The Book of Genesis, Chapter 9

Genesis 9:1-28

Summary

God blesses Noah and his sons, ends vegetarianism, and declares that never again will a flood destroy all life, making a covenant with Noah, and his descendants, and the birds, and the domesticated animals, and the and every animal in the ark (now every animal on the earth) to refrain from doing so. He also created a bow in the clouds to remind himself of this deal, and thus created gay pride. Or something.

Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. Noah plants a vineyard, makes some wine, gets drunk, and passes out, naked. Ham sees him naked, tells his brothers, the brothers cover him with their eyes closed so as not to see the nudity. Ham, having seen the nudity, has his son cursed by Noah to be the slave of the other two brothers. Clearly Noah is a stand-up guy.

Commentary

God kicks off this chapter with a large blessing: Six-and-a-half verses long, in fact. First, Noah and his sons are told to "be fruitful, and multiply to fill the earth" (Gen 9:1). I've heard this used to defend large families here in the west, but I'd like to point out that if you're taking a literal read of the bible, things are different now. These were instructions given to four men and presumably their wives, not given to a world with over six billion inhabitants.

The next bit of the blessing is fascinating and I'm going to replicate it exactly here:

"The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered." (Gen 9:2)

This is a very strongly worded passage that suggests the dominance of humanity. What's fascinating to me is that while God condones this, and later condones a meat-eating lifestyle, that life-style is never phrased as a command. Here, we're essentially told that creatures will fear us, and we'll be able to catch them. I know there are creatures out there that don't fear humans, though, at least not yet. They're probably fish, because we don't encounter them too often.

In the next passage, we are given the flesh of everything to eat, the only exception being flesh that still has its blood (ie, uncooked). This is the first of what will be a number of very practical rules put on us by God. Uncooked meat, if you don't already know, is largely dangerous to humans.

Another interesting thing here is that the requirement for all animals to be herbivores is not repealed. So all you lions out there, cut it out. Now.

What follows this is a strong argument in favour of capital punishment, at least to the literal-minded:

"For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life.
Whoever sheds the blood of a human,
by a human shall that person’s blood be shed;
for in his own image
God made humankind. " (Gen 9:5-6)

Essentially, to my interpretation, this reads that animals will not kill their own kind (what about all of the animals that do?), and neither will humans. Humans have the extra bonus of being warned not to harm a human for fear of being harmed in return. You could make the case that this is an argument for capital punishment, but as I said at the beginning of the commentary, things are different now.

We're not having population problems, for instance. I do have to wonder, though, the wisdom of a society that suggests the death penalty for murder if there are issues with population. I mean, if we had a Cain and Abel situation at this point in the story, half the male population of the earth would be gone.

At least, we come to the covenant, another very well-known story in the Children's-Bible reading circles. First, God establishes the covenant:

"As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you...that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." (Gen 9:9-11)

There's more, of course, but this gives you a pretty good idea of what the covenant is about. The snarky part of my brain first notes that it's very specific. God promises Noah and his descendents that he will never again destroy all the living flesh on the earth by flood. By flood. So as a species we're safe from global warming (haha), but we're not safe from God getting bored again and flinging a massive meteor at the planet, causing a nuclear-esque winter.

By the way, God, if you're reading this: Please don't fling a massive meteor at the planet. Thanks.

God then signifies this covenant to never again do something very specific by placing his bow in the clouds—I'm assuming this means a rainbow. It's nice little touch, a good reminder for God and for us, and it explains the origins of the rainbow.

On the flip-side from the blessings and heartwarming rainbow story, the other section of this chapter involves sordid gay sex. I'm not talking about the good kind of gay sex, not that I know much about it, but I know people who've had some so I'm taking their word on it.

Noah, being the man of the soil that he was, planted a vineyard soon after leaving the ark, and has imbibed greatly of his new concoction. Being very drunk, he lies down in his tent, and happens to be nude.

Along comes Ham, his son, who "[sees] the nakedness of his father" (Gen 9:22). Terrible, isn't it? Well, maybe it doesn't sound that way to you, but first you have to learn a little about biblical euphemism. I did a little reading on the Curse of Ham (which happens after he sees the nakedness of his father), and according to Wikipedia, the phrase "exposing" or "uncovering the nakedness" refers to having sexual relations.

So a little story about a son seeing his father naked and drunk quite possibly actually means a tale of incest and rape. Lovely. This explanation, however, makes it much easier to understand why Noah's response is to curse Ham's son Canaan to be the slave of his now doubly-blessed uncle Shem.

I was wondering about why Noah cursed Canaan, rather than Ham, but Wikipedia again has some suggestions as to why this is the case. Rashi, a well-known commentator on the Torah, explains it by saying first of all that some people have suggested these sexual relations were in fact a castration, because Ham was jealous and did not want to share his inheritance with third brother (Noah's fourth son). Noah realized what happened, and cursed Ham's fourth son Canaan to be a slave.

I'm fascinated by these small, lesser-known stories, because they bring a depth to the bible for me, an underlevel of interesting stories that breathe life into the ancient text. Your thoughts?