Genesis 9
God’s Covenant with Noah

Genesis 9

Covenant of the Rainbow

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 terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given. 3 “Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant. 4 “Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 “Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man. 6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man. 7 “As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.”

8 Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, 9 “Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you; 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth. 11 “I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; 13 I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. 14 “It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, 15 and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 “When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

18 Now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth; and Ham was the father of Canaan. 19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.

20 Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard. 21 He drank of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. 23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24 When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. 25 So he said, “Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brothers.” 26 He also said, “Blessed be the LORD, The God of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant. 27 “May God enlarge Japheth, And let him dwell in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant.”

28 Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood. 29 So all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, and he died.

Unpacking Genesis 9

People have all kinds of views about God, but how many think of God as someone who makes promises to sinful people? Probably not many. Yet He does. We’ll see this truth in our study of Genesis 9, where God lays out His covenant with Noah.

Genesis 9 picks up halfway through the covenant ceremony that began at the end of Genesis 8. Noah and his family had been drifting on the open seas for about a year before finally getting off the ark. Noah then built an altar to the Lord and began to worship Him. The Lord was pleased with Noah’s sacrifice, and He began to unfold this glorious covenant starting back in Genesis 8:21.

In Genesis 8:21, the Lord promised to never again “curse” the ground on account of man. We explained that this did not remove the “curse” that was given in Genesis 3. Rather, the Lord promised never again to regard creation so lightly that He would pour out His judgment upon it while He poured His judgment upon mankind.

The Lord also promised in Genesis 8:21 that He would never again destroy every living thing as He had done. This was an inherent promise of mercy because He also said in verse 21, “the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” The problem of sin remains fundamentally the same. The heart of mankind is bent toward sin. That is why we need a new heart that comes by means of the New Birth[1] as the Holy Spirit indwells us.

This brings us to chapter 9 and today’s study.

Chapter 9 starts midway through God's wonderful promises to Noah. In verse 1, the Lord blesses Noah and says to him, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” This should remind us of God’s instructions to Adam and Eve back in Genesis 1:28. Just like with Adam and Eve, the Lord desires blessings and happiness, and joy for man. He wants Noah to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. This command is also a blessing to us as we obey it.

In these blessings, the Lord gives mankind dominion over the earth in Genesis 9:2-3. He says, “The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given. Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you”.

God has given us this world to enjoy; however, our enjoyment must be for righteous pursuits. He tells Noah in verse 4, “Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.” This command teaches the value of life since “the life of all flesh is in its blood” (Leviticus 17:14).

Leviticus 17:11 tells us that God has given blood as a means of atonement. That means certain kinds of lifeblood can “cover” another life. The Old Covenant regulations taught the believers which sacrifices could be used for atonement. Those specific regulations pointed to the eternal covering only available to us in Christ’s blood. Therefore, life and blood are sacred, and we ought not to be like the godless religions of the world that devised wicked uses for blood.

You might be aware that this regulation not to eat blood was also repeated in Acts 15:20 during the event known as the Jerusalem Council. In the passage in Acts 15, the Jerusalem Counsel instructed the new Gentile believers not to eat animal blood. The fact that the early church upheld this instruction not to eat blood may cause us to wonder, does this mean we should not eat blood today?

That depends. The Jerusalem Council was calling these early Christians to not needlessly engage in activities that would offend the Jews and thus discredit the Gospel. The Gospel began with Jews and spread out to the Gentiles, not the other way around. However, the Gospel was still intended to reach the Jews too! If observant Jews saw that the Gospel produced a haughty disregard for God’s Word, they’d rightly reject it. Therefore, the Gentile believers could not override the Jewish practices with worldly practices.

Going back to Genesis 9, people are to respect life, especially human life, because we are made in the image of God. The Lord explains this clearly in verses 5 and 6, saying, “Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.” Human life has a holiness that is elevated above the rest of life because we are made in God’s image. God is so serious about this that He instituted the ultimate penalty for murder: death. A person who murders another person is to be removed from society through death. Thus, verse 6 institutes capital punishment for capital crimes. Likewise, since there is now such a thing as capital punishment, there must also be governments to carry it out.

This brings us to a key aspect of life in this new world. Genesis 9 establishes God’s rule through “government.” Up till now, God’s rule was through direct command and conscience. Yet, time and again, mankind has proven to be unwilling to obey God under those terms. Thus, those people were literally washed off the face of the earth.

So, here in Genesis 9, God creates a mediatorial rule through government. This mediatorial rule through government will continue into the Messianic Kingdom, where, one day, the Messiah will rule with a holy and perfect government. Yet, even that government will eventually be replaced by the “New Heaven and Earth” (Revelation 21, 1st Corinthians 15:24), where once again, God’s rule will be directly upon the individual.

We will see this principle unfold in future studies. For now, we need to see that in Genesis 9, the Lord gives Noah a set of instructions and promises called “The Noahic Covenant” (God’s covenant with Noah). This is the second of the six major covenants in scripture. The other major covenants are the Adamic (Genesis 3), Abrahamic (Genesis 15), Mosaic (Exodus 19-24), Davidic (2nd Samuel 7), and New Covenant (Jeremiah 31).

A covenant is a binding agreement between two people through promises they make to one another. Here we see that only God makes these promises. Specifically, He promises not to curse the land or destroy everyone in another flood. He put a rainbow in the sky as a reminder of this promise for everyone worldwide. This is a covenant for all mankind.

But do you know what you can also see around the world? Sin.

So, this covenant highlights a dilemma: If all sin deserves the kind of judgment we see in the flood, how can God still be “just” if He does not impose judgment on sin? God’s standards have not changed. His judgment has not changed. Then, how can He be merciful to anyone, ever?

Before we answer that question, we need to recognize that God is not promising that He won’t judge sin. He’s promising that He won’t destroy the world with a flood again. This promise is an inherent offer of mercy. To give mercy means to withhold punishment that is due. The only way God can be merciful to anyone is because of the cross. God has judged our sins, and on the cross, Jesus took the punishment for the sins of His people. Colossians 1:19-20 says, “For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”

This means that there are people who deserve God’s wrath but will never experience it because God has already poured out the wrath they deserved on Jesus while He was on the cross. Just as the heavens will no longer pour out the waters of the flood, some people will never experience God’s wrath because it has already been poured out upon His Son.

Before we finish our study in Genesis 9, let’s briefly examine verses 20-29. This unsettling passage might seem like a random event, but it reminds us of the intricacies of the unfolding of God’s plan. These verses introduce us to a people group known as “Semites.” Semites are descendants of Shem.

In verse 18, Noah has three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. It says, “Ham was the father of Canaan.” That’s important because later, the Jews will enter the Land of Canaan and take possession of it from the Canaanites. This passage gives us a window into some of the reasons why they were under God’s judgment.

In verse 20, Noah plants a vineyard. He made wine and became drunk in verse 21. In verse 22, his son Ham sees his nakedness and goes and gets his brothers to look. They are embarrassed for their father and cover him with a garment. Noah later wakes up. He knows what Ham did and pronounces a curse upon Ham’s descendants through the line of Canaan (verse 25).

Later, in Leviticus 18:7, the Lord forbids uncovering a parent's nakedness. Likewise, Leviticus 18:24 links this kind of sin with the ways of the nations, the descendants of Ham. Thus, this kind of behavior is not the way of Shem’s descendants. That’s an important distinction because Abraham and his descendants are Semites who came from the line of Shem. For the most part, the rest of our study in the Old Testament will look at the accounts of these descendants of Shem.

We have reached the end of our study of Noah, the flood, and the covenant God made with Noah and all mankind. This covenant establishes God’s promise not to destroy the entire world with a flood. It also establishes the holiness of man’s life and calls us to respect life and establish governments with authority to carry out justice.

This covenant is not a promise that God won’t judge the world. He will. Hebrews 9:27 says, “it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment.” Likewise, 2 Corinthians 5:10 says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” Therefore, we all need to recognize that the only way to survive even a single moment of God’s righteous inspection of our life is to be covered with the righteous life of Christ.

Let us call upon the Lord for forgiveness and reconciliation through Christ and Christ alone. Likewise, let us celebrate our atonement in Christ, that we will be eternally spared from all heavenly condemnation (Romans 8:1).

Study and Discussion Questions

Listening to the Key Chapters Podcast on this chapter provides further insights into the following questions.

1. Circle every occurrence of the word “covenant” in Genesis 9:1-17. How many times does this word occur? What are the specific stipulations of this covenant?

2. In verse 1, what command did God give to Noah? How was this similar to the command He gave to Adam and Eve? What is the purpose of this command?

3. In verses 2 and 3, what dominion did the Lord give Noah? What are the implications of this in our lives today?

4. Why did God command Noah not to eat an animal’s blood in verse 4? What were some of the reasons for this command suggested in the study? How does this command relate to the early church’s practices in Acts 15:21?

5. What are God’s commands regarding humanity in Genesis 9:5 and 6? Why is life uniquely precious? How is this command different from the cavalier attitudes about life represented by Lamech back in Genesis 4:23?

6. The study mentions that Genesis 9 records the institution of God’s mediatorial rule through government. How is the government pictured in verses 5-6?

7. What kind of promise did God make to Noah in verse 8? What sign did He give regarding this promise? When you see a rainbow, how frequently do you think of God’s covenant here with Noah? Why?

8. Looking over the covenant God made with Noah, what aspects of this covenant are unconditional? How is mankind supposed to uphold this covenant?

9. What did the study suggest for how God can have wrath towards sin but not still pour out His wrath every time we sin?

10. How does the flood account help you understand God’s holiness, wrath, and mercy? What kinds of changes ought this understanding produce in the life of God’s people?

11. What did the study say were some of the long-term implications of Noah’s curse on Ham? Who are the descendants of Ham that the Jews interacted with later on?

12. Noah was a righteous man, but was his family perfect? How does this fact provide us consolation when we sin?

13. Does your life reflect that you are in a covenant with God to obey Him? What changes might the Lord want you to make regarding how you’re living?

[1] The “New Birth” is another way of saying being born again, which comes from John 3:3, where Jesus said to Nicodemus, “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” The phrase “born again” is more accurately translated as “born from above” (the Greek word translated “again” is usually translated as “above” in the New Testament). Being “born from above” indicates that not only must a person have a physical birth, but they must also have a spiritual birth. This spiritual birth must come as the work of God bringing spiritual life into the person's soul. This new life comes from the Holy Spirit who gives us a new heart, a new will, and a new ability to see our sin and need for a Savior so that we cry out to God for forgiveness and reconciliation through the cross of Christ.