You know, this reminds me of how painful sin is. It's total ramifications can't be quantified. Just think about it: Adam and Eve surely never realized how much pain their sin would bring into the world. They didn't realize their sin would lead to their son Abel being murdered, their son Cain being "marked," nor the world experiencing the Flood as countless people and creatures were literally swept away.
But this is how sin always works. Temptation always looks so "innocent" and "isolated". We think to ourselves: Well, "my sin" is "my business" because it won't hurt anyone else. But that's a lie. Sin always causes more harm than we can imagine and hurts more people we ever thought of.
One little saying about sin goes something like this:
Sin will always take you further than you want to go.
It will always cost you more than you want to pay.
And it will always keep you longer than you every wanted to stay!
Yet, the great promise in this painful passage is that God's gives us a glimpse of His hope in the midst of our hurt. That's right. A rainbow is the sign of God's promise that He'll never destroy the earth with a flood again. And a rainbow never shines as brilliantly as it does when God paints it against a dark sky! But don't take my word for it, just take a look yourself...
Of course, the rainbow as a sign of God's covenant, His promise/agreement, to never destroy the earth with a flood again (see Genesis 9:8-17) is a great foreshadowing of His covenant to take away our sin through Christ's blood shed on the cross (see Matthew 26:26-29; Hebrews 9).
Let's thank God for His promise even in the midst of our pain! Every time you see a rainbow in the sky, let it remind you of God's promise and the fact that He always keeps His Word. And let's always remember the blood Christ shed on the cross to give us the forgiveness of sins (see Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14).
And obviously, let's keep reading...
Was Noah really 950 years old or was their time different than our time frame?
ReplyDeleteIn Genesis 6:3 the Lord said, “My spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years” Is this why Noah was 950 years old: because he was born pre-Gods determination of living?
Why would Noah get mad at Shem and Japheth when they covered him because he was naked?
Hey Aaron,
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear from you and great questions! Let's see if I can give a reply...
First, there's no reason in the text to take Noah's life-span as anything different than a plain/regular 950 years.
Second, you've made a great observation here. Actually, you'll see the life-span of individuals begin to slowly shortened. So, it seems that when God said He would limit the time-span for human life, it was something which gradually came to pass (for example, see Genesis 11:10-26).
Third, Noah was actually upset with his son, Ham, who fathered Canaan. Noah's words in Genesis 9:26-27 are a blessing on Shem and Japheth because they didn't act like Ham who saw and talked about his father's nakedness with his brothers, Shem and Japheth.
Okay, again, great questions...