9:1-71 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply.
2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
God blessed Noah and his sons and said,
Have lots of children. [1]
All the animals will be afraid of you. [2]
Do whatever you'd like with them. [3]
3Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
Eat any living thing that moves, along with all the plants. [4]
4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
But don't eat anything while it is still alive. And don't eat blood. [5]
5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.
If a man or an animal kills a man, the brother of the victim must kill the killer. [6]
6Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
Whoever kills a man must be killed by a man [7], because men are made in God's image.
7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
And have lots of childen. [8]
9:8-198 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,
9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;
10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.
I am making a promise to you, your descendants, and all of the beasts of the earth.
11 And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
I promise to never again kill every living thing in a flood.
13I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
And here's a token of my promise: I will set a rainbow in the clouds. [9]
14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
Whenever I make a cloud, there will be a rainbow.
15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
When I see it, it will remind me of my promise not to destroy all living things in a flood.
18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
The sons of Noah - Shem, and Ham, and Japheth [10] - left the ark.
(Ham was Canaan's father.)
19 These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.
Everyone on earth has descended from Noah's three sons.
20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
After Noah sacrificed the clean animals for God, he planted a vineyard, made wine, got drunk, and lay naked in his tent. [11]
9:22-2922 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, Noah, and told his brothers about it.
23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
Ham's brothers, Shem and Japheth, took a garment and covered their naked father, walking backwards and not looking at his nakedness.
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
When Noah sobered up, he (somehow) knew what his younger son (Ham?) had done to him. [12]
25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
And Noah said,
Cursed by Canaan. He will be a slave of slaves to his brothers. [13]
26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
And blessed be the God of Shem. Canaan shall be his slave.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
God will enlarge Japheth, who will live in Shem's tents, and Canaan will be his slave.
28 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.
29And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.
Although this would have been good advice for the mythical Noah, it is wrong for humankind as a whole.
Overpopulation is one of our greatest problems, yet there is nothing in the bible to address it.
According to this verse, all animals fear humans. Although it is true that many do, many do not.
Sharks and grizzly bears, for example, are generally much less afraid of us than we are of them.
God gave the animals to humans, and they can do whatever they please with them.
This verse has been used by bible believers to justify all kinds of cruelty to animals and environmental destruction.
Many Jehovah's Witnesses have needlessly died because the governing body considers blood transfusions to be "eating blood".
At least I think this is what God means to say here.
Then why did God put a mark on Cain (after he murdered Abel) so that others wouldn't kill him? (4:15)
This is so important to God that he had to say it twice in the same speech, at the begining and the end.
God is rightly filled with remorse for having killed his creatures.
He makes a deal with the animals, promising never to drown them all again.
He even puts the rainbow in the sky so that whenever he sees it, it will remind him of his promise so that he won't be tempted to do it again. (Every time God sees the rainbow he says to himself: "Oh, yeah.... That's right. I promised not to drown the animals again. I guess I'll have to find something else to do.").
But rainbows are caused by the nature of light, the refractive index of water, and the shape of raindrops. There were rainbows billions of years before humans existed.
The "just and righteous" Noah (6:9, 7:1) plants a vineyard, gets drunk, and lies around naked in his tent.
His son, Ham, happens to see his father in this condition.
When Noah sobers up and hears "what his young son had done unto him" (what did he do besides look at him?), he curses not Ham, who "saw the nakedness of his father," but Ham's son, Canaan. "A servant of servants shall he [Canaan] be unto his brethren."
This is a typical case of biblical justice, and is one of many Bible passages that have been used to justify slavery.
What the Bible says about alcohol
What did Ham do? Did he just look at his naked father or was there something more to it than that?
Some commentators have suggested that Ham committed homosexual rape on his drunken father, and that this was why Ham's descendants were eternally punished with slavery.
God tells Noah and his sons to have tons of children, which is a command so vital that he has to say it twice. He also forms a rainbow as a sign of a promise never to flood the world again. Well, I mean, it did symbolize that... Until those gosh-darn diddily-dong-darn gays stole it...
Anyways, those folks leave the ark, and Noah wastes no time planting a vineyard, making wine, and getting absolutely plastered to the point where he strips nude and passes out in a tent. Mind you; this is the same man that the Bible calls 'righteous.' Apparently, binge drinking is fine with God. Take that, Christian Prohibitionists! Anyways, now that we have a crazy old drunken naked man lying on the floor, which, coincidentally, is something that happened at my last family reunion, let's make things even more awkward!
So, one of Noah's sons, Ham, walks in on his own naked father, and... well, this is where the interpretations vary. What exactly did Ham do here? Did he merely walk in on his father naked and make fun of his nakedness? Well, sure, but is that the kind of thing that REALLY deserves a generational curse as a punishment? Luckily for us, there are some pretty out there interpretations for what EXACTLY Ham did.
Some people say he castrated or attempted to castrate his own father, while others say he engaged in sexual intercourse with his own father. The intercourse crowd will point to Leviticus and its unusual wording of its incest laws, but that's a topic that I'll probably go over when we get to that book.
Either way, whether Ham mocked, raped, or castrated his own father, apparently, he bragged to his brothers about it, and they were so shocked, that they both cover up Noah, to at least give him a little bit of decency. When Noah wakes up, he is so pissed about what just happened, that he decides not to curse his own son, but his grandson instead, forcing him and his descendants into slavery. Unsurprisingly, this chapter has been used by racists and slaveowners to justify slavery, discrimination, and other vile acts.
Oh, and Noah dies at the end of this chapter. He was 950 years old.
Genesis 9:12-17 - God admits that annihilation floods are too devastating, so no more of that. However, he may forget to not drown virtually all of humanity again in the future, so he needs something to remind him. Our perfect, omniscient god needs a sticky note in the form of a rainbow in the clouds to prevent him from flooding us to death again.