God’s Covenant With Noah

A strange situation that saved the life of a condemned man arose as Jim Williams, was about to be executed in the Florida state penitentiary at Raiford in 1926 ... More

Covenant
After the flood there were only eight people alive in the world: Noah and his family. God told them the things they were to do, and He makes a covenant with Noah here in chapter 9: (1) He told Noah to be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth again with people (vv. 1, 7), just like He had told Adam in Genesis 1:28. (2) Noah, like Adam, was to rule over the ani­mals (v. 2). Before this time the animals had not been afraid of each other or of mankind, however, now animals would have a fear of man. (3) They could kill animals for food but were not to eat the blood with the meat (vv. 3-4). Up until this time vegetables, fruits and growing things had been their diet. (4) God made a covenant with them that anyone that killed another person should be put to death (vv. 5-6). God made man in His own image, and He is to be the giver of life. 
 

God made an everlasting covenant with Noah and his three sons and every living creature upon the earth, that he would never again destroy every living creature with the waters of a universal globe encircling flood (vv. 8-11). Then He gave a token for special meaning when He made this covenant by giving a rainbow, or rare beauty (vv. 12-17). The Hebrew word for rainbow is also the word for a battle bow or we could say a weapon. The bow is now hung in a place by the clouds and suggests that the battle of rainstorm is over, and the rainbow speaks of peace. It is the product of storm and sunshine. Just about every­one rejoices in seeing a rainbow in the sky and we should delight each time we see this display of God’s faithfulness to us. The Bible says of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, “Of them was the whole earth over­spread” (vv. 18-19). Here we see that everyone on this earth came from Noah’s family and went throughout the whole earth. 

Application

Isn’t it much easier to stay in our own little area than to go to the ends of the earth with the gospel? What are we doing to get the gospel to the ends of the earth? Are we going? Are we giving to others that are going and are we praying for those who are going?

Genesis 9:1-19 (English Standard Version)


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