In the Beginning: A Study in Genesis 1-14Sýnishorn

How Does God Build Relationships?

Throughout the Old Testament, covenant love is referred to in various terms, but the main one is khesed. The word khesed in essence summarizes the entire history of God’s covenantal relationship with Israel. Khesed is God’s lovingkindness – the consistent, ever-faithful, relentless, constantly pursuing, lavish, extravagant, unrestrained, one-way love of God. It is often translated as covenant love, lovingkindness, mercy, steadfast love, loyal love, devotion, commitment, or reliability. However, khesed has a much narrower definition than the English term love conveys. Khesed refers to a sort of love that has been promised and is owed—covenant love—as in Hosea 11:1: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”

Covenant love is the love God promised to His people, and which they, in turn, were to respond in kind, loving God with all their hearts, minds, and strength. Khesed does not suggest some kind of generic love of everyone, but rather a fiercely devoted unique loving loyalty. Perhaps the children’s Jesus Storybook Bible says it best: “God loves us with a never-stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love.”

In Genesis 9, God’s covenant relationship with his people through Noah is often referred to as the Noahic Covenant. After the flood receded the land appeared out of the water like the days of creation for Adam. In this way, the account of Noah in many ways echoes the account of Adam with a sort of new creation and new humanity and new fall. The connections between Adam and Noah are many, including:

+ both Adam and Noah are the fathers of all humanity that descend from them

+ both worlds are brought forth out of a watery chaos

+ both men are said to bear the “image of God”

+ both men “walked with God”

+ both men ruled over the animals

+ both men are given the cultural mandate to increase in number and rule the earth

+ both men work the ground

+ both men sin against God

+ both men experience shameful nakedness following their sin and had their nakedness covered

+ both have three named sons

+ both men were in covenant with God (Adam’s covenant is found in Hosea 6:7)

God entered a covenant with Noah in Genesis 9:1-17 that was intended for all people of the earth. God promised that He would never again send a cataclysmic flood and that the seasons would continue by God’s provision. In this covenant we see that God’s answer to human sin would be a covenant of grace, beginning with Noah. The sign of the covenant was the rainbow to remind God’s people of His promise to never flood the earth again and may have been a reminder of an ancient warrior who hung up his bow after a war as a sign of peace. Through the covenant God would restore His intentions to bless people as they are commanded to be fruitful and multiply (1:28, 5:2, 9:1).

The terms of the covenant for human beings include respect for the sanctity of human life, and the freedom to eat animals as at this point in history meat was added to the human diet. These commands further build upon teaching in Genesis 1 that while animal life is to be treated kindly it is inferior to human life which alone bears God’s image. The effect of the covenant is the renewal of God’s intentions in creation by distinguishing between those people, like Noah, in covenant with God from those who are not.

In Genesis 9:18-28 Noah gets drunk and passes out naked in his tent—a sort of second fall, with God starting over with Noah who, like Adam, sinned. The point is simply that sin remains the human problem for everyone, even after the flood which sets the stage for Jesus Christ coming down to save sinners.

Genesis 9:25-27 contains Noah’s declaration of cursing and blessing directed toward his sons and picks up the genealogy from 5:32 as Noah dies and the human race again begins to grow and expand though it is still sinful and in need of God who is a better Father than Noah, with a Son who is greater than Noah’s sons.

Question:

How have you seen God be faithful to your family, despite sin and folly like he was to Noah and his family?