Genesis 9:1-19 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply,
and replenish the earth. 2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon
every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. 5 And surely your blood of your lives
will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will
I require the life of man. 6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made
he man. 7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. 8 And God
spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, 9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your
seed after you; 10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast
of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. 11 And I will establish my covenant
with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to
destroy the earth. 12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature
that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant
between me and the earth. 14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall 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 the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and
I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that
is upon the earth. 17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. 18 And the sons of Noah,
that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan. 19 These are the three
sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread. The Covenant with Noah is the third general or universal
covenant. Noah has just passed through the universal flood in which all the world's population has been wiped out.
Only Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives (8 people) consitiute the world's population. Noah might that the
things provided by the covenant with Adam had now been changed. However, God gives the Noahic Covenant so that Noah
and all the human race to follow might know that the provisions made in the Adamic Covenant remain in effect with one notable
addition: the principle of human government which includes the responsibility of suppressing the outbreak of sin and violence,
so that it will not be necessary to distroy the earth again by a flood. The provisions are:
1. The responsibility to populate the earth is reaffirmed (v.1).
2. The subjection of the animal kingdom to man is reaffirmed
(v.2).
3. Man is permitted to eat the flesh of animals. However,
he is to refrain from eating blood (vv. 3, 4).
4. The sacredness of human life is established. Whatever
sheds man's blood, whether man or beast, must be put to death (vv. 5, 6).
5. The Covenant is confirmed to Noah. all mankind, and every
living creature on the face of the earth (vv. 9, 10).
6. The promise is given never to desroy the earth again by a universal
flood (v. 11). The next time God destroys the earth (vv. 9, 10).
7. The rainbow is designated as a testimony of the evidence
of the covenant and the promise never to destroy the earth by flood. As long as we can see the rainbow we will know
that the Noahic Covenant is in existence (vv. 12-17).
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