Covenant

Passage

Genesis 8:20–9:17 (ESV)

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man,

by man shall his blood be shed,

for God made man in his own image.

7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Intro

FCF-Question

Proposition-Answer

Body

Numbers 35:30–34 (ESV)

30 “If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the evidence of witnesses. But no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness. 31 Moreover, you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death. 32 And you shall accept no ransom for him who has fled to his city of refuge, that he may return to dwell in the land before the death of the high priest. 33 You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. 34 You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”

This idea is in accord with the use of the word (Gen 6.7; 7.4; 7.23 x2), to "blot/wipe out by washing," which is used for "the washing away of sins" (cf. Isa 43.25; 44.22; Jer 18.23; Ps 51.2,9; Prov 6.33).

1 Peter 3:20–21 “20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,”

Isaiah 26:19–21 “19 Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead. 20 Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by. 21 For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.”

“Not only a new year for Noah begins, but it was a New Year's Day for the whole world, the birthday of creation; on this very day the world rises again from the chaos of the flood. The removal of the ark's cover is Noah’s New Year’s celebration with which a renewed creation and a new life start. Now we may understand the arrangements in 6.16. The roof acted as a covering on top of the ark; Noah removes it, not because it hindered his view, but in honor of the day for which one removes the old garment as a woman removes the garment of her widowhood (38.14) or the garment of captivity (Deut 21.13). The last words of verse 13 picture the joy of the sight (1.30). Noah sees the grounds for which he had longed.... This is God's New Year's present to him.”

B. Jacob

New Beginning New Covenant

Genesis 8.15-20

a. Then God said to Noah (Gen. 8.15)

b. Come out from the ark (Gen.8.16)

c, So Noah came out (Gen.8.18) d. Then Noah built an altar to the LORD (Gen.8.20)

e. Then God blessed Noah (Gen.9.1) f "Be fruitful and increase" (Gen.9.1)

g. "I now establish my covenant with you and with your seed" (Gen.9.9)

Genesis 12.1-7

a. YHwH had said to Abram (Gen.12.1)

b. Leave your country (Gen.12.1)

c. So Abram left (Gen.12.4) d. So [Abram] built an altar there to the LORD (Gen.12.7)

e. "And I [God] will bless you" (Gen.12:2)

f. "I will make you into a great nation" (Gen.12:2)

g. "To your seed, I will give this land" (Gen.12.7)

Furthermore, as Genesis 1 foreshadows the covenant at Mount Sinai, both established by "ten words," so the deluge narrative between them contains a tenfold repetition of "and God/YHWH said" (6.9a, 13a, 7.1a, 8.15a, 15b, 21a, 9.1a, 8a, 12a, 17)112-a new world has been established."The `recreation' motif begun in 8.1-3 concludes with the renewal of mankind on a mountain (8.4)."

h. The Altar and the Covenant (8:20-9:19)

In the account of Noah's altar and the covenant, the author continues his close associations with Genesis 1. As a result of Noah's altar and offering, the state of humankind before the Flood is restored. Human beings are stil fallen (9:21), but through an offering on the altar they may yet find God's blessing (8:21-9:3). It is significant that just as in Genesis 1, the focus of the author's interest in human beings after the Flood is their creation in God's image (9:6).

Just as significant as the associations of this passage with the Creation account, however, are the several close associations between Noah's altar and Moses' altar at Mount Sinai following the Exodus (Ex 24:4-18). A brief list of some key parallels gives a sense of the verbal and thematic similarities:

(1) The building of the altar in both accounts follows a major act of God's salvation —God's rescue of Noah from the Flood and God's deliverance of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt;

(2) the altar and the offering in both accounts mark the establishment of a "covenant" with God (Ge 9:9; Ex 24:;

(3) the outcome of both covenants is God's "blessing" (Ge 9:1; Ex 23:25;*) the central provisions in both covenants are protection from "wild animals" (Ge 9:2; Ex 23:29) and human enemies (Ge 9:5-6; Ex 23:22);

(5) both accounts mention specifically that the "land" will be preserved from destruction (Ge 9:11; Ex 23:29);

(6) in Genesis the visible "sign" of the the visible establishment of the covenant is the rainbow in the "clouds" (9:13-17), and in Exodus the conclusion of the covenant making is marked by the appearance of the glory of God in the "clouds" (Ex 24:15) that cover the mountain;

(7) both covenants give stipulations which the people must obey (Ge 9:4; Ex 24:3).

These observations suggest that the author intentionally draws out the similarities between God's covenant with Noah and the covenant at Sinai.

Why?

The answer that best fits with the author's purposes is that he wants to show that God's covenant at Sinai is not a new act of God. The covenant is rather a return to God's original promises. Once again at Sinai, as he had done in the past, God is at work restoring his fellowship with humanity and bringing humanity back to himself, The covenant with Noah plays an important role in the author's development of God's restoration of blessing. It lies midway between God's original blessing of all humankind (1:28) and God's promise to bless "all the families of the earth" through Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3).

Verses 18 and 19 are the conclusion of the Flood story, but at the same time they form an introduction to the short episode of Noah's drunkenness. These verses are a good example of the author's style of composition throughout Genesis. By means of these short transitional units the author ties together individual, self-contained narratives into a larger line of stories.

In this particular transitional unit one should not overlook the identification of Canaan as one of the sons of Ham (9:18). That bit of information is crucial to the meaning of the narrative to follow (cf. Gen. 9:22, 25).

Conclusion-How do we do it?