Genesis
Summary
Genesis 9 records God's covenant with Noah after the flood. God blesses Noah and his sons, affirms human dominion over animals while prohibiting the consumption of blood, and establishes the rainbow as the sign of the promise never again to destroy all life by flood. The chapter also narrates Noah's planting of a vineyard and an episode of drunkenness that leads to family tension and blessings/curses pronounced on Noah's sons. It highlights both divine mercy and ongoing human frailty as the world moves into its post, flood era.
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.
The fear and dread of you will fall on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands.
Everything that lives and moves about will be for your sustenance. Just as I gave you the green herbs, I now give you everything.
But you must not eat flesh with its life-breath in its blood.
And for your life-breath I will surely demand an account; from every animal I will demand it, and from every man, from each man's brother, I will demand an account for the life of man.
Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God He made man.
As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it."
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him,
I now establish My covenant with you and with your seed after you
and with every living creature that was with you, the birds, the cattle and every animal of the earth with you, all those that came out of the Ark with you, every living creature of the earth.
I establish My covenant with you: Never again will all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."
And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between Me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for generations to come:
I have set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.
Whenever I bring a cloud over the earth and the bow appears in the cloud,
I will remember My covenant between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all flesh.
Whenever the bow appears in the clouds, I will look at it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh on the earth."
So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between Me and all flesh on the earth."
The sons of Noah who came out of the Ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.)
These three were the sons of Noah, and from them the whole earth was populated.
Noah, a man of the ground, began to plant a vineyard.
When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent.
Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside.
But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned away so that they would not see their father's nakedness.
When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his younger son had done to him,
he said, "Cursed be Canaan! A servant of servants he shall be to his brothers."
He also said, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! And may Canaan be his servant.
May God extend Japheth; and may he dwell in the tents of Shem; and may Canaan be his servant."
After the flood Noah lived three hundred and fifty years.
Noah lived a total of nine hundred and fifty years, and then he died.