Reading Genesis 9:18-11:9
We last stop with the covenant that God made with Noah and every living creature, promising that the waters shall never become a flood to destroy all flesh (Genesis 9:15).
All seems good right? Evil was eradicated, the world can continue on the “good” trajectory that should come after the flood. You see, the problem is this: evil was NOT eradicated. Noah received grace and was saved from the flood, but in him was still the tendency to sin. It did not take long for us to see sin “re-enter” the story. I put “re-enter” in quotation marks because it never really left. Again, the flood was not meant to eradicate sin. It was just meant to eradicate the vessels for it. Sin still remained as long as there exists a vessel. So, as Noah and his family scattered, we see that sin also scattered across the whole earth. They were the vessels.
Into some Biblical history, Canaan (a branch of descendants of Ham) was specifically mentioned in Genesis 9:18. Because of Ham’s disrespect of his father’s (Noah) shame, his descendants were cursed to be servants of servants. Shem and Japheth, instead covered their father’s shame with a garment (see the analogy in Genesis 3 when God covered Adam’s and Eve’s shame). Shame needs to bee covered! God has a plan to cover our shame and he is going to unveil it to us quite soon, but hand in there.
But before we get to God’s plan, we are introduced to the descendants of Noah. People were scattered and nations were formed. These names would be important if you want to study Biblical history, but the ones that I want to mention are the descendants of Canaan through Ham. The names you see from Genesis 10:15-19 will eventually occupy the land that God will eventually call his people to. They are basically enemies of the people chosen by God. This was the significance of Noah’s curse, they became enemies of God’s people. Individual sin affects descendants.
The Tower of Babel further reinforces the idea that sin was not eradicated. Adam and Eve sinned because they disobeyed, in particular, they thought they could elevate themselves to the level of God. The incident at the Tower of Babel is the same. A group of people wanted to build for themselves a tower to reach heaven. Their desire was to make a name for themselves so that they will never be dispersed. They wanted to be the centre of attention by elevating themselves. So what did got do? God dispersed them and ensured that they could never congregate again, not until his plan to eradicate sin is carried out. Mankind will not be unified under the same identity again for a long time.
The passages in this lesson remind us that sin was not yet eradicated from mankind. The flood was not meant to remove sin, just to eradicate the vessels that carried them.
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