Tag: Noah

The Power to Forgive

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Suppose you have all the power in the world to address those who have wounded you.

1. You can forgive them and teach them how to live rightly.
2. You can harm them, exacting vengeance on them so they experience your pain.

Which do you choose?

This is a story of Noah.

Here is the setup:
There are Four Characters
There is Deception
There is Nakedness
There is Shame
There is a telling (Who told you that you were naked?)
There is Curse and Covering / Covering and Curse

Genesis 3 and Genesis 9 include these same elements in almost the exact same order

In Genesis 3 we have FOUR CHARACTERS: God, Adam, Eve & the serpent. There is DECEPTION, causing disobedience which leads to seeing their NAKEDNESS. They are ASHAMED. There is a (TELLING OF NAKEDNESS: who told you?). God CURSES the serpent & the ground, and then COVERS Adam & Eve.

In Genesis 9, we have FOUR CHARACTERS: Noah, Shem, Japheth & Ham. There is DECEPTION (Proverbs 20:1 links deception to wine) which leads to seeing Noah’s NAKEDNESS. He is SHAMED by his son Ham to his brothers as there is a (TELLING OF NAKEDNESS). The brothers COVER Noah, and then Noah CURSES Ham’s son.

Rabbi Marty Solomon, quoting Rabbi Fohrman sees a clear link here. He suggests Noah was familiar with the story of Genesis 3, and he could have learned the lesson: God cursed a wicked thing and forgave the ones who disobeyed.

Instead, Noah curses the one who shamed him, even after the brothers cover him.

In this view, Noah is even reminded about the covering by his sons before he launches into vengeance. He had every opportunity to stop and remember God’s handling of Adam and Eve. He could have forgiven them and covered their shame.

But he choses violence instead.

I’m tempted to fault Noah here, but given the power to forgive, taking the pain on myself or the chance to exact vengeance where I can inflict my pain back on them (7-times? 77-times?), how often do I fail to forgive?

This is a story about all of us. And here, we are shown the consequence of what happens when we fail to forgive.

By cursing Canaan, an entire people are subjected and enslaved. This curse is so great that Israel’s suffering is largely because of the generations of Canaan that live in the Promised Land.

Perhaps generational curses are the result of unforgiveness.

Perhaps forgiveness changes the world.

Loving the Dirt

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Genesis is full of patterns, and a break in a pattern is meant to call your attention to it.

There’s a break in the pattern with Noah, and it is profound.

In Genesis 5, we have this repeating pattern in the genealogy. A person was born, they had a son, then they had other sons and daughters, and then they died. Over and over again, from Adam to Lamech.

But not so with Noah.

You might first think, “Well, of course not with Noah. Noah is still alive by the end of Genesis 5,” and you’d be right. He is.

But jump to the end of Genesis 9, and what do you see?

After the flood Noah lived 350 years. Noah lived a total of 950 years, and then he died.
Genesis 9:28-29 (NIV)

Where is the “and had other sons and daughters?” It’s missing.

Remember – the pattern (and deviations from it) IS the story. And in the case of children, it is explicitly tied to the blessing of “be fruitful and multiply” in Genesis 9:7.

But Noah is not fruitful. He does not multiply. This is meant to catch your attention.

The rabbis wondered about this. In the Midrash, one teaching suggests Ham’s sin wasn’t about “shaming dad’s nakedness,” but rather was about castration. In doing this, he prevented Noah from having more children. So Noah retaliates against Ham’s child.

Another view points to Leviticus, where the phrase “your father’s nakedness” comes into view, and it’s associated with sleeping with your father’s wife, although this is generally about a second wife, and not one’s own mother. But maybe Ham is Oedipus?

The nakedness of your father’s wife you shall not uncover; it is your father’s nakedness.
Leviticus 18:8 (NKJV)

I have another view.

When Noah is reintroduced in Genesis 9:21, we are told he is a “man of the soil.” Literally, Noah is “ish ha’adamah.”

Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard.
Genesis 9:20 (NIV)

This word “ish” does mean “man,” but when we first saw this word, it was in Genesis 2, when man met his wife: Ish and Isha. Husband and Wife.

Perhaps Noah fell in love with the ground. Perhaps he first loved the Creator, and then turned and loved the created thing, and devoted all of his time to it, neglecting God and his own wife.

How much dedication does it take to tend a vineyard so you can get drunk from it?

In any event, this is my view. In Jewish studies, this is called “drash,” and it’s only as true as it holds up to other clear teachings/truths in the Torah.

From this drash, I see: love God, love your neighbor. Don’t love the earth or the things in it above people and God.

A Problem with Noah

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Noah is a problematic character for mainline Christian theology, which suggests that once a man is “saved” or “declared righteous,” they are sort of on an upward trajectory forever, getting better with age like a fine wine.

But the rabbis point out four things about Noah. Narratively, Noah introduces the following to humanity:

1. Planting – he plants a vineyard.
2. Drunkenness – he shames himself with wine.
3. Curses – he curses his grandson.
4. Slavery – he condemns his grandson’s house to slavery.

We tend to leave out the Genesis 9 parts of Noah’s life when we teach Sunday School to little children, but there they are in glaring detail.

There’s obviously nothing wrong with planting, but Noah’s other 3 actions seem quite disastrous.

From Genesis 5 to 8, we see a man who obeys God; his heart appears inclined towards God.

But in Genesis 9, we have a different picture. I can’t help but see an angry, bitter man who yells at his grandchildren, drowning himself in wine to cope with the tragedy of the flood.

It’s a tragic end. But God uses him.

The Name

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And Melchizedek the king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High.
Genesis 14:18 (NIV)

The rabbis suggest that Melchizedek may be Shem, the son of Noah. Or at least, the text is linking the concepts of the two men.

“מלך שלם” (“King of Salem”) The initial letters of these words spell the name Shem. This teaches that Malchizedek was Shem, the son of Noah.
Kitzur Ba’al HaTurim on Genesis 14:18:1

Consider that “Shem” means “name,” and the God is often referred to as “haShem,” or “the Name.”

A Covering

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Now it came about in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, that the water was dried up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground had dried up.
Genesis 8:13 (NASB)

If you’ve been paying very close attention to the boat building project, you’ll see something odd in Genesis 8.

Noah removes a “covering” that was never mentioned before. It’s meant to be understood like a giant sheet. It must have been massive.

This Hebrew word for “covering” is new to the text. We haven’t seen it before, but it comes up again in Exodus, when the Tabernacle is being described. It, too, is being covered.

The cubit on one side and the cubit on the other, of what is left over in the length of the curtains of the tent, shall hang over the sides of the tabernacle on one side and on the other, to cover it. And you shall make a covering for the tent of rams’ skins dyed red and a covering of fine leather above.
Exodus 26:13-14 (NASB)

The next time we see this covering happen is when the Ark of the Covenant is being described in Numbers.

When the camp sets out, Aaron and his sons shall go in and take down the veil of the curtain, and cover the ark of the testimony with it; and they shall place a covering of fine leather on it, and spread over it a cloth of pure violet, and insert its carrying poles.
Numbers 4:5-6 (NASB)

In these two later cases, the Holy Place is being covered.

But in Genesis, the ark is being uncovered.

And if we see this symbols of Holy Places being covered and uncovered, perhaps we should consider the contents.

In the Ark of the Covenant, there are three things: the 10 commandments in stone, Aaron’s staff, and a golden pot of manna.

In the Arc of of the Flood, Noah has THREE sons.

Perhaps these three things are related. Perhaps it points to the future.

And on this mountain He will destroy the covering which is over all peoples,
The veil which is stretched over all nations.
He will swallow up death for all time,
And the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces,
And He will remove the disgrace of His people from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken.
Isaiah 25:7-8 (NASB)

In the Dark

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Genesis 8:6 says 40 days, but this is not the 40 days of rain at the start.

Before this verse, it says that after the rains, in the tenth month is when the ark bumps into the top of Ararat. That’s when Noah opens the window. So a LOT of time has passed.

In the dark.

At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made.
Genesis 8:6 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS 2006)

On the Boat, Off the Boat

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Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives.
Genesis 8:15-16 (NIV)

God told Noah to enter the Ark. Twelve months later, God told Noah to exit the Ark.

A Midrash points to a Psalm and says it’s about Noah, crying out to be freed from the Ark.

“God spoke to Noah, saying: Go out of the ark” – “release me from confinement to thank Your name. The righteous, through me, will give glory when You perform kindness with me” (Psalms 142:8). “Release me from confinement [masger]” – this refers to Noah, who had been confined to the ark for twelve months.
Bereshit Rabbah 34:1

Perhaps. But I wonder if he didn’t want off the boat. He would have to face the world again.

The Mount of Olives

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When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth.
Genesis 8:11 (NIV)

The rabbis wondered about this olive leaf the dove found, because in the already unlikely story of a global flood, it is unlikely that an olive tree should produce leaves so quickly.

They point to Ezekiel and suggest that perhaps the Mount of Olives and Israel (Eden) were never flooded.

Again the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, say to the land, ‘You are a land that has not been cleansed or rained on in the day of wrath.’
Ezekiel 22:23-24 (NIV)

Rejected one, Accepted the Other

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After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth.
Genesis 8:6-7 (NIV)

The rabbis note that the Raven is unlike the dove in Genesis 8. For starters, there are only two ravens, because it’s an unclean animal, but there are fourteen doves.

In the Jewish writings, the raven argues that Noah and God hate the raven, for if he dies, we have no ravens.

This is why the raven flies back and forth; it will not leave its mate. Or perhaps it had offspring while on the boat.

But Noah holds out his hand to meet the returning dove.

But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark.
Genesis 8:9 (NIV)

The Birds

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After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth.
Genesis 8:6-7 (NIV)

I’ve mentioned the three land animals being a symbol of all people: wild animals, livestock, and creeping things.

I don’t think birds are people at all in the story. We already associate doves with the spirit of God, but ravens? Perhaps they represent something else entirely.

And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”
Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”
Job 2:2 (NIV)