? Share your answers with me in the comments or in our Discord group (link on the blog's website).
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Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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