Genesis 9King James Version
God blesses Noah and gives the rainbow as the sign of His covenant. Noah plants a vineyard, drinks the wine, and lies uncovered in his tent. His son Ham sees him and tells his brothers. The brothers walk in backward to cover their father. When Noah wakes, he blesses Shem and Japheth and curses Ham's son Canaan.
God blesses Noah and his sons with the same charge given to Adam: be fruitful, fill the earth. Meat is permitted now with restrictions. God establishes a covenant with Noah and every living creature: no more flood. The sign is a rainbow. Then Noah plants a vineyard, gets drunk, and is exposed. Ham sees and tells his brothers; Shem and Japheth cover their father. Noah wakes and curses Canaan, blesses Shem and Japheth.
The post-flood world begins with covenant and blessing, then almost immediately stumbles into shame and cursing, showing the new world carries the old problem.
13: "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth." A weapon of war laid down and turned to a sign of peace, the most beautiful object in the sky carrying a promise not to destroy.
Grapes ferment naturally. Noah was not the first brewer in history, but the first one recorded in scripture. The scene is awkward: a man who survived the flood, who walked with God, lying drunk in his tent. The text does not editorialize. It just tells what happened. The sons' responses are what matter to the author.
God, who blesses and promises; Noah, whose first recorded post-flood act is planting a vineyard; Shem and Japheth, who honor their father; Ham, whose action begins a bitter curse.
The Noahic covenant is the first covenant explicitly extended to all of creation, not just one family or people. The rainbow as its sign appears in Ezekiel's visions and in Revelation. The curse on Canaan is deeply uncomfortable and was used historically to justify slavery, which is a gross misreading but one with real consequences.
For when something enormous has ended and you do not quite know what to do with the ordinary moments that follow. Noah plants a garden and almost immediately falls apart.
1And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
2And 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.
3Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
4But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
5And 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.
6Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
7And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
8And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,
9And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;
10And 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.
11And 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.
12And 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:
13I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
14And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
15And 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.
16And 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.
17And 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.
18And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
19These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.
20And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
22And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
23And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
24And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
25And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
26And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
27God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
28And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.
29And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.