Genesis 9:1-17 New Beginnings

“When Noah came out of the ark, he was like a second Adam about to usher in a new beginning on earth for the human race.  Faith in the Lord had saved Noah and his household from destruction, and his three sons would repopulate the whole earth.”  Wow, that one heck of a mandate!

God was describing children as a blessing, not a curse.  My commentary quoted the statistic that through all of American history, the total number of American soldiers killed in all wars now exceeds 1.2 million people.  However, in just one year over 1.6 million babies are legally aborted!  We’ve declared war on ourselves.

There were bound to be changes after the flood, for there had been vast upheavals and vegetation had to recover.  God expanded the human diet to include meat.  Of course they’d need to wait until some young were born and not destroy any of the pairs present on the ark!  Adam and Eve had been given dominion over the animals and Adam had even watched as God paraded them in front of him to be named by him.  But now, with the change in diet, my commentary says God put the fear of humans into animals, allowing them to do everything possible to escape humans.  So the peace of Eden was gone.

God also told Noah that humans could not eat a still-living animal.  The blood was to be drained first, for it represented the animal’s life, which had been given by God.  And as far as human life, God said that since humans were made in His image, He would demand life for a life.  Any animal which killed a human was to be killed, and any human who killed a human would be killed by another human.

Finally, God covenanted never to destroy the earth by flood again, and He used the rainbow as a reminder of that covenant for all time.  I have twice been fortunate enough to see rainbows from the air – from God’s point of view – and while to us they appear as half-circles, from His point of view they appear as rings – much like a wedding ring – sealing that covenant forever.

Father, we will not know in this life what it was like in Eden with animals having no fear of us.  Most of us can’t imagine a diet without meat.  We simply trust the changes that You made to be for our good, and we thank You for the promise of Your faithfulness each time we witness a rainbow.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford