Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

We continue reading chapter eight.  The water finally recedes, and Noah and his family leave the ark with all the animals.   Life will never be normal again.  The world must be repopulated.  This will be a longer process than the first time.  Man’s life expectancy is now much shorter.  Why do you think this happened?

Once again God commands that these eight people be fruitful and multiply.  The rest of the Bible will tell of this struggle.   Life will never be destroyed from the planet; God has promised this.

In Genesis chapter nine God makes a covenant with Noah, his sons and all living creatures.  Never again will all life be destroyed by flood.  The rainbow in the sky is not a physical phenomenon, but a promise from God.

The fear animals have of men is explained and meat is blessed as food for people.  Our canine teeth are another proof that God knew this day would come.  We are given everything that lives for food.  In Exodus animals are once again designated as clean and unclean.  Murder is also condemned and the punishment for it is given.  This is not original to the law given to Moses.

We are also enlightened about Noah and his son’s through a story about this righteous man becoming drunk from drinking too much wine and passing out while he is naked.  This proves that even the best man was not perfect.  The error was not in making or drinking the wine.  The mistake was in becoming intoxicated.  All human beings will sin.  And that means us?

We have arrived at chapter ten of Genesis.  This is the genealogy of all the nations that populated the ancient world.  They were the descendants of Ham, Shem and Japheth, Noah’s sons.  Japheth was the father of those that settled along the seashores and became mariners. The Hamites include Egypt, Canaan, Babylon, and Assyria.  The Shemites include the ancestors of Abram as well as others.

We find more here to describe where and how these nations descended.  I don’t want to dwell on this since most of us are not that interested in ancient history.

“Nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.”  This is the statement of God from Genesis chapter eleven that explains why He confused the language.  Does the verse four of chapter ten preview this scripture.  Today, differing speech does not necessarily preclude cooperation among peoples.   God scattered them throughout the planet.  It was not only the language that was spoken that was different.  Different cultures mean complications in understanding each other.  These problems often cause problems in marriage.

Abram is descended from Shem as we learned yesterday.  His father, Terah, was moving the family from Ur to Canaan, but they stopped and stayed in Harran.  After he died, God would direct Abram to complete the journey.