Genesis 9:1-17 - The Image of God and His Covenant

Genesis 9:1-17

1 So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. 2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man.

6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed;
For in the image of God
He made man.

7 And as for you, be fruitful and multiply;
Bring forth abundantly in the earth
And multiply in it.”

8 Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying: 9 “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth. 11 Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

12 And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13 I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. 14 It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow 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; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

We read of how the image of God in man was called to be multiplied in the earth after the judgment of the flood, renewing the original mandate (Genesis 1:28) given Adam, but interrupted by the deluge to cleanse the world (Genesis 6:13) of rampant violent sin.  Before the flood man ate only plants, but after being set free to repopulate the earth, he was given the mandate and permission to also now eat the animals who would likewise now have a fear for man as a means of protecting themselves.  He was commanded, however, in no uncertain terms never to consume the life of the animals by eating their blood which gave and sustained their lives.  This is why the sacrifices had to be drained of blood to allow their lives to be poured out to cover sins.  This also had the larger meaning of the sacrifice of God’s Son and our Passover Lamb (Exodus 12:12-13, Isaiah 53:7, 1 Corinthians 5:7) whose lifeblood was poured out to cover and atone for our sin, but as a perfect offering to cover all sin forever (Hebrews 7:27, 9:12, 10:10) with a single supreme sacrifice of His life to redeem ours.  The warning extended in the command to Noah and his offspring therefore to never take the life of another as what led to the necessity of the flood.  Since the life was in the blood, killing another person would hold them accountable for the lifeblood as of Cain, Lamech, and all the others earning the wages of sin, and murder would then hold the sinner accountable by the death penalty returned on his or her own head.  This was again because each person is made in the image of God, bearing that image to be honored in like treatment and not destroyed in jealousy or anger.  Noah and his family then had this warning along with the mandate to continue to be fruitful and multiply in the earth to create godly offspring (Malachi 2:15) to tend His creation.  He then established a covenant with man from that generation and following to never again flood the earth to deal with the corruption of sin.  Indeed, the earth has been corrupted (Genesis 6:11-12, Romans 8:21) by our original sin passed through our spiritual DNA of Adam to all (Romans 5:12, 17-18, 9-20), yet the promise to judge us will no longer be by such a deluge.  In the end, it will be by a consuming fire to (2 Peter 3:7) cleanse sin’s presence from the earth.  This covenant made by the LORD God is to all people and every living thing on this world.  It has a sign for us to remember every time it rains again that no world covering flood will follow, the sign on the sky of a rainbow of peace and comfort in its assurance of goodness to us.  This sign is not to commemorate immortality as it does lately in our spiritually corrupt culture, but to assure us of God’s mercy and grace in the face of deserved judgment and destruction for that immorality and other heinous crimes like murder that destroy God’s image of holiness in His creation whom we all are.  Remember the image of God and His covenants.  Look to the sky to remember this mercy and sin no more lest a worse end comes on us if we are not covered in the sacrificial lifeblood of God’s Son, Jesus Christ in the New Covenant of His blood (1 Corinthians 11:25, 1 Timothy 2:5, Hebrews 9:15, 12:24) to redeem His children.  This then explains the importance of the Image of God in us and His Covenant in relation to the corruption of sin and judgment on the world.