Genesis 9, Renewal

After the Great Flood, God renews his covenant with mankind.

Genesis 9:1-3, Commands renewed
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 upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

This new covenant continues the instructions to "fill the earth" and echoes the earlier instructions to humankind in Genesis 1:28 but seems to extend the previous instructions to include eating animals, not just plants as food. In verse 2 the Hebrew verb ramas is translated "that moves." The animals so identified are in dispute; Walton suggests that these are animals that travel in herds, such as cattle and goats.

Genesis 9:4-7, The lifeblood

"But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.

"Whoever sheds the blood of man, 

by man shall his blood be shed; 

for in the image of God

 has God made man. 

As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; 

multiply on the earth and increase upon it."

The new covenant comes with an emphasis on life and blood, on the shedding of blood and how this life force is treated. Alter argues that verse 6 emphasizes blood and man, using almost identical words, the Hebrew dam (דָּם) for "blood" and adam (אָדָם) for "man". 

The first part of verse 6 also has a chiastic A B C C' B' A' poetic structure, common to Hebrew poetry, with the symmetry of shed/blood/man followed by man/blood/shed.  

Genesis 9:8-17, God's covenant with Noah

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you--the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you--every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life 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 all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."

So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth."

What a strange, yet beautiful, sign of the Noahic covenant!  Presumably there were rainbows before this.  But now they mean something special. Walton suggests that as the bow was a warrior's weapon in the ancient Near East and "was often in the armory of the divine warrior, " then it is possible that the rainbow in the clouds symbolized God hanging up His weapon, to use it no longer against mankind.

This covenant also seems to be with "all living creatures," not just humankind. (What does this mean?) A Wikipedia study of Biblical covenants is here.

Genesis 9:18-23, Noah gets drunk
The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) These were the three sons of Noah, and from them came the people who were scattered over the earth.

Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded 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 the other way so that they would not see their father's nakedness.

Despite the new covenant, it takes little time for evil to return. Here Noah plants a vineyard, ferments wine, drinks it and passes out drunk, naked in his tent. Ham looks on and tells his brothers about Noah's nakedness. The brothers respect Noah's modesty by covering him back up without staring at him. 

The ancient audience probably understood the meaning of the vague phrase "Ham ... saw his father's nakedness." That phrase is probably a euphemism whose meaning has been lost to us. The brothers refuse to join Ham and instead "covered their father's nakedness." Whatever is implied here appears to be something visual that Shem and Japheth refuse to endorse. Walton suggests that a drunk Noah having sex with a drunk wife, without regard for modesty or privacy, might be implied by the euphemism. Whatever the case, Ham told his brothers about the (sexual?) scene and the brothers refused to join him in looking on. (The phrase "uncovered his father's nakedness" occurs in the Hebrew of Leviticus 20:11 and in Leviticus 18:7-8. In both cases it implies a sexual act that brings shame.)

Genesis 9:24-29, Noah curses Canaan

When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, he said, "Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers."

He also said, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem. May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his slave."

After the flood Noah lived 350 years. Altogether, Noah lived 950 years, and then he died.

Noah curses Ham's son, Canaan, for Ham's actions. Walton suggests that the author does not include all the details of the curse but that Canaan's curse is mentioned because the Israelites in Moses's day will be at war with the descendants of Canaan. The effect of the curse is that Canaan (and his tribe?) will serve Japheth. It is not clear if this is intended as a long term curse, but the Israelites may have later interpreted this as giving them rights to the country of Canaan.

The verb pathach, (פָתָה) meaning "to extend, to enlarge" (but also meaning "to allure, to deceive") sounds much like Japheth (Yepheth, יֶפֶת), so that the name Japheth agrees with this prophecy/curse.

As we end the flood narrative, we note that it parallels, in some ways, the Creation account of Genesis 1-3. Both accounts include cosmic chaos and divine intervention to bring order and new life, and, eventually, some type of covenant. Walton, on pages 344-5 of his Genesis commentary, list some of the parallels. I copy those below.

As Adam and Eve ventured into a new world in Genesis 3, Noah and his family enter a new world in Genesis 9. A brief history of that world will follow in the next chapters, leading to the next figure with whom YHWH creates a covenant.

Some Hebrew vocabulary

Our Hebrew word for the day is ab, father(s), noun, masculine singular or plural: 

אָב

Some Random Thoughts

White supremacists have used the curse on Canaan to claim that Canaan became black and that black skin was the curse of Noah.  They then followed that with misstatements about slavery.  This interpretation takes considerable creativity, corrupting the passage to force it to meet one's beliefs!  In the 1980s I corresponded with a staff member at Bob Jones University who used this passage to defend some racist aspects of Bob Jones policy. Sadly, this corruption still permeates parts of US church culture.

First published Jan 11, 2023;  updated Jan 10, 2026