GENESIS 8:20 – 9:19                                            God’s Covenant with Noah

Noah’s first action on leaving the ark was to build an altar. He “took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird” for a great sacrifice to God for his deliverance from the waters of the flood – and for his deliverance from the violence of the evil world God had destroyed.

Several things changed on the earth after the flood that still have implications for us today, some of which we tend to overlook in our modern world.

God promised several things to Noah:

·         He would never again curse the ground because of man. That is, the earth would not lose its fertility by God’s decree. Nothing is said here about removing the curse of thorns and thistles given at the Fall, however, nor does God say that the earth will never be cursed by man’s own actions.

·         He would never again strike down every living creature as He had done in the flood. To assure Noah of this, he made the rainbow a sign of this covenant promise, especially that there would never be another universal flood to cover the entire earth. Without this promise, would Noah and family have been fearful every time it started to rain?

·         He promised that the seasons of seedtime & harvest, winter & summer, and day and night would not cease.

Some things were changed with regard to man and the animals:

·         “The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast.” While it is possible to tame animals (at least to some degree), the companionship of man and beast is different from what it was in the Garden of Eden and on the pre-flood earth.

·         Animals now become food for man. Evidently, up to this time man was vegetarian. Now, he is also given meat to eat, as well as all creeping things. We moderns do not normally eat bugs – but God says it’s o.k., and in survival training, they are a source of protein.

·         One restriction was put on this: “You shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”

·         Capital punishment for murder was instituted, whether the human is killed by man or beast. The reason for this is that “God made man in his own image.” To take the life of a creature made in God’s own image requires an extreme punishment.

Some things continued as they had been, as God renewed what He had said to the newly created couple in the Garden of Eden: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” God created the earth to be populated, though He did not say that every couple should have all the children they possibly can. It is a concept that man himself is a curse on the earth, though it is very true that man often curses the earth by abusing it.

There are, as you can see, principles in this covenant with Noah that still have importance for us today. And these things predate the Law given by God to Moses, a law given for all mankind, not just one nation.