Read Genesis 9 and 10 at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraph divisions for these chapters are:
Gen 8:15-9:7 {s} Blessing on the righteous, be fruitful and multiply
Gen 9:8-17 {p} God’s everlasting covenant with the earth
Gen 9:18-29 {p} Shem and Japheth blessed/ Canaan cursed
Gen 10:1-14 {s} The sons of Japheth and Ham
Gen 10:15-20 {s} The sons of Canaan
Gen 10:21-32 {p} The sons of Shem
Incidentally, the sections of Scripture bounded by the strong paragraph divisions {p}, and the strong themes they reveal, show us something interesting today. Before today’s reading, the last {p} was found at the end of Gen 6:8, so that
Gen 6:9-12 {s} Contrast righteous Noah/ corrupt earth
Gen 6:13-8:14 {s} Righteous preserved through the judgment of the wicked
Gen 8:15-9:7 {s} Blessing on the righteous, be fruitful and multiply
Gen 9:8-17 {p} God’s everlasting covenant with the earth
encompasses a single strong theme. Do you notice that this theme of judgment for sin does not end until God has renewed a covenant of peace with every living thing on the face of the earth? This is a recurring characteristic of God, we will discover. The judgment is not the end of the story, but the covenant and the peace.
Now the next section, Gen 9:18-10:32, forms its own chiastic structure:
This is not the first time nakedness comes up in Scripture. When God created Adam and Eve, they were both naked but were not ashamed (Gen 2:25). When Adam realized he was naked after eating the forbidden fruit, he tried to cover his nakedness (without being able to erase its accompanying shame), and hid himself from the presence of God in the garden (Gen 3:7-10). Nakedness is a metaphor for human vulnerability, humiliation, shame, foolishness, sin, weaknesses, mistakes, imperfections.
In the garden, it was the enemy who exposed human nakedness (by setting Eve on the course that would cause them to see it, Gen 3:1-7). It was God who covered it (Gen 3:21). Those who do the works of their father, are of their father (Joh 8:37-47): and here, in the new world, it was Ham who exposed nakedness, and Shem and Japheth who covered it. Thus the curse on Ham’s descendant Canaan, and the blessing on Shem and Japheth.
He who covers a transgression seeks love,
But he who repeats a matter separates friends. Pro 17:9
For further reading:
Gen 8:15-9:17, Chiastic structures: the sacrifice + the rainbow
Gen 8:15-9:17, Teaching tool of common themes revealed
Gen 9:18-29, History of Canaan / dishonor brings a curse
Gen 9:18-10:32, Messiah revealed in the curse on Canaan
The Sixteen Grandsons of Noah by Harold Hunt
The Table of Nations by Bill Cooper
After the Flood: the early post-Flood history of Europe traced back to Noah by Bill Cooper / in print
The Forgotten History of the Western People, from the earliest origins by Mike Gascoigne
Leave a Reply