God's Covenant with Noah
1God blessed Noah and his sons and told them, "Multiply and fill the earth. 2All the wild animals, large and small, and all the birds and fish will be afraid of you. I have placed them in your power. 3I have given them to you for food, just as I have given you grain and vegetables. 4But you must never eat animals that still have their lifeblood in them. 5And murder is forbidden. Animals that kill people must die, and any person who murders must be killed. 6Yes, you must execute anyone who murders another person, for to kill a person is to kill a living being made in God's image. 7Now you must have many children and repopulate the earth. Yes, multiply and fill the earth!"
8Then God told Noah and his sons, 9"I am making a covenant with you and your descendants, 10and with the animals you brought with you--all these birds and livestock and wild animals. 11I solemnly promise never to send another flood to kill all living creatures and destroy the earth." 12And God said, "I am giving you a sign as evidence of my eternal covenant with you and all living creatures. 13I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my permanent promise to you and to all the earth. 14When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will be seen in the clouds, 15and I will remember my covenant with you and with everything that lives. Never again will there be a flood that will destroy all life. 16When I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth." 17Then God said to Noah, "Yes, this is the sign of my covenant with all the creatures of the earth."
Noahs Sons
18Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the three sons of Noah, survived the Flood with their father. (Ham is the ancestor of the Canaanites.) 19From these three sons of Noah came all the people now scattered across the earth.
20After the Flood, Noah became a farmer and planted a vineyard. 21One day he became drunk on some wine he had made and lay naked in his tent. 22Ham, the father of Canaan, saw that his father was naked and went outside and told his brothers. 23Shem and Japheth took a robe, held it over their shoulders, walked backward into the tent, and covered their father's naked body. As they did this, they looked the other way so they wouldn't see him naked. 24When Noah woke up from his drunken stupor, he learned what Ham, his youngest son, had done. 25Then he cursed the descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham:
"A curse on the Canaanites!
May they be the lowest of servants
to the descendants of Shem and Japheth."
26Then Noah said,
"May Shem be blessed by the LORD my God;
and may Canaan be his servant.
27
May God enlarge the territory of Japheth,
and may he share the prosperity of Shem;[a]
and let Canaan be his servant."
28Noah lived another 350 years after the Flood. 29He was 950 years old when he died.
1 This is the history of the families of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the three sons of Noah. Many children were born to them after the Flood.
Dig Deeper
It has become quite popular, even among Christians, to claim that Noah's flood was local and not worldwide. Yet, this would make a mockery of God's promise to never destroy the world by flood again. If God was merely referring to a local flood, then He has broken His word. No, this was a worldwide flood of the type that has never been seen since and will never happen again. Plus, if this was just a local flood, then why the need for an ark? There would have been animals living in the non-flood areas, and God could have had Noah and his family go on a trip.
Shortly after exiting the Ark, we are told that Noah became a farmer and planted a vineyard. He managed to not be careful and get himself and probably his wife drunk as well. This passage is one of the cases in the Bible where it is difficult to understand without reading it in the original language. Another translation that is more of a word-for-word translation will help here. Here is the King James Version of verse 22:
"And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without."
Leviticus 20:11 in the King James Version says this:
"And the man that lieth with his father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness."
What we learn from this is that Ham did much more than merely see Noah without his clothes. Ham evidently took advantage of the situation and slept with his mother. This is the reason Noah pronounced a curse on Ham’s son’s descendants. We should be careful to note, however, that Noah pronounced this curse not God. We are never told whether God endorsed this curse, merely that Noah pronounced it.
Devotional Thought
Have you ever looked at a rainbow and thought of the flood? Has one ever caused you to think about God’s faithfulness in never sending another world-wide destructive flood again? When God says something, we can be sure that it is true. The next time you see a rainbow, take a minute to think about what it means and thank God for His faithfulness.
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