Behold I ...

Good morning from the Panhandle. We are nearing the end of our Spring Revival services and it has been great. Terry and Wayne have done an awesome job with the music and Ronnie, well he has fed us a good helping of God's Word.

We are still in Genesis 9 this morning. In this study we see that famous promise of God. As long as you see a rainbow in the sky I will not destroy the earth with a flood again. Sadly the LGBT have taken the rainbow as their symbol and changed the meaning of it. But that is the way of Satan, he takes something of God's and changes or tweaks it into something else. Any way that's a discussion for another time.

Let's start out today's study by looking at how God established a new covenant with Noah and his family.

Gen 9:8-19

8 Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying,

9 "Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you;

10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth.

11 "I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth."

12 God said, "This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations;

13 I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.

14 "It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud,

15 and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh.

16 "When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth."

17 And God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth."

18 Now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth; and Ham was the father of Canaan.

19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.

1. God Established A Covenant With Noah and His Family (vv. 8-17) Here is, the general establishment of God's covenant with Noah and the generations to come.

God who is pleased with Noah and his family shows His pleasure in the way of a covenant, with which God shows His love and mercy.

Notice it is God who establishes and initiates the covenant with mankind, it is of His own making: I, behold, myself. It is thus expressed both to raise our admiration-"Behold, and wonder, that though God be high yet he has this respect to man," and to confirm our assurances of the validity of the covenant-"Behold and see, I make it; I that am faithful and able to make it good."

God's covenants are established more firmly than the pillars of heaven or the foundations of the earth, and cannot be annulled. They are made with the covenanters and with their decedents; the promise is to them and their children and their children's children.

The covenant made with Noah (Gen 6:18) is now formally confirmed. The purpose conceived in the heart (Gen 8:21) now receives significant expression. Not only a new blessing is bestowed, but also a new covenant is formed with Noah. For he that has offered an acceptable sacrifice is not only at peace with God, but renewed in mind after the image of God. He is therefore a fit subject for entering into a covenant - (from Barnes' Notes, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft)

God gives the covenant an outward and visible sign or token as a constant remainder of the sacred agreement. This sign would be a pledge of the inner spiritual bond, guaranteeing its unending reliability. The Hebrew perfect tense can be translated I have set, or I now at this moment do set. The bow in the cloud was to be the "sign." God may have created the rainbow at that moment and invested it with this meaning. Or He may have pointed to the bow already in the cloud and indicated that it would now take on new meaning, giving assurance of His mercy and grace; it would be a visible reminder of His love. He said: I will remember (v. 15). - (from The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1962 by Moody Press)

NOTE: [I do set my bow in the cloud] On the origin and nature of the rainbow there had been a great variety of conjectures, till Anthony de Dominis, bishop of Spalatro in a treatise of his published by Bartholus in 1611, partly suggested the true cause of this phenomenon, which was afterward fully explained and demonstrated by Sir Isaac Newton. To enter into this subject here in detail would be improper, and therefore the less informed reader must have recourse to treatises on Optics for its full explanation. To readers in general it may be sufficient to say that the rainbow is a mere natural effect of a Natural cause:

1. It is never seen but in showery weather.
2. Nor then unless the sun shines.
3. It never appears in any part of the heavens but in that opposite to the sun.
4. It never appears greater than a semicircle, but often much less.
5. It is always double, there being what is called the superior and inferior, or primary and secondary rainbow
6. These bows exhibit the seven prismatic colours, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
7. The whole of this phenomenon depends on the rays of the sun falling on spherical drops of water, and being in their passage through them, refracted and reflected.

The formation of the primary and secondary rainbow depends on the two following propositions:

1. When the sun shines on the drops of rain as they are falling, the rays that come from those drops to the eye of the spectator, after ONE reflection and TWO refractions, produce the primary rainbow.

2. When the sun shines on the drops of rain as they are falling, the rays that come from those drops to the eye of the spectator after TWO reflections and TWO refractions, produce the secondary rainbow. The illustration of these propositions must be sought in treatises on Optics, assisted by plates. - (from Adam Clarke's Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Biblesoft)

The fact that the rainbow, that "coloured splendour thrown by the bursting forth of the sun upon the departing clouds," is the result of the reciprocal action of light, and air, and water, is no disproof of the origin and design recorded here. For the laws of nature are ordained by God, and have their ultimate ground and purpose in the divine plan of the universe which links together both nature and grace. "Springing as it does from the effect of the sun upon the dark mass of clouds, it typifies the readiness of the heavenly to pervade the earthly; spread out as it is between heaven and earth, it proclaims peace between God and man; and whilst spanning the whole horizon, it teaches the all-embracing universality of the covenant of grace" (Delitzsch). - (from Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament: New Updated Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)

Noah’s Son’s And A Brief History (vv. 18 & 19)

Shem, Ham, Japheth. Moses the author of Genesis makes it clear that these three sons of Noah became the fathers of the three great families of mankind. Shem is named first as occupying the place of leadership and prominence in God's plans for the peoples.

The Semites (Shemites) were to be the spiritual leaders of men. God's chosen ones of that line would teach the religion of Jehovah to the world. We know that the Messiah was to come from Shem's descendants. "SHEM signifies name or renown, and his indeed was great in a temporal and spiritual sense. The finest regions of Upper and Middle Asia allotted to his family, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Media, Persia, etc., to the Indus and Ganges, and perhaps to China eastward. Shemites is strongly marked in the prophecy by the tents of Shem, and such it remains to the present day, throughout their midland settlements in Asia

Japheth was to be the father of one large branch of the Gentile world. His descendants would scatter far and wide in their search for material gain and power. They would be prosperous and exceedingly powerful. His descendants move eastward and westward throughout the whole extent of Asia, north of the great range of Taurus, as far as the Eastern Ocean, where they probably crossed over to North America by Behring's Straits from Kamtschatka, and in the opposite direction throughout Europe to the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; from there they also might have crossed over to North America by Newfoundland, where traces of early settlements remain in parts now desert.

And so they gradually increase themselves until they literally encompassed the earth, within the precincts of the northern temperate zone, to which their roving hunter's life contributed a great deal. Their progress northwards was checked by the much greater extent of the Black Sea in ancient times, and the increasing rigor of the climates: but their hardy race, and enterprising, warlike genius, made them frequently encroach southwards on the settlements of Shem, whose pastoral and agricultural occupations rendered them more inactive, peaceable, and unwarlike; and so they dwelt in the tents of Shem when the Scythians invaded Media, and subdued western Asia southwards as far as Egypt, in the days of Cyaxares, when the Greeks, and afterward the Romans, overran and subdued the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians in the east, and the Syrians and Jews in the south; as foretold by the Syrian prophet Balaam,

Ham was to be the father of the other branch of Gentiles, including Egyptians, Ethiopians, Abyssinians, and related groups. His son, Canaan, became the father of the groups called Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land of Canaan, later dispossessed by the Hebrews.

"HAM," says Dr. Hales, "signifies burnt or black, and this name was peculiarly significant of the regions allotted to his family. To the Cushites, or children of his oldest son Cush were allotted the hot southern regions of Asia, along the coasts of the Persian Gulf, Susiana or Chusistan, Arabia, etc.; to the sons of Canaan, Palestine and Syria; to the sons of Misraim, Egypt and Libya, in Africa.

"The Hamites in general, like the Canaanites of old were a seafaring race, and arrived at civilization and the luxuries of life sooner than their simpler pastoral and agricultural brethren of the other two families. The first great empires of Assyria and Egypt were founded by them, and the republics of Sidon, Tyre, and Carthage were early on distinguished for their commerce but they also fell to decay sooner; and Egypt, which was one of the first, became the last and humbled of the kingdoms, and has been successively in subjection to the Shemites and Japhethites, as have the settlements of the other branches of the Namites.