†. Gen 9:7 . . Be fertile, then, and increase; abound on the earth and
increase on it.
The idea conveyed here is that Man was not supposed to unite and stay in
one place, but to scatter, diversify, and establish communities all over the
globe.
†. Gen 9:8-10 . . And God said to Noah and to his sons with him: I
now establish My covenant with you and your offspring to come, and
with every living thing that is with you-- birds, cattle, and every wild
beast as well --all that have come out of the ark, every living thing
on earth.
Noah's covenant is an especially interesting covenant because it was made
with both Man and Beast: all living things wherein is the breath of life.
Are people today Noah's offspring that were to come? Yes they are. So we
should pay attention to what God told Noah and his sons. "My covenant"
applies to everyone; and all the critters too. In fact, all living beings in the
post-Flood world are under the jurisdiction of the covenant God made with
Noah and his family.
†. Gen 9:11 . . I will maintain My covenant with you: 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.
Noah needed to hear that so he wouldn't get jumpy the next time it started
to rain really hard in his neighborhood. There is still flooding going on in the
world, but certainly not on the same scale as the Flood.
†. Gen 9:12-17 . . God further said: This is the sign that I set for the
covenant between Me and you, and every living creature with you,
for all ages to come. I have set My bow in the clouds, and it shall
serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. When I
bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will
remember My covenant between Me and you and every living
creature among all flesh, so that the waters shall never again
become a flood to destroy all flesh.
. . .When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the
everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures, all flesh
that is on earth. That-- God said to Noah --shall be the sign of the
covenant that I have established between Me and all flesh that is on
earth.
Some people say Noah had never seen a rainbow before because they don't
believe it ever rained in the antediluvian world. But even if it didn't rain,
rainbows aren't restricted to rainy weather. They can be seen in water falls,
fog, and even in icy air. Since the antediluvian world got some of its
irrigation from mists, there's a pretty good chance Noah had seen at least
one rainbow by the time he was six hundred years old.
Noah's covenant is still in force; as evidenced by the significant presence of
rainbows in prophetic visions.
†. Ezk 1:27b-28a . .There was a radiance all about him. Like the appearance
of the bow which shines in the clouds on a day of rain, such was the
appearance of the surrounding radiance.
†. Rev 10:1-4 . .Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from
heaven. He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head; his face
was like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars.
Next time you see a rainbow, think of ol' grandpa Noah and think of God's
promise-- to Noah, to his progeny, to all peoples on this side of the Flood,
and to every creature --that the Earth will never again be destroyed by water.
And remember capital punishment, and remember that the animal world is
accountable for taking human life.
And when you jeopardize your innocent children's future by risking their
exposure to E.coli 0157:H7 and/or 0157:H4 by feeding them a fast food
hamburger made with chicken-poop-fed, over-crowded, antibiotic-treated,
up-to-their-knees in manure, industrially produced beef; or by risking their
exposure to salmonella by feeding them a tasty dish of under-cooked,
salmonella-infected Teriyaki chicken made from mass-produced, genetically
altered, antibiotic-fed, overcrowded, factory-farmed broilers; remember it
was God's blessing that gave your world the green light to eat flesh so that
beginning in the last half of the 20th century, everyone from thenceforth
could dine on tainted meat.
†. Ps 69:22 . . Let their table become a snare before them: and that which
should have been for their welfare; let it become a trap.
†. Gen 9:18 . .The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem,
Ham, and Japheth-- Ham being the father of Canaan.
Whoever wrote this section of Genesis, wrote it long after the Flood because
the Canaanites didn't exist in Noah's day; nor would they exist at all until
many, many years later.
†. Gen 9:19 . .These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the
whole world branched out.
It's remarkable that every ethnic, every tribe, every color, and every
language, is rooted in just those three men. Every existing human being is
alive today from the gene pool of Noah's boys and their wives-- Caucasian,
Negro, Mongol, Asian, Semite, Aleut, Indians of the Americas, Pacific
Islander; and even the Pigmies. Everybody is related to one of those three
boys, and also related to each other in Noah.
Whenever there is war, it is truly brother against brother. The phrase "fellow
man" is not just a feel-good, slap on the back acceptance of someone you
might normally feel superior to or despise beyond reason; no, it's an
expression that identifies human beings you are verily-- though possibly
quite distantly --related to.
All the physical characteristics of the different nations and various tribes,
must, therefore, have been present in the genetic constitutions of just those
three men and three women. Somehow, by the regular mechanisms of
genetics-- variation, adaptation, mutation, and recombination --all the
various groups of nations and tribes developed from that meager post-Flood
human beginning.
But what about Mr and Mrs Noah? Didn't they have any more children? After
all, Noah still had about three hundred years left to go in his life. Well . . if
the Noahs did have any more children, they must have been all girls because
the writer said the world was populated by only those three brothers. So if
indeed there were Noah girls, they had to find husbands from among their
cousins. Those early post-Flood conditions fostered very close
intermarriages; but it was harmless in those days because the human
genome was still yet relatively young, strong, and uncontaminated.
†. Gen 9:20a . . Noah, a tiller of the soil,
There was a time when a large percentage of Americans grew their own
food, but it's come to the point when some kids don't even know that where
their food comes from. For example; as a young graduate student, Steven L.
Hopp, co-author of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle lived in an urban
neighborhood where his little backyard vegetable garden was a howling
curiosity to the boys who ran wild in the alley. One day, as Steven pulled a
nice long fresh carrot out of the ground, one of the boys asked him how it
got in there. So after explaining some fundamentals of farming, Steven
asked the boy if he could think of another vegetable that grows in the
ground. After consulting with his posse, the boy responded: spaghetti?
Later in life, Steven's wife used to take her children's friends out back to the
family garden to warm them up to the idea of eating vegetables; but the
strategy sometimes backfired. Some kids backed away slowly saying: Oh
maaaaan! those things touched dirt! Ewwww!
Accustomed to shopping with their moms in a well-lit, shiny supermarket
stocked with pre-washed, pre-sorted, neatly piled vegetables, the kids were
brought up to believe that all dirt is 100% unsanitary; and really, how could
you blame them when every advertisement they see on television for
sanitizers, cleansers, and detergents always portray dirt as bad?
It's not just kids who are uninformed about agriculture. When author
Barbara Kingsolver once submitted some material to an editor, the editor
nixed the part in the story about pineapples growing out of the ground. The
editor insisted they grew on trees. In another incident, one of Barbara's
friends expressed amazement when told that peas, potatoes, and spinach
were "up" in Barbara's garden. The friend wanted to know how potatoes
could be "up" since to their knowledge potatoes grew down in the ground
rather on the surface. The friend was seriously taken aback to discover that
potato plants have stems and leaves.
Cont.
/
increase on it.
The idea conveyed here is that Man was not supposed to unite and stay in
one place, but to scatter, diversify, and establish communities all over the
globe.
†. Gen 9:8-10 . . And God said to Noah and to his sons with him: I
now establish My covenant with you and your offspring to come, and
with every living thing that is with you-- birds, cattle, and every wild
beast as well --all that have come out of the ark, every living thing
on earth.
Noah's covenant is an especially interesting covenant because it was made
with both Man and Beast: all living things wherein is the breath of life.
Are people today Noah's offspring that were to come? Yes they are. So we
should pay attention to what God told Noah and his sons. "My covenant"
applies to everyone; and all the critters too. In fact, all living beings in the
post-Flood world are under the jurisdiction of the covenant God made with
Noah and his family.
†. Gen 9:11 . . I will maintain My covenant with you: 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.
Noah needed to hear that so he wouldn't get jumpy the next time it started
to rain really hard in his neighborhood. There is still flooding going on in the
world, but certainly not on the same scale as the Flood.
†. Gen 9:12-17 . . God further said: This is the sign that I set for the
covenant between Me and you, and every living creature with you,
for all ages to come. I have set My bow in the clouds, and it shall
serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. When I
bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will
remember My covenant between Me and you and every living
creature among all flesh, so that the waters shall never again
become a flood to destroy all flesh.
. . .When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the
everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures, all flesh
that is on earth. That-- God said to Noah --shall be the sign of the
covenant that I have established between Me and all flesh that is on
earth.
Some people say Noah had never seen a rainbow before because they don't
believe it ever rained in the antediluvian world. But even if it didn't rain,
rainbows aren't restricted to rainy weather. They can be seen in water falls,
fog, and even in icy air. Since the antediluvian world got some of its
irrigation from mists, there's a pretty good chance Noah had seen at least
one rainbow by the time he was six hundred years old.
Noah's covenant is still in force; as evidenced by the significant presence of
rainbows in prophetic visions.
†. Ezk 1:27b-28a . .There was a radiance all about him. Like the appearance
of the bow which shines in the clouds on a day of rain, such was the
appearance of the surrounding radiance.
†. Rev 10:1-4 . .Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from
heaven. He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head; his face
was like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars.
Next time you see a rainbow, think of ol' grandpa Noah and think of God's
promise-- to Noah, to his progeny, to all peoples on this side of the Flood,
and to every creature --that the Earth will never again be destroyed by water.
And remember capital punishment, and remember that the animal world is
accountable for taking human life.
And when you jeopardize your innocent children's future by risking their
exposure to E.coli 0157:H7 and/or 0157:H4 by feeding them a fast food
hamburger made with chicken-poop-fed, over-crowded, antibiotic-treated,
up-to-their-knees in manure, industrially produced beef; or by risking their
exposure to salmonella by feeding them a tasty dish of under-cooked,
salmonella-infected Teriyaki chicken made from mass-produced, genetically
altered, antibiotic-fed, overcrowded, factory-farmed broilers; remember it
was God's blessing that gave your world the green light to eat flesh so that
beginning in the last half of the 20th century, everyone from thenceforth
could dine on tainted meat.
†. Ps 69:22 . . Let their table become a snare before them: and that which
should have been for their welfare; let it become a trap.
†. Gen 9:18 . .The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem,
Ham, and Japheth-- Ham being the father of Canaan.
Whoever wrote this section of Genesis, wrote it long after the Flood because
the Canaanites didn't exist in Noah's day; nor would they exist at all until
many, many years later.
†. Gen 9:19 . .These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the
whole world branched out.
It's remarkable that every ethnic, every tribe, every color, and every
language, is rooted in just those three men. Every existing human being is
alive today from the gene pool of Noah's boys and their wives-- Caucasian,
Negro, Mongol, Asian, Semite, Aleut, Indians of the Americas, Pacific
Islander; and even the Pigmies. Everybody is related to one of those three
boys, and also related to each other in Noah.
Whenever there is war, it is truly brother against brother. The phrase "fellow
man" is not just a feel-good, slap on the back acceptance of someone you
might normally feel superior to or despise beyond reason; no, it's an
expression that identifies human beings you are verily-- though possibly
quite distantly --related to.
All the physical characteristics of the different nations and various tribes,
must, therefore, have been present in the genetic constitutions of just those
three men and three women. Somehow, by the regular mechanisms of
genetics-- variation, adaptation, mutation, and recombination --all the
various groups of nations and tribes developed from that meager post-Flood
human beginning.
But what about Mr and Mrs Noah? Didn't they have any more children? After
all, Noah still had about three hundred years left to go in his life. Well . . if
the Noahs did have any more children, they must have been all girls because
the writer said the world was populated by only those three brothers. So if
indeed there were Noah girls, they had to find husbands from among their
cousins. Those early post-Flood conditions fostered very close
intermarriages; but it was harmless in those days because the human
genome was still yet relatively young, strong, and uncontaminated.
†. Gen 9:20a . . Noah, a tiller of the soil,
There was a time when a large percentage of Americans grew their own
food, but it's come to the point when some kids don't even know that where
their food comes from. For example; as a young graduate student, Steven L.
Hopp, co-author of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle lived in an urban
neighborhood where his little backyard vegetable garden was a howling
curiosity to the boys who ran wild in the alley. One day, as Steven pulled a
nice long fresh carrot out of the ground, one of the boys asked him how it
got in there. So after explaining some fundamentals of farming, Steven
asked the boy if he could think of another vegetable that grows in the
ground. After consulting with his posse, the boy responded: spaghetti?
Later in life, Steven's wife used to take her children's friends out back to the
family garden to warm them up to the idea of eating vegetables; but the
strategy sometimes backfired. Some kids backed away slowly saying: Oh
maaaaan! those things touched dirt! Ewwww!
Accustomed to shopping with their moms in a well-lit, shiny supermarket
stocked with pre-washed, pre-sorted, neatly piled vegetables, the kids were
brought up to believe that all dirt is 100% unsanitary; and really, how could
you blame them when every advertisement they see on television for
sanitizers, cleansers, and detergents always portray dirt as bad?
It's not just kids who are uninformed about agriculture. When author
Barbara Kingsolver once submitted some material to an editor, the editor
nixed the part in the story about pineapples growing out of the ground. The
editor insisted they grew on trees. In another incident, one of Barbara's
friends expressed amazement when told that peas, potatoes, and spinach
were "up" in Barbara's garden. The friend wanted to know how potatoes
could be "up" since to their knowledge potatoes grew down in the ground
rather on the surface. The friend was seriously taken aback to discover that
potato plants have stems and leaves.
Cont.
/
