GENESIS 9

BERESHIS 9

The sweet savour of Noah's offering was followed by a Divine covenant of promise confirmed with the patriarch. A new beginning was made on the regenerated earth, but it was followed by a new departure from the ways of righteousness

The New Order — vv. 1-7

Renewed instructions were given to Noah and his family, and universal laws were established for the general good of humanity.

The Christadelphian Expositor

Observance of this charter would have saved oceans of suffering

Law before Moses - The post deluge charter!

1 And Elohim blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

This was filling the earth (again). Adam and Eve replenished the earth (filled it again)

The blessing of fruitfulness, conferred on Adam (Gen. 1:28) now is reaffirmed to Noah, the federal head of a renewed world. However, there is a significant omission. The decree,

"Have thou dominion" (Gen. 1:28)

is not included. World dominion, originally assigned by God to man, had been forfeited by sin, and awaited the appearance of the ideal Son of God, completely "in His image and likeness", before it could be conferred. See Eph. 1:22; Heb. 2:8-9.

The Christadelphian Expositor

2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

No longer harmony between man and the beasts - there were clean and unclean, requiring discernment by the faithful (Gen 7, Lev 11)

4 But flesh [basar] with the life [nefesh] thereof, which is the blood [dahm] thereof, shall ye not eat.

Besides the ruach and neshemeh without, there are certain elementary principles, in a state of combination, within all living souls, which are related to them by fixed and appropriate laws, for the manifestation of living actions. The light to the eye, and the eye to the light; so also, the breath and the Spirit of God to the constituents of blood, and the blood to them.

 These, acting and re-acting upon each other in the lungs of all breathing frames, cause that motion throughout their structure which is termed life. The following testimonies will throw some light upon this part of our subject.

"Flesh, be-nephesh-u, with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat."

This teaches that blood is the nephesh, or life of the flesh; hence it continues, "and surely your blood, lah-nephesh-tikam, for your Iives will I require" (Gen. 9:5). We often find life put for blood, and blood for life, as elsewhere in the context.

" Be sure that thou eat not the blood, for the blood is the nephesh, or life; and thou mayest not eat the life, nephesh, with the flesh" (Deut. 12:23).

But, to this it might be objected, that if the blood be the life, then so long as it is in the body it ought to live; on the contrary it dies with the blood in it. True. Moses, however, does not teach the dogma of an abstract vital principle; but life, the result and consequence of the decomposition and re-combination of the elements of certain compounds. The blood abstractly considered is not life; yet relatively, it is "the life of the flesh."

The following testimony will show the sense in which the phrase "the blood is the life" is used.

"I will set my face against that soul that eateth blood. For the life of the flesh is IN the blood itself. I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for nephesh-tikem your lives: for it is the blood that atones be-nephesh for the soul " or life.

"Whosoever catcheth any fowl that may be eaten, he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof. Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh; for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof" (Lev. 17:11).

Nothing can be plainer than this.

There are three kinds of living manifestations, which are characterized by the nature of the organization, or being, through which they occur. Hence, we have vegetable life, animal life, and incorruptible life. The last is immortality; because the body through which the life is manifested being incorruptible, never wears out; so that being once put into motion by the Spirit of God, it lives for ever.

Vegetable and animal life, on the contrary, are terminable or mortal; because the materials through which it is revealed are perishably organized. Mortality, then, is life manifested through a corruptible body; and immortality, life manifested through an incorruptible body. Hence, the necessity laid down in the saying of the apostle,

"this corruptible body must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality,"

"before death can be "swallowed up in victory" (1 Cor. 15:53-54).

This doctrine of "life and incorruptibility" was new to the Greeks and Romans; and brought to light only through the gospel of the kingdom and name of Jesus Christ. It was to them foolishness; and is to the moderns incredible, because they understand not the glad tidings of the age to come.

Elpis Israel 1.2.

Flesh with blood, or living flesh was to be rejected - doctrine of atonement Lev 17:11

5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.

Life was a gift from Yahweh, and was to be valued as such. The law against murder first appears in Gen 4 (when Cain slew Abel).

6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood [Shofech dahm (one who sheddeth man's blood)] , by man shall his blood [dahm] be shed: for in the image [tzelem] of Elohim made he man.

àThis principle taught the basic sanctity of life. This principle was soon abandoned by the pagan Apostasy that developed after the flood. The taking of a man's life was a crime which could only be atoned for by the shedding of the blood of the perpetrator (Nu.35.33). Blood was purged with blood. On this principle will Christ and the saints operate, to make a sin offering of the nations which have polluted the earth by their crimes (Is.34.5.8, Rev .19 .17- 21).

The Apocalyptic Messenger,

Bro Richard Lister

thomas.lister1@btopenworld.com

7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.

8 And Elohim spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,

9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;

10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.

11 And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

12 And Elohim said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:

13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

àIn nature, the rainbow is evolved by the action of showery vapour upon the sun's rays, which, in passing through the aqueous globules, are refracted, and form an arch upon that part of the clouds opposite to the sun, glowing with all the colours of the prismatic, or solar, spectrum.

The rainbow is never seen except when the sun is shining, and when rain is falling between the spectator and the part of the horizon where the bow is seen. These facts must not be lost sight of in considering the significancy of the rainbow when used as a symbol.

Sun, light, rain, cloud, are elements necessary to the production of the natural bow; so are they also to the evolution of a symbolical arch in the heaven pertaining to the throne. In the absence of the Sun of Righteousness from the heaven, and of the light of life, glory, honour, and power, which he will irradiate, the rainbow encircling the throne cannot be seen.

Neither can the light irradiating from Him, be reflected to the spectator-world from the clouds of immortals about the throne, until the rain-showers of the heaven shall descend upon the mown grass to fertilize the earth. These are indispensable conditions to the evolution of the bow, which is the symbol of a clear and blessed sunshine after previous "lightnings, thunders, and voices from the throne," contemporaneously with gently descending rain.

Based upon these principles, I remark that the order of the bow's development is,

The opening of the heaven by the Stone-Power smiting Nebuchadnezzar's Image upon the feet; The establishment of the throne in the heaven by mowing the earth at harvest time (xiv. 15); in the storm-period of "the lightnings, thunders, and voices proceeding from the throne" (iv. 5); by which the kingdoms of the world are taken possession of by the saints; The grass of the earth being thus mown, its harvest reaped, and its vintage trodden out, the rain of the heaven descends in the blessing of Abraham upon the nations; which, being subdued, are blessed in Abraham and his Seed, or in Jesus and the saints;

"As brightness of morning, THE RULER rises, the Sun of an unclouded dawn, shining forth after rain upon the tender grass of the earth." The effect of this shining is that the Rainbow-Throne covenanted to David is beheld through the descending rain, which diffuses the knowledge of its glory to the utmost bounds of the habitable world.

The rainbow, then, is the token, or symbol of the Covenant. The bow in the natural heavens has been so designated by the Spirit from the days of Noah, after his salvation by water; and all who have looked upon the phenomenon with minds enlightened by the truth, from his day to this, have viewed it as the memorial of Yahweh's covenant.

The first place in which this covenant is alluded to is in Gen. vi. 18; it does not follow, however, that no covenant existed till the time therein indicated. Yahweh had a covenant which he styled, "My covenant." It was on account of this covenant that the race of Adam was perpetuated in Noah. If he had not found favour with Yahweh because of his faith in the covenanted promises, the race would have been exterminated from the earth. He became "heir of the righteousness which is by faith"; by that faith, which is "the substance of things being hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Noah died in this faith "not having received the promises." He has not received them yet; nor will he receive them "without us," for all the saints of all the generations are to be perfected together (Heb. xi. 7,13,39,40). Hence, the things Noah believed were the promises of the covenant with which he had been acquainted several centuries before the Flood. They were the promises made when the lives of the animals were cut off in Paradise for Adam's transgression (Gen. iii. 15,21). This covenant was renewed with Noah as its Heir, and afterwards with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. It was the covenant l'doroth olahm, "for the generations of the hidden period"; and therefore styled berith olahm, the "covenant of the hidden period." (Gen. ix. 12,16).

Now, the total destruction of the Adamic race in the line of Cain did not shake Noah's faith in the covenant. He still hoped for the promises it revealed. Seeing this, the Eternal Spirit condescended to communicate with Noah, and to assure him through Angel-Elohim, that no such sweeping destruction by water should again afflict the race. Hitherto, he had seen the prismatic arch photographed upon the clouds by clear shining of the sun through the rain; but he had never beheld it as a token, or sign of any thing else than that the weather was about to fair off.

The time, however, had now arrived when henceforth he would view it as the symbol of salvation. For Elohim said: "I have set my bow in the cloud; and it shall be for THE TOKEN OF THE COVENANT between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud. And I will look upon it, that I may remember the covenant of the hidden period between the Elohim and every living soul of all flesh that is upon the earth."

Eureka 4.1.5

14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:

àThe rainbow is the token of the Everlasting Covenant, the sign of the Memorial Name,

"Yahweh Elohim."

The rainbow occurs in only three places in Scripture, but very significant places - the covenant with Noah, the Cherubim visions of Ezekiel and the Multitudinous Son-of-Man similitude in the Revelation.

The rainbow is always associated with the cloud-

"I do set my bow in the cloud" (Gen. 9:13).

"The bow shall be seen in the cloud" (Gen. 9:14).

"The appearance of the bow in the cloud in the day of rain" (Eze. 1:28).

The cloud-the multitudinous droplets of water-are essential to the manifestation of the rainbow. Only they can thus reflect in brilliant beauty the manifold wonders of the glorious divine light ...

The raindrops absorb the pure white light and reflect it back separated into its basic seven colours. They manifest the glory of God in detail - they manifest the various characteristics that together make up the perfection of His goodness.

Bro Growcott - Consider the Heavens

15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant [the covenant of the hidden period] between Elohim and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

17 And Elohim said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.

Shem, Ham and Japheth are the progenitors of the races and nations.

Ham was the father of Canaan, who was morally degenerate - in future generations his offspring caused Israel much trouble (Deut.7.1-5, Jdg.2.3).

19 These are the three sons of Noah: and of them [their offspring] was the whole earth overspread.

20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:

21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.

The first harvest and Noah's joy turned to sorrow.

22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.

He was left uncovered, in a sinful state (Rev.16.15). Ham saw his father's nakedness violating Yahweh's holiness (Lev:20). He then went and spake of it to his brethren Shem and Japheth. This suggests no shame and an immoral bent.

The Apocalyptic Messenger,

Bro Richard Lister

thomas.lister1@btopenworld.com

23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.

24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

A foul act!

25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

àHam is cursed through his posterity (Canaan), This curse has continued through the centuries until the present day upon the hamitic (dark) races. A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. The Truth can emancipate a person from this curse (Acts 8.27-39). A person must judge for himself about the historical record, although such a view would be contradicted by the godless humanism of today.

We think of the American civil war, and Uncle Tom's Cabin. William Wilberforce. We think of the situation today. We think of the corrupt music for the flesh. In a moral sense, the curse has come upon the whole of humanity for its decadence and degenerate ways. Canaanitish morality defiles the whole earth.

Bro Richard is probably referring to much of modern pop music: Notably trends such as Hip Hop and 'gangster rap' and anarchic Punk Rock which explicitly promote cursing, violence, and sensuality. He may also have in mind Blues and Rock n Roll which have also promoted hedonistic lifestyles through their lyrics.

26 And he said, Blessed be Yahweh Elohim of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

àNoah had lived 292 years after the flood, when three sons were born to Terah, a descendant of Shem, Terah being 70 years old. Shem was a worshipper of the true God, whom Noah styled, "the Lord God of Shem"

Elpis Israel 2.2.

àNoah and Shem, the former contemporary with the old world for 600 years, and the latter 98, still maintained

"the faith by which they obtained a good report," and "became heirs of the righteousness which is by faith."

In this they condemned their contemporaries as they had done the world before the Flood. Shem, who had commenced his new career at Ararat, in "journeying from the East," did not follow the trail of the sons of Ham to Shinar's plain, but descended towards the Mediterranean, and ruled his people in Palestine as malki tzƉdƉk,‭ ‬king of righteousness,‭ ‬a righteous king‭; ‬and as‭ ‬mƉlƉk shɛlaim, king of peace, and

"priest of the Most High Power, possessor of the heavens and the earth."

He resided in the world 152 years after the death of Noah, and was 50 years contemporary with his descendant, Jacob, one of the chief fathers of the Hebrew nation. So that while the unprincipled sons of Ham were defying the Most High Power of the heavens, in seeking to exalt their own name in his earth, the righteous king of Palestine upheld the truth in the garden of Yahweh, and became the head of the sons of God, in contradistinction to the "children of men."

Bro Thomas

The Christadelphian, May 1873

Yahweh was the Elohim of Shem, which indicated that Shem was already in covenant relationship with God, and therefore blessed by his association with God.

Although the destiny of Japheth, verse 27, was to enlarge his seed, his spiritual hope could only come by his association with the tabernacle of Shem; and when it says in verse 25 that the children of Ham would suffer servitude, I think that means that they would suffer tribute and servitude through service to Japheth, but the prospect of release and acceptance through service to Shem.

Was it not in the providence of God that day in Jerusalem so long ago, that the Roman centurion picked out Simon to bear the cross? How could that centurion have ever known at that time, that his selection would bring the prophecy of Noah into focus on Golgotha's height?

How could he have ever known, that his command to one man to bear the cross of Christ would bring together momentarily, but what a moment in history, a man of Shem (Jesus of Nazareth), a man of Ham (Simon of Cyrene) and a man of Japheth (the Roman centurion) all brought together at the cross for the outworking of Noah's prophecy?

How could that Roman centurion have known that redemption for the man of Japheth lay in his readiness to accept that access to God rested with that man of Shem? and that salvation for the man of Ham lay in his willingness to become the servant and burden-bearer for that same man of Shem, but in that one man of Shem, there was release and there was redemption and there was salvation for both the man of Japheth and the man of Ham, if they would but come to Him.

Bro Roger Lewis [Text abridged]

27 Elohim shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

History testifies to this enlargement of the European powers including Britain, with empires and colonies beyond the seas. The Greek Empire, the Roman Empire, the Hapsburg Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Portuguese empire, the French Empire, the Dutch Empire...... the Germanic Empire, the Russian Empire, the Mogul Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, the American Empire.

It is when nations enlarge their borders that trouble arises. Witness the papal empire, the 30 years war*, annihalation of the witnesses; witness the First and Second World Wars.

In the latter days it is Russia that enlarges her borders and swallows up many nations (Hbk.2.6, Is.10.I3,I5, Ezk.38.4-7. This will precipitate the crisis of Armageddon and the great conflict of the nations over Israel and world domination.

*The Thirty Years' War was a 17th-century conflict fought primarily in central Europe.

With Emperor Ferdinand II ascension to head of state of the Holy Roman Empire in 1619, one of his first actions was to force citizens of the empire to adhere to Roman Catholicism, even though religious freedom had been granted as part of the Peace of Augsburg.

The resultant war lasted from 1618 to 1648, starting as a battle among the Catholic and Protestant states that formed the Holy Roman Empire. It remains one of the longest and most brutal wars in human history, with more than 8 million casualties resulting from military battles as well as from the famine and disease caused by the conflict.

The mysterious tale of two temples

àGenesis 9 records the prophecy of Noah concerning the destiny of his three boys down through time and the races that sprang from them.

Noah says blessed be Yahweh Elohim of Shem.

Shem is in covenant relationship with God. Shem's own blessedness stands in relationship to the fact that he's in covenant relationship with God - unlike the two other boys. And yet verse 27, Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem. I think that's a prophecy. That Japheth could only come to God through the tent of Shem, because the tent of Shem was where the true worship of the seed of the woman was practiced. Only in the tent of Shem was their access to God. And both those of the line of Ham and Japheth could only worship God in spirit and in truth if they found Him by coming into the tabernacle of Shem.

Genesis chapter 11 verse 1 informs us there was a Babylon, and there was an Israel. Two rival systems. We are suggesting there were two rival temples or places of worship. You can only access God through the tabernacle of Shem.

"and the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. It came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shinah, and they dwelt there. And they said, one to another, go to and let us make brick and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and slime had they for mortar. And they said, go to and let us build us a city in a tower whose top may reach under heaven and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. Let us build us a city in a tower whose top may reach under heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth".

This is the seed of the serpent. "Let us make us". "Let us build us".

By way of contrast the book of Hebrews talks about the faith of Abraham, that he came out into a place, not knowing whether so ever he went because of the principle of faith. Abraham looked for a city whose builder and whose maker is God.

The seed of the serpent said,

"Let us make us a name" [Heb. Shem]

Let us make us our own Shem. And not only our own Shem, but our own tent of worship.

Verse 4, let us build us not just a city, but a tower.

That tower was the first rival temple. It was a tower for the practicing of the early Babylonish rites. The seed of the serpent is repudiating what Noah has said. We do not accept the name of Shem. We do not accept the tent of worship as belonging to Shem. We want our own Shem and our own tent and our own rival system from the beginning. Not the tents of Shem for us. We will have our own meeting place of worship.

And "tower" in Gen11: 4, has relation to the ziggurat that was built in Babylon from the earliest time. The Babylonish records tell us that it was begun by Nimrod's father and finished by Nimrod himself. It was, by the way, a mystical building. It was 92 meters long and 92 meters wide and 92 meters high. It was built according to mystical numbers.

When one looked at this particular ziggurat, which had the name of Temanenki, it had seven levels. If you came walking up to the Temanenki, at the bottom, you would see these two giant gates at the first level of the tower. And then if you lifted your eyes above those, you'd see another level. And on that next level was a set of gates. And if you lifted your eyes further, there was another set of gates above the second gates and so on to the seventh.

And you suddenly realized this tower in Babylon was the gateway to the gods. The Sumerian name, "Etemanenki" means literally the house of the foundation of heaven on earth. This was a temple in which Nimrod first practiced the Babylonish religion. It was from this earliest time that the sign of the zodiac was born.

At the very top of the temple was a room where only the high priest and his consort queen could go. A rival system of religion dedicated to the thinking and practice of the seed of the serpent. Very early on in the history of the world. The seed of the serpent already has its own rival temple, a city and a tower and a king priest - Nimrod.

Bro Roger Lewis - The mysterious tale of two temples

,.

28 And Noah lived after the flood 350 years.

29 And all the days of Noah were 950 years: and he died.

Typical Millennial Longevity:

Adam lived 9 centuries plus 30.

Seth lived 9 centuries plus 12.

Enos lived 9 centuries plus 5.

Cainan lived 9 centuries plus 10.

Mahalaleel lived 8 centuries plus 95.

Jared lived 9 centuries plus 62.

[Enoch to translation, 3 centuries plus 65.]

Methuselah lived 9 centuries plus 69.

Lamech lived 7 centuries plus 77.

Noah lived 9 centuries plus 50.

Methuselah lived to the very year of the deluge (as anyone may see by adding 969 to 687, the year of his birth); his son Lamech also lived to within five years of its occurrence (as may be seen by adding 777 to 874, the year of his birth). These ten fathers of the "old world" were born during the course of

A Millennium of Centuries

Adam was created in the first century.

Seth was born in the second century.

Enos in the third century.

Cainan was born in the fourth century.

Mahalaleel in the fourth century.

Jared was born in the fifth century.

Enoch in the seventh century.

Methuselah in the seventh century.

Lamech was born in the ninth century.

Noah in the eleventh (or the tenth, plus 56 years).

The Christadelphian, Sept 1889