In this chapter we have an account of God’s blessing Noah and his sons, being just come out of the ark, with a renewal of the blessing of propagating their species, and replenishing the earth, the dominion over the creatures, and a freedom from the fear of them; with liberty to eat flesh, only it…

And God blessed Noah and his sons With temporal blessings, not spiritual ones; for though some of them were blessed with such, yet not all, particularly Ham: and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth; depopulated by the flood: this is a renewal of the blessing on Adam, a…

And the fear or you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth This is a renewal, at least in part, of the grant of dominion to Adam over all the creatures; these obeyed him cheerfully, and from love, but sinning, he in a good measure lost his power over them, they rebelled…

Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you That is, every beast, fowl, and fish, without exception; for though there was a difference at this time of clean and unclean creatures with respect to sacrifice, yet not with respect to food; every creature of God was good then, as it is now, and…

But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat. ] This is the only exception to the eating of flesh; it was not to be eaten with the blood in it, which is said to be its life; not that the blood is of itself the life, but because it is a means of life, and that being…

And surely your blood of your lives will I require Or “for surely your blood” [[13]]; and so is a reason of the preceding law, to teach men not to shed human blood; or though, “surely your blood”, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra; though God had given them liberty to slay the creatures, and shed their…

Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, &c.] That is, he that is guilty of wilful murder shall surely be put to death by the order of the civil magistrate; so the Targum of Jonathan, “by witnesses the judges shall condemn him to death,” that is, the fact being clearly proved by…

And you, be ye fruitful and multiply Instead of taking away the lives of men, the great concern should be to multiply them; and this indeed is one reason of the above law, to prevent the decrease and ruin of mankind; and which was peculiarly needful, when there were so few men in the world as only…

And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him Not only what is contained in the preceding verses, but in the subsequent ones: saying; as follows.

And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you Not the covenant of grace in Christ, but of the preservation of the creatures in common, a promise that they should not be destroyed any more by a flood; to which promise it seems an oath was annexed, as appears from which passage refers to this…

And with every living creature that is with you This is a further proof that this was not the covenant of grace, but of conservation, since it is made with irrational as well as rational creatures: of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; the birds of the air, the tame…

And I will establish my covenant with you This is repeated to denote the certainty of it, as well as to lead on to the particulars of it: neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither man nor beast, at least not all of them, and especially by water: neither shall…

And God said, this is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you Meaning the bow in the cloud, and which might be formed in the cloud at this time, that Noah might see it, and know it when he saw it again, and seems to be pointed unto: “this is the token”; or sign of the covenant…

I do set my bow in the cloud Or “I have given”, or “have set it” [[14]]; which seems as if it was at that instant set; this is the same we call the “rainbow”: and so Horace [[15]] calls it “arcus pluvius”: it is called a “bow”, because of its form, being a semicircle, and a “rainbow”, because it is…

And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth Or “cloud a cloud” [[19]], cause the clouds to gather thick in the heavens, and to hang over the earth ready to pour down great quantities of water; by reason of which the inhabitants might dread another flood coming upon them:…

And I will remember my covenant which is between me and you, and every living creature of all flesh See (Gen. 9:11, Gen. 9:12) and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh; this is repeated to remove those fears which would naturally arise, upon the gathering of the clouds in…

And the bow shall be in the cloud Not whenever there is a cloud, but at some certain times, when that and the sun are in a proper position to form one, and when divine wisdom sees right there should be one; then it appears and continues for a time, and as the cloud becomes thinner and thinner, it…

And God said to Noah, this is the token of the covenant, &c.] Which is repeated for the greater confirmation and certainty of it, since the fears of men would be apt to run very high, especially while the flood was fresh in memory; which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the…

And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth These were born before the flood, and went into the ark with Noah, and came out with him; see and Ham is the father of Canaan; this is observed for the sake of the following history, concerning the behaviour of the…

These are the three sons of Noah And his only ones; and if he had any more, they left no posterity behind them, since it follows, and of them was the whole earth overspread, with inhabitants, by them and their posterity only: Berozus [[24]] indeed says, that Noah, after the flood, begat more sons,…

And Noah began to be an husbandman Or “a man of the earth” [[2]], not lord of it, as Jarchi, though he was, but a tiller of the earth, as he had been before the flood, and now began to be again; he returned to his old employment, and which perhaps he improved, having invented, as the Jews [[3]]…

And he drank of the wine, and was drunken Either not being acquainted with the strength of it, as is thought by many; or having been used to weaker liquor, as water; or through the infirmity of his age; however, he was overtaken with it, and which is recorded, not to disgrace him, but to caution…

And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father Which, had it been through surprise, and at an unawares, would not have been thought criminal; but be went into his father’s tent, where he ought not to have entered; he looked with pleasure and delight on his father’s nakedness: Ham is…

And Shem and Japheth took a garment Who were the two brothers Ham told what he had seen, and who, no doubt, reproved him for his ill behaviour, and then took a garment, a coat of their own, very probably, some large garment fit for the purpose; and laid it upon both their shoulders; one part of it…

And Noah awoke from his wine From his sleep, which his wine brought on him; when the force and strength of that was gone, and when not only he awaked, but came to himself, and was sober; and knew what his younger son had done to him; either by revelation, as some, or prophecy, as Ben Gersom, or by…

And he said Not in a drunken fit, as some profane persons would suggest, for he was awaked from his wine; nor in the heat of passion, but by inspiration, under a spirit of prophecy: cursed be Canaan; or, “O cursed Canaan”, or rather, “Canaan is”, or “shall be cursed” [[15]]; for the words are…

And he said, blessed be the Lord God of Shem Shem was blessed before Japheth, because he was the first and principal in advising and conducting the affair before ascribed to them, as Jarchi on suggests; and though the words are in the form of an ascription of blessedness to God, the fountain of all…

God shall enlarge Japheth Or give him a large part of the earth, and large dominions in it, as his posterity have had; for, as Bochart [[16]] observes, to them belonged all Europe, and lesser Asia, Media, Iberia, Albania, part of Armenia, and all those vast countries to the north, which formerly…

And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. ] So that he not only saw the old world, and the wickedness of that, and the destruction of it for it, but an increase of wickedness again, the building of the tower of Babel, the confusion of languages, the dispersion of his offspring,…

And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, &c.] He lived twenty years more than Adam did, and within nineteen of Methuselah, and his age must be called a good old age; but what is said of all the patriarchs is also said or him, and he died: the Arabic writers say [[21]], when the…