Genesis 9 to 11

The Nations To Babel

 

Critical Apologetics Issues:

Some of the apologetic issues that we may encounter here are:

• Gap Theory?
• Vegetarian before the flood?
• Was there many languages that became one from chapter 10 to 11?
• Pangea and the Flood
• Is there an extra “Cainan” in Luke?

Click Critical Apologetics Issues for Genesis 9 to 11 for further resources.

Genesis 9: Life After The Flood

Point 1 (Genesis 9:1-3)

God sends Noah and his family out into a fresh world with blessings upon blessings: “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (9:1).

Man is given the task of   spreading over God’s creation,   stewarding it,   and filling creation with goodness as a reflection of the image of God.  There is a prophetic foreshadowing here in the command to “fill the earth” that is later revealed plainly:

Habakkuk 2:14 “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.”

This extraordinary measure of goodness is meant to give mankind a fresh start: a new beginning apart from the saturation of evil.

Romans 2:4 “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”

 

Point 2 (Genesis 9:4-7)

Life is now made holy.  Animals are given to man for food, but, man is not allowed to eat their lifeblood- that belongs solely to God.

God now institutes the corporate death penalty.

 

Point 3 (Genesis 9:8-17)

God establishes His covenant of forbearance and longsuffering with all the earth: sealed with the Rainbow.

The LGBT community aims at testing God’s patience and mocking His longsuffering.

 

Point 4 (Genesis 9:18-29)

The first historical account given after Noah and his family exit the Ark is of Noah planting a vineyard and becoming drunk:

Psalm 104:14-15 “Bless the LORD, O my soul!  He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the service of man, that he may bring forth food from the earth, and wine that makes glad the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread which strengthens man’s heart.”

I believe there is a prophetic picture in Noah’s drunkenness:

Jeremiah 23:9 “My heart within me is broken because of the prophets; all my bones shake.  I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome, because of the LORD, and because of His holy words.”

Isaiah 5:7 “For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are His pleasant plant.  He looked for justice, but behold, oppression; for righteousness, but behold, a cry for help.”

Noah gives a prophetic revelation of the course in life that Canaan’s offspring would take: this is more “prophetic” than “curse”.

What was Ham’s sin?

• Seeing Noah naked (v22a)?
  OR
• Mocking his father (v22b)?
  OR
• Perversity (v24)?

 

 

 

 

Genesis 10: The Nations Descending From Noah

Point 1 (Genesis 10:1-32)

The tenth chapter of Genesis is meant to frame the following chapters in Genesis; often in the West we prefer to summarize, but Genesis appears to employ the method of “framing context” (see ch 1 vs 2, etc).

In this chapter we are given the first prophetic hint of the coming “great commission” for the gentiles:

Genesis 10:5- Japheth (the father of the gentiles) “Language”, “families”, “nations”- “tongue, tribe, and nation”.

 

Genesis 11: Babel

Point 1 (Genesis 11)

As the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth began to grow, they began to roam together eastward until they came to the plain of Shinar.  And they began to rebel in their hearts against God’s decree that they should spread across the earth and multiply.

Pride of life:

• Make a great city.
• Make a great name.
• Not spread and fill the earth

But God had predetermined dwellings for men, as it is said:

Acts 17:26 “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.”

In Genesis 11:7 God confuses their language and intertwines prophetic relevance for the course of history:

Jeremiah 5:15  “Behold, I will bring a nation against you from afar, O house of Israel; a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say.”

Zephaniah 3:9  “For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language, that they all may call on the name of the LORD, to serve Him with one accord.”

James 3:1-12  TURN AND READ