Podcast Introduction

Our reading today is Genesis 8-11. After that I’ll have some comments. Then we’ll do our “On This Day In Church History” segment.

Thoughts on Genesis 8-11: After the Flood

Genesis 8

Noah, his family and all the creatures were on the ark for about a year before the earth was ready for them to come out. When the time was right, God told Noah to go out of the ark and take his family and all the creatures with him, so that they would be able to repopulate the earth.

The first thing Noah did was worship God through sacrifice. He knew that God had delivered him, and that he owed God everything. He owed a debt he could never repay, and in this sacrifice he demonstrated his devotion and desire to please God. Noah had brought just seven each of the clean animals and clean birds on the ark, and to sacrifice any of them was very costly, but a sacrifice that is cheap is no sacrifice at all.

God was pleased with the sacrifice and He said to Himself that He would never curse the earth on account of man’s sin again, nor kill every living thing in this manner again. 

After the flood, the water canopy that had been above the earth was gone. This caused a completely different ecosystem to emerge. Before, temperatures were moderated year around by the canopy. After, the earth experienced seasons. Verse 22: While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.

Notice also that, as I mentioned in my remarks on previous chapters, with the water canopy now gone, lifespans quickly decreased. 

Genesis 9

God told Noah and his sons to multiply and fill the earth, as He had told Adam and Eve. And God told them that they were now allowed to eat animals. This could be that because the environment was so different that food from plants would not be as plentiful as it had been before the flood. But because they were now prey, God put the fear of man into the animals. 

It is in this chapter that we first read of the importance of blood. Blood represents life. When blood flows out of a living being, so does its life. And because man is made in God’s image, when a person’s blood is shed there must be an accounting. It is in this chapter that God allows capital punishment for murder. 

And then God made a covenant, a promise, to Noah and his family, and to every living thing on the earth, that he would never again bring a flood like this again to the earth. And to mark this covenant, God made the rainbow. (Note that during the pre-flood era, with the water canopy, rainbows were probably never seen because the sun’s light was diffused because of the cloud cover.) It would be a constant reminder, whenever it is seen, of this covenant.

Then we have the Bible’s first mention of drunkenness. Over indulgence in alcohol is always condemned in the Bible. Proverbs 20:1, “Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.” Proverbs 23:29-33, “29Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes? 30Those who linger over wine, who go to sample bowls of mixed wine. 31Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly! 32In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper. 33Your eyes will see strange sights, and your mind will imagine confusing things.”

In Noah’s case, his drunkenness allowed him to be in a compromising situation. The language used, that of being uncovered, could be referring to sexual relations. So some scholars think that Noah may have abused by one of his relatives. Or it might only be that when Ham saw his father, he mocked him, which would have been extremely disrespectful of Noah as a man of God. 

The language in verse 24 implies that it was more than mere mockery, however. “When Noah awoke from his drinking and learned what his youngest son had done to him…”. And this could be the reason for the severity of the curse. Why did Noah curse Canaan, Ham’s son, when it was Ham that saw his father’s nakedness? Perhaps because Canaan was involved in some way. Perhaps because to have a glimpse of Canaan’s future would be an even stronger punishment for Ham.

Chapter 10

We don’t have time on this podcast to detail the descendants of Noah and his sons, but this chapter very clearly explains how the nations of the world were populated from Noah. I’ll give you just a tease:

One of Noah’s sons was Japheth. Japheth’s sons were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal and Meshech.

Japheth was the ancestor of the indo-european people. These are those who speak the languages of the greater part of Europe and Asia as far as northern India. 

Japheth’s son Gomer was the father of the Germanic people who populated most of Western Europe, including the original Spanish, French and Celts.

Magog, Tubal and Meshech inhabited Europe’s far north. They became the Russian people.

Madai was the father of the Medes in what is now Iran and Iraq, and some of his descendants populated India.

And Javan’s son Javan was the ancestor of the ancient Greeks.

Linguists, those who study languages, confirm the connections between many of the languages that are spoken by the descendants of each of these branches of Noah’s sons. It’s really a fascinating study.

Chapter 11

In chapter nine, God told Noah and his sons to multiply and populate the earth. Here in chapter 11, we see that Noah’s descendants, in rebellion to this command, settled in just one geographic area called Shinar, also known as Babylon. They said, “Now let’s build a city with a tower that reaches the sky, so that we can make a name for ourselves and not be scattered all over the earth.” 

Did you notice the mortar they used when they built the tower? They used tar, also called asphalt in some translations. The construction of the tower was built to be waterproof, showing their distrust of God’s promise to never flood the earth again. 

So the people were rebellious and distrustful of God.

The tower they built was seen by and written about by the ancient Greek historian, Herodutus, in about 450 BC. 

Verse 6: 6The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” God knew the evil nature of mankind. How evil can man be? Think of the many atrocities just in recent history. The murder of millions by the Nazis. Millions more by Stalin. And even more by Mao. Sources vary, but some say 6-11 million Jews, 25 million Russians and 85 million Chinese. 

Do I dare mention the current worldwide so-called pandemic? What will history record? I shudder to think.

Do you think God was threatened by what He saw happening in ancient Babylon? Is that why He scattered them? Hardly. God scattered the people to put a control, a deceleration on the evil he saw them capable of. 

Commentator David Guzik wrote: The whole account of what happened at Babel with its anti-God dictator (Nimrod), its organized rebellion against God, and its direct distrust of God’s promise shows man hasn’t gotten any better since the flood. Time, progress, government, and organization have made man better off, but not better. 

Once the people were scattered, attention returns to one of Noah’s descendants, Shem. Through his line comes Abram, who God renamed Abraham. Genesis covers more than 2000 years of history, and nearly a third of it is about Abram. Of course, Jesus is from Abraham’s line. 

We will spend much of our time this year reading and learning much more about Abraham.

Today’s Bible Translation

Bible translation used in today’s episode: Ch. 5-6 GNT

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