This is a story about God’s wrath, with one exception—the grace given to one man and his family.
I always say, don’t underestimate the ability of a boat, cute animals, and a rainbow to soften a story. Keep in mind that children tend to tacitly trust what grown-ups tell them. They assume that the people drowned by God must have been so completely corrupt to have deserved their demise. But I wonder, how many children are disturbed by the whole thing? Think about the premise for a child: do something bad, and God will drown you! That’s rough.
The earth was “corrupt” and “filled with violence.” At the end of the story it establishes a foundational concept for those who commit violence—blood for blood, life for life. When you commit violence against a human that is created in the image of God, you are committing an act of violence against that image, and your life is to be taken in response. Look again at Genesis 9:5–6.
There is a kind of dark irony; God is heartbroken by comprehensive violence, so he commits comprehensive violence. That is a stark notion. It’s sad, and the text says it makes God sad and regretful. Violence breaks God’s heart.
God says that Noah will be the last patriarch who lives an extraordinarily long life (Gen. 6:3). After Noah a human being’s years will not surpass 120 years. Noah lived 950 years.
Noah sends out a black raven before the dove. This could be a literary device, a black bird being a sign of foreboding. The white dove and the olive branch eventually have come to represent peace. Why? Because after the flood, in the wake of God ridding the earth of violence, peace can now exist.
That’s all for this chapter. We will consider what happens after Noah gets off the boat, particularly the rarely reported story of Noah getting drunk and cursing his grandson and descendants forever.
If you have time in the next couple of weeks, watch Darren Aronofsky’s film Noah. Most of what he did was rooted in Jewish and Christian interpretations of the story and the practice of Jewish Midrash. Watching it will offer you a different perspective to consider.
Questions for Reflection or Discussion
1. Most people were familiar with this story as a child. Was this story scary to you when you were younger? Why or why not?
2. Violence makes God sad in this story. Talk about the value of human life and discuss the different kinds of violence in the world today.
Read Genesis 9:1–28 (some will be a repeat).
The narrative says that the first thing Noah does when the boat settles on dry land is build an altar and offer a sacrifice to God. Then he immediately plants a vineyard and gets drunk. Any vineyard owner knows it takes between five to seven years to yield grapes. A good amount of time transpired in that one sentence, between his planting a vineyard and getting drunk.
What happened during that time? Why does Noah curse his grandson Canaan and his descendants? The answer might be found in the five to seven years it took to grow the grapes.
Scholars aren’t definitive about it, but what could very likely be implied in the story is that Noah’s grandson attempted to overthrow the tribal headship of his grandfather because Noah was suffering from a posttraumatic reaction to the flood.
Wait. Where did you read that?
Admittedly, you have to read a great deal between the lines to get that interpretation, but that is part of the challenge and fun of interpreting ancient stories. If it’s accurate, Noah’s period of ineffectual leadership is conveyed symbolically in getting drunk, passing out naked, and embarrassing himself in front of the tribe.
So something sketchy happened between Noah and his grandson Canaan. As you read forward into the Bible, you will begin to notice that the Canaanites are not seen in the most positive light. The shaming of Canaan will resurface again and again as we move forward. Canaanites are significant players in the larger arc of the entire Bible. Pay attention. Make a mental note.
The story of Noah and the Great Flood is about God’s judgment, tempered with grace toward one family and his desire to not completely give up on humanity. He makes a covenant with Noah that he will never again destroy the earth with water, and he “signs” that agreement by placing a rainbow in the sky. It is such a dark story, but there is a glimmer of God’s care and hope for creation.
Questions for Reflection or Discussion
1. How do you feel when someone gets drunk? Why do they drink so much?
2. Noah curses his grandson. Why do you think he does this? What did Canaan do wrong?
3. The flood was a traumatic event and likely deeply affected Noah. What are other traumatic events that can profoundly change us? In what ways do they change us, good and bad?
Scan Genesis 10, then read Genesis 11:1–9.
Genesis chapters 1–11 are considered the mytho-poetic origin stories of the ancient Hebrew people. To reiterate from chapter 5, the word “myth” does not mean false. Rather, myths are the stories that hold a culture’s understanding of itself. They can be fictional, historical, or a blending of both. It may be confusing to describe biblical stories to be a mixture of both; however religious stories speak to both sides of the human brain, the creative imaginative side and the logical rational side.
Genesis chapters 1–11 seek to answer a series of origin questions: Where did life come from? How did humanity begin? What is the source of evil? How did violence first emerge? Where did human language come from?
In Genesis chapter 10 Noah sends each of his three sons in different directions to repopulate the world. This is referred to as the Table of Nations. Shem goes east toward Mesopotamia; Ham is given Egypt, including the small bit of land given to his cursed son Canaan (modernday Middle East, also known as the Levant); and Japheth goes north into what is now the nation of Turkey.
The final story in this collection of primordial, primeval, mythopoetic stories is the Tower of Babel found in chapter 11. Can you see a similar theme in this story as the one in the Garden of Eden? When building Babel, they don’t expressly say they are trying to be God, but striving for the heavens in order to make a name for themselves. They want to elevate their position. God confuses their language and frustrates their effort, scattering them across the region. (Make a mental note