September 8, 2009 - Lessons After The Flood

Meditation on Genesis 9

There are much information and many lessons we can learn from this chapter. Let us just look into two in the following:

After Noah and his family got out of the Ark, he offered sacrifices to God to worship and thank God for His deliverance through the flood. (Genesis 8:20-22) So in chapter 9, we find God blessed them and encouraged them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. God also set a rainbow in the sky to be a sign of His covenant with Noah and every living creature that He would not destroy the world with a flood again. Henry Morris, a professor of hydrology and civil engineering made an interesting observation in his book, "The Genesis Record" concerning the rainbow like this: "The "bow in the cloud", of course requires both the sunlight and the "cloud"- that is, liquid water droplets in the air- before it can form. Before the Flood, the upper air contained only invisible water vapor, and therefore no rainbow was possible. With the new hydrological cycle following the Flood, the former vapor canopy is gone; and it is physically impossible now for enough water ever to be raised into the atmosphere to cause a universal flood. When a storm has done its worst, and the clouds are finally exhausted of most of their water, then there always appears a rainbow...."

The second passage we look at is from verses 20 to 27. There, it was recorded that Noah was drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent. His son Ham, the father of Canaan saw it but did not do anything to cover his father but told his two brothers in the context of making fun of it. When Noah woke up and was informed about this incidence, he cursed Ham's son, Canaan and blessed the two brothers who went backward to put a garment to cover his nakedness. This episode taught us the importance of honoring one's father without shaming him. Also, it hinted the reason for the future eradication of the Canaanites in the Promised Land because of their extremely immoral and sinful behaviors as it had been proved by the archaeological evidence.

The behavior of an ancestor had tremendous implication for his descendants.