Genesis 9 1 17 commentary

GE ESIS 9 1-17 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
1.
Then God blessed oah and his sons, saying to
them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and
fill the earth.
CLARKE, "God blessed Noah - Even the increase of families, which appears to
depend on merely natural means, and sometimes fortuitous circumstances, is all of God.
It is by his power and wisdom that the human being is formed, and it is by his
providence alone that man is supported and preserved.
GILL, "And God blessed Noah and his sons,.... With temporal blessings, not
spiritual ones; for though some of them were blessed with such, yet not all, particularly
Ham:
and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth;
depopulated by the flood: this is a renewal of the blessing on Adam, a power and faculty
of propagating his species, which was as necessary now as then, since there were so few
of the human race left in the world; and the renewal of this grant was the rather
necessary, if, as has been observed, Noah and his sons were restrained from cohabiting
with their wives while in the ark: but though these words are not an express command
for the propagation of their species, yet more than a bare permission, at least they are a
direction and instruction to it, and even carry in them a promise of fruitfulness, that they
should multiply and increase, which was very needful at this time.
HAWKER, "This Chapter opens, to us, the beginning of the account of the new world,
after the destruction of the old; so that here we commence, again, as it were, the history
of mankind, in general, and of the Church of God in particular. In the contents of this
chapter, we are highly interested; not only because it relates to us the goodness of God,
in a way of providence to the world at large; but because we have in it the outlines of
divine mercy, in the way of grace, confirmed afresh by covenant engagements, to Noah
and his descendants, unto the latest generations.
HENRY, "We read, in the close of the foregoing chapter, the very kind things which God

said in his heart, concerning the remnant of mankind which was now left to be the seed
of a new world. Now here we have these kind things spoken to them. In general, God
blessed Noah and his sons (Gen_9:1), that is, he assured them of his good-will to them
and his gracious intentions concerning them. This follows from what he said in his heart.
Note, All God's promises of good flow from his purposes of love and the counsels of his
own will. See Eph_1:11, Eph_3:11, and compare Jer_29:11. I know the thoughts that I
think towards you. We read (Gen_8:20) how Noah blessed God, by his altar and
sacrifice. Now here we find God blessing Noah. Note, God will graciously bless (that is,
do well for) those who sincerely bless (that is, speak well of) him. Those that are truly
thankful for the mercies they have received take the readiest way to have them
confirmed and continued to them.
Now here we have the Magna Charta - the great charter of this new kingdom of
nature which was now to be erected, and incorporated, the former charter having been
forfeited and seized.
I. The grants of this charter are kind and gracious to men. Here is,
1. A grant of lands of vast extent, and a promise of a great increase of men to occupy and
enjoy them,. The first blessing is here renewed: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish
the earth (Gen_9:1), and repeated (Gen_9:7), for the race of mankind was, as it were, to
begin again. Now, (1.) God sets the whole earth before them, tells them it is all their own,
while it remains, to them and their heirs. Note, The earth God has given to the children
of men, for a possession and habitation, Psa_115:16. Though it is not a paradise, but a
wilderness rather; yet it is better than we deserve. Blessed be God, it is not hell. (2.) He
gives them a blessing, by the force and virtue of which mankind should be both
multiplied and perpetuated upon earth, so that in a little time all the habitable parts of
the earth should be more or less inhabited; and, though one generation should pass
away, yet another generation should come, while the world stands, so that the stream of
the human race should be supplied with a constant succession, and run parallel with the
current of time, till both should be delivered up together into the ocean of eternity.
Though death should still reign, and the Lord would still be known by his judgments, yet
the earth should never again be dispeopled as now it was, but still replenished, Act_
17:24-26.
JAMISON, "Gen_9:1-7. Covenant.
And God blessed Noah — Here is republished the law of nature that was
announced to Adam, consisting as it originally did of several parts.
Be fruitful, etc. — The first part relates to the transmission of life, the original
blessing being reannounced in the very same words in which it had been promised at
first [Gen_1:28].
K&D, "These divine purposes of peace, which were communicated to Noah while
sacrificing, were solemnly confirmed by the renewal of the blessing pronounced at the
creation and the establishment of a covenant through a visible sign, which would be a
pledge for all time that there should never be a flood again. In the words by which the
first blessing was transferred to Noah and his sons (Gen_9:2), the supremacy granted to
man over the animal world was expressed still more forcibly than in Gen_1:26 and Gen_
1:28; because, inasmuch as sin with its consequences had loosened the bond of
voluntary subjection on the part of the animals to the will of man-man, on the one hand,
having lost the power of the spirit over nature, and nature, on the other hand, having
become estranged from man, or rather having rebelled against him, through the curse

pronounced upon the earth-henceforth it was only by force that he could rule over it, by
that “fear and dread” which God instilled into the animal creation. Whilst the animals
were thus placed in the hand (power) of man, permission was also given to him to
slaughter them for food, the eating of the blood being the only thing forbidden.
MEYER 1-17, "As the human race started afresh on its career, God blessed it, as at the
first. God always stands with us in a new start. The prohibition against the use of blood
in food is often repeated. See Lev_17:11; Act_15:29. In a very deep sense, the blood is the
life. When we speak of being redeemed by the blood of Jesus, we mean that we have
been saved by His sacrificed life. The blood maketh atonement for the soul. But while
animal life might be used for food or sacrifice, human life was surrounded by the most
solemn sanctions. A Covenant is a promise or undertaking resting on certain conditions,
with a sign or token attached to it. The bow in the cloud, the Lord’s Supper, the wedding
ring are signs and seals of their respective covenants. Never witness a rainbow without
remembering that as God hath sworn that the waters of Noah shall no more go over the
earth, so He will not withdraw His kindness. See Isa_54:9.
PETT, "Verses 1-7
God’s Detailed Instruction to Noah and His Sons (Genesis 9:1-7)
In this whole passage God is Elohim, the Creator, for He is as it were beginning again,
and reinstating man as His representatives on earth. Here God includes Noah’s sons in
His instructions. This is different from Genesis 8:21 and previously, demonstrating that
this is His official dealings with the whole of mankind. So God gives instructions to
Noah, and to ‘his sons with him’. These instructions are important. The destruction of
man might have been seen as annulling his position as God’s representative. Thus God
as Creator renews the commission He first gave to man:
1). Man is commanded to be fruitful and repopulate the world (Genesis 9:1 compare
Genesis 1:28 a)
2). Man is to have authority over creation (Genesis 9:2 compare Genesis 1:28 b)
3). Man is given the right to eat of the flesh of living creatures and of plants but not of
their blood (Genesis 9:3-4 compare and contrast Genesis 1:29)
4). Man’s life is sacred because he is made in the image of God, and to take that life is to
merit death (Genesis 9:5-6)

5). The further command to repopulate the world (the double mention stressing that this
is the vital instruction to which the others are secondary).
Genesis 9:1
‘And God (elohim) blessed Noah and his sons with him and said to them, “Be fruitful
and multiply, and fill the earth.” ’
We note that now the sons of Noah are included in God’s words for the first time. This is
a step forward and demonstrates that God now sees them as part of what is to be. They
share his relationship with, and responsibility before, God. They represent the whole of
mankind.
God is here speaking as the Creator (elohim) as in Genesis 1:28, and repeats the words
there spoken to man. Again man is ‘blessed’. He again has the seal of God’s approval on
him. Yet the females are excluded, unlike in Genesis 1. This was, of course, the result of
the Fall and the subsequent subjection of the woman. So this is written with an
awareness of the material found in Genesis 2-3.
ELLICOTT, "(1) God blessed Noah.—The blessing bestowed upon Noah, the second
father of mankind, is exactly parallel to that given to our first father in Genesis 1:28-29;
Genesis 2:16-17, with a significant addition growing out of the history of the past. There
is the same command to fill the world with human life, and the same promise that the
fear of man shall rest upon the whole animated creation; but this grant of dominion is so
extended that the animals are now given to man for his food. But just as there was a
restriction as regards Adam’s food, the fruit of the tree of knowledge being refused him,
so now there is a prohibition against the eating of blood. The addition is the sanctity
given to human life, with the evident object of guarding against such a disruption of the
human race as was the result of Cain’s murder of Abel. Thus, then, man starts afresh
upon his task of subjugating the earth, with increased empire over the animal world, and
with his own life more solemnly guarded and made secure.
COFFMAN, "Introduction
Dods referred to this chapter as the "Fall of Noah," but it might equally be called the
"Second Fall of Mankind." A number of things which are of the greatest consequence to
humanity are introduced in this chapter; and John Skinner noted that, "As a historical
document, it is of the highest importance.[1] The profound conception of the unity of
mankind and the religious primacy of Israel were cited by Skinner, but much more is
found. Here is the origin of capital punishment (Unger), the judiciary (Keil), the
institution of government, and the beginning of the second descent of humanity into a

condition of hardening and rebellion against God.
The most remarkable thing in the chapter is that the great hero of the Flood is here
presented as a weak and sinful man, the reason for this, in all likelihood being that of
removing any thought that even one like Noah, who assuredly was "righteous in his
generation," and a "preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter 2:5), would be able to provide
the Saviour that man needed. Only the Holy One, Jesus our Lord, would be able to do
that.
SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER
The Adamic blessing, extended and elaborated, is conveyed to Noah, thus investing him
with the status of a second father of all mankind, and also a barrier against the gross
violence of the antediluvians is established in the law of capital punishment (Genesis
9:1-7). The rainbow covenant appears in Genesis 9:8-17, and the sin and dishonoring of
Noah, along with the prophetic blessing (and curse) upon the major segments of
humanity making up his posterity are found in Genesis 9:18-29.
Verse 1
"And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of
the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens; with all wherewith the ground teemeth,
and all fishes of the sea, into your hand are they delivered. Every living thing that
moveth shall be food for you; as the green herb have I given you all."
Here is the repetition of exactly the same commission that was given to Adam and Eve in
the beginning (Genesis 1:28,29, and Genesis 2:16,17). It is a recognition in Noah of a
second progenitor for the human race. Noah was no better than Adam, as would quickly
appear, but God took some precautions against the unrestrained violence that preceded
the Flood. The use of [~'Elohiym] as the name of God in this verse does not stem from
its having been in the Elohist document, but from the fact that, "Here the deity is
exhibited in his relations to his creation."[2]
"And the fear of you and the dread of you ..." There seems to be revealed here some
fundamental change in the human creation's relationship to the animal kingdom. Just
what it is we are unable to say, but apparently this divinely-instilled fear might have
been for the protection of man. As a rebel against God, it was inevitable that hostility
should also exist between men and the rest of God's creation. The "image of God" was
still in man (Genesis 9:6); "but it had been marred."[3]

"Every living thing that moveth shall be food for you ..." There is much difference of
opinion about whether or not man had been permitted to eat meat before this, and our
opinion is that nobody knows for sure. Our assumption here is that it had not been
intended from the first, but that the introduction of animal sacrifices in the days of Abel
supports the conviction, that after the Fall and the institution of sacrifice, men surely ate
meat. Also, we have noted that the preponderance of "clean animals" in the ark was also
presumably related to the food supply. We agree with Alford, Keil, Whitelaw, and others
that, "Whether permitted or not, prior to the Flood, it was used, and here for the first
time was formally permitted by Divine edict."[4] There is more than sufficient reason for
the special mention of animal food just here because of the restriction about to be placed
on it, without the necessity of supposing that for the very first time men were allowed to
eat animals. Willis and many other respected scholars take a different view.
BENSON, "Genesis 9:1. God blessed Noah and his sons — He assured them of his good-
will to them, and his gracious intentions concerning them. The first blessing is here
renewed, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and repeated, Genesis 9:7;
for the race of mankind was, as it were, to begin again. By virtue of this blessing
mankind were to be both multiplied and perpetuated upon earth; so that in a little time
all the habitable parts of the earth should be more or less inhabited; and though one
generation should pass away, yet another generation should come, so that the stream of
the human race should be supplied with a constant succession, and run parallel with the
current of time, till both should be swallowed up in the ocean of eternity.
LANGE, "1. The Significance of this Jehovistic Section. This second event in the life of
Noah after the flood is evidently of the highest meaning; as was the first, namely, Noah’s
offering and God’s blessing and covenant. In the first transaction there are delineated
the ground-features of the new constitution of the earth, as secured by the covenant of
God with the pious Noah. In the present Section we learn the advance of culture, but we
recognize also the continuance of sin in the new human race; still, along with the earlier
contrast between piety and perverseness, there comes in now the new contrast of a
blessed life of culture as compared with the religious life of a divine cultus, or worship.
In what Noah says of his sons, we read the ground-forms of the new state, and of the
world-historical partition of mankind. In Knobel’s representation of it, this higher
significance of the Section is wholly effaced. In the curse upon Canaan (according to this
view), and in his appointment to servitude, the Jehovist would give an explanation of the
fact, that the Canaanites were subjugated by the Hebrews, and that Phænician settlers
among the Japhethites[FN14] appear to have had a similar fate. But that the curse was
pronounced upon Canaan, and not upon Ham, was because other Hamitic nations, such
as the Egyptians, etc, were not in the same evil case. Still, it is not Canaan, but Ham
himself, who is set forth as the shameless author of the guilt, (?) because the writer
would refer certain shameless usages of the Hamitic nations to their first ancestor. Now,
on the simple supposition of the truth of the prediction, and of the connection between
the guilt of the ancestor, and the corruption of his descendants, this construction must
fall to the ground. Knobel cites it as “an ancient view,” that the cursings of those who are
distinguished as men of God, have power and effect as well as their blessings.

BI 1-7, "God blessed Noah and his sons
The Divine benediction on the new humanity
I. PROVISION FOR THE CONTINUANCE OF ITS PHYSICAL LIFE. This divinely
appointed provision for the continuance of man upon the earth—
1. Raises the relation between the sexes above all degrading associations.
2. Tends to promote the stability of society.
3. Promotes the tender charities of life.
II. PROVISION FOR ITS SUSTENANCE. The physical life of man must be preserved by
the ministry of other lives—animal, vegetable. For this end God has given man dominion
over the earth, and especially over all other lives in it. We may regard this sustenance
which God has provided for man’s lower wants—
1. As a reason for gratitude. Our physical necessities are the most immediate, the
most intimate to us. We should acknowledge the hand that provides for them. We
may regard God’s provision herein—
2. As an example of the law of mediation. Man’s life is preserved by the
instrumentality of others. God’s natural government of the world is carried on by
means of mediation, from which we may infer that such is the principle of His moral
government. That “bread of life” by which our souls are sustained comes to us
through a Mediator. Thus God’s provisions for our common wants may be made a
means of educating us in higher things. Nature has the symbols and suggestions of
spiritual truths.
3. As a ground for expecting greater blessings. If God made so rich and varied a
provision to supply the necessities of the body, it was reasonable to expect that He
would care and provide for the deeper necessities of the soul.
III. PROVISION FOR ITS PROTECTION.
1. From the ferocity of animals.
2. From the violence of evil men.
IV. PROVISION FOR ITS MORALITY.
V. PROVISION FOR ITS RELIGION.
1. Mankind were to be educated to the idea of sacrifice.
2. Mankind were to be impressed with the true dignity of human nature.
3. Mankind must be taught to refer all authority and rule ultimately to God. (T. H.
Leale.)
Noah a representative person

1. In the earliest fauna and flora of the earth, one class stood for many. The earliest
families combined the character of several families afterwards separately introduced.
This is true, for instance, of ferns, which belong to the oldest races of vegetation. Of
them it has been well said that there is hardly a single feature or quality possessed by
flowering plants of which we do not find a hint or prefiguration in ferns. It is thus
most interesting to notice in the earliest productions of our earth the same laws and
processes which we observe in the latest and most highly-developed flowers and
trees.
2. At the successive periods of the unfolding of God’s great promise, we find one
individual representing the history of the race, and foreshadowing in brief the
essential character of large phases and long periods of human development. Hence it
is that here Noah becomes the representative of the patriarchal families in covenant
with God. He is the individual with whom God enters into covenant, in relation to
the successive generations of the human race.
3. And in this respect Noah is a retrospective type of Him who, in the eternal ages,
consented to be the representative of redeemed humanity, and with whom the
Father made an everlasting covenant; and a prospective type of that same
Representative who, in the fulness of time, received the Divine assurance that in Him
should all nations of the earth be blessed. (W. Adamson.)
The new world and its inheritors—the men of faith
1. The first is the new condition of the earth itself, which immediately appears in the
freedom allowed and practised in regard to the external worship of God. This was no
longer confined to any single region, as seems to have been the case in the age
subsequent to the Fall. The cherubim were located in a particular spot, on the east of
the garden of Eden; and as the symbols of God’s presence were there, it was only
natural that the celebration of Divine worship should there also have found its
common centre. But with the Flood the reason for any such restriction vanished.
Noah, therefore, reared his altar, and presented his sacrifice to the Lord where the
ark rested. There immediately he got the blessing, and entered into covenant with
God—proving that, in a sense, old things had passed away, and all had become new.
But this again indicated that, in the estimation of Heaven, the earth had now
assumed a new position; that by the action of God’s judgment upon it, it had become
hallowed in His sight, and was in a condition to receive tokens of the Divine favour,
which had formerly been withheld from it.
2. The second point to be noticed here is the heirship given of this new world to
Noah and his seed—given to them expressly as the children of faith. A change,
however, appears in the relative position of things, when the flood had swept with its
purifying waters over the earth. Here, then, the righteousness of faith received direct
from the grace of God the dowry that had been originally bestowed upon the
righteousness of nature—not a blessing merely, but a blessing coupled with the
heirship and dominion of the world. There was nothing strange or arbitrary in such a
proceeding; it was in perfect accordance with the great principles of the Divine
administration. Adam was too closely connected with the sin that destroyed the
world, to be reinvested, even when he had through faith become a partaker of grace,
with the restored heirship of the world. Nor had the world itself passed through such
an ordeal of purification, as to fit it, in the personal lifetime of Adam, or of his more
immediate offspring, for being at all represented in the light of an inheritance of

blessing.
3. The remaining point to be noticed in respect to this new order of things is the
pledge of continuance, notwithstanding all appearances or threatenings to the
contrary, given in the covenant made with Noah, and confirmed by a fixed sign in the
heavens. There can be no doubt that the natural impression produced by this
passage in respect to the sign of the covenant is, that it nowfor the first time
appeared in the lower heavens. The Lord might, no doubt, then, or at any future
time, have taken an existing phenomenon in nature, and by a special appointment
made it the instrument of conveying some new and higher meaning to the subjects of
His revelation. But in a matter like the present, when the specific object
contemplated was to allay men’s fears of the possible recurrence of the deluge, and
give them a kind of visible pledge in nature for the permanence of her existing order
and constitution, one cannot perceive how a natural phenomenon, common alike to
the antediluvian and the postdiluvian world, could have fitly served the purpose. In
that case, so far as the external sign was concerned, matters stood precisely where
they were; and it was not properly the sign, but the covenant itself, which formed the
guarantee of safety for the future. We incline, therefore, to the opinion that, in the
announcement here made, intimation is given of a change in the physical relations or
temperature of at least that portion of the earth where the original inhabitants had
their abode; by reason of which the descent of moisture in showers of rain came to
take the place of distillation by dew, or other modes of operation different from the
present. The supposition is favoured by the mention only of dew before in
connection with the moistening of the ground (Gen_2:6); and when rain does come
to be mentioned, it is rain in such flowing torrents as seems rather to betoken the
outpouring of a continuous stream, than the gentle dropping which we are wont to
understand by the term, and to associate with the rainbow. (P. Fairbairn, D. D.)
THE GOD OF SECO D CHA CES
A do over
A fresh start
If at first you don't succeed try try again is a motto that God believes. He did not
give up on man and a world populated with mankind. Did God fail? He did fail
to achieve his goal at first, but he did not give up but tried again and succeeded.
A big assignment for just 4 families, but they did the job. Having an abundance
of children was a basic part of God’s plan. God wanted his people to be fruitful,
which is the same as being very sexual people. This is a repeat of the original
order to man, for God does not change his purpose just because man fails. A
healthy sex life is a vital part of marriage, and it is necessary for the world to be
populated. God wants the earth to be filled with people. umbers matter to God.

It was not a time to quit and say the world is too evil to bring forth new life. It
was a time of hope for a whole new future for mankind, and so get busy raising a
large family and look forward and not back. It was a new beginning and they
were to have a vision of hope and anticipation of great things ahead.
Dr. Ray Pritchard has an interesting introduction to his sermon on this text. He
writes, "Let’s suppose you are a reporter assigned by your editor to cover
oah’s flood. It’s the biggest story of the ancient world, and it’s your story. So
you research it and you write it up. When it’s done, you turn it in, the editor
reads it, and pays you the ultimate compliment, “Let’s run this on page 1.” Then
he asks a question you haven’t thought about. “What’s the headline?” You
pause, considering the question carefully. After all, the flood has so many angles,
so many amazing parts to it. How will you sum it all up in just a few gripping
words?
Hold that thought for just a moment. A few years ago Bill Moyers hosted a
multi-part series on PBS called “Genesis: A Living Conversation.” He invited a
panel of distinguished rabbis, pastors and scholars from various fields to help
him discuss the contemporary meaning of the events recorded in Genesis. When
they came to the episode about the flood, he asked his panel the same question I
just asked: What headline would you write if you were covering the great flood
of oah’s day? One panelist suggested this headline: “God Destroys World in
Flood.” Another panelist, a pastor, suggested something completely different:
“God Gives Humans a Second Chance.”
Who was closer to the truth? From one standpoint, the first headline was
biblically and historically accurate. God did destroy the world with a flood.
That’s a fact. It’s also a very eye-catching headline. Probably not many of us
would have thought of the second suggestion about God giving humans a second
chance. It doesn’t catch the drama of the ark, the flood, and the death of a
civilization. And it’s not nearly as exciting. But on a very deep level, it does bring
us to the bottom line of the story. After the floodwaters receded, after the
animals left the ark, and after oah and his family stood on dry land again, God
did indeed give humanity a second chance. And that’s the message we find in
Genesis 9. Once the flood is over, oah and his family have the task of starting
all over again."
This concept of the second chance is a common theme in the Bible, for without a
second chance man would not even be here. God could have wiped out all people
including oah and his family and there would be no one to start again. This
second chance is one of the great examples of the grace of God to mankind. A
major part of the history of mankind revolves around second chances. Many
famous people were first of all failures before they became successful and
famous. They did not give up to failure but sought a way to get a second chance,
and they used that second chance to make their dreams come true. umerous

athletes have failed to win a major competition such as an Olympic gold medal,
but they devote their time to develop and get a second chance and they go on to
capture the prize for which they aim.
Senator Alan Simpson served two years for a federal crime, but he was given a
second chance and became a lawyer and went on to become a senator for 18
years and after that the Director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard
University's Kennedy School of Government. He is one of the millions who are so
grateful that life gives us second chances. Many an ex-con has taken advantage
of his freedom to make something of his or her life and become a productive
member of society. Unfortunately, most do nothing with their second chance and
end back in prison. This poem says it all for the majority-
If Life Would Give Second Chances:
If life would give second chances,
we wouldnt give it second glances;
we wouldnt take all that care,
we wouldnt have less time to spare.
wouldnt it be full of prances;
wouldnt we be free as butterflies
all our troubles we would keep aside,
everyone would be so very glad;
perhaps this couldnt be true,
Isn't it so very sad.
-Tanaisha
It is sad indeed, but God knowing that man would still fill the world with evil
wanted to give them a second chance, and we can all thank God for this grace,
for we would not be here for a first chance without this second chance for
mankind. Praise God for the grace of second chances.
In the world of medicine there are more chances today than ever for a second
chance. People had no choice but to die for many reasons that today they can be
saved from. Modern technology gives people a second chance to live again when
even vital organs like the heart and liver are destroyed leading to what was once
inevitable death. One source of these life giving devices writes,
"Every day…of every year…St. Jude Medical’s products

and technologies are giving people around the world a
“Second Chance” at life. Their stories — of
fear and ofcourage…of despair and of hope…of facing defeat and
then beating the odds — are captured in the pages of
this year’s annual report."
Some people are brought back to life after they have literally died, and they get a
second chance to live again. Some people get divorced and then fall in love again
and remarry getting a second chance to live a happy life together. owdays you
can have a conflict and not be able to watch a special progam that is on
television, but because of the VCR you can have a second chance at seeing it at
another time. Life is filled with second chances.
Second chances are what forgiveness is all about, and it is what the grace of God
is all about. It is what salvation is all about. If God was not the God of second
chances there would be no chance at all of man surviving to experience eternal
life.
God had the first temple destroyed, but then he brought his people back to Israel
and had a second temple built and gave them a second chance to worship and
honor God as the only one they worshiped.
Jonah fled from God, but God brought him back from the grave of the whale
and gave him a second chance to go to ineveh and preach. His second chance
gave the whole population a second chance to repent and escape judgment.
Andrew M. Greeley
We're given second chances every day of our life. We don't usually take them,
but they're there for the taking.
Mary Pickford
If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for
you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down.
Oprah Winfrey
Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.
SECO D CHA CE (Trisha Yearwood)
What do you do when love comes along
And offers your heart a chance to move on
With no guarantees, no safety net?
You trust what you feel; you take that first step

(Chorus:)
Just close your eyes
Reach for the moment
Before it slips by
Here is your second chance
Take it and fly
The weight of the world, the need to survive
Has made you believe that you're got no right
Then, out of the blue, you meet someone
Who offers a place warm as the sun
(Repeat chorus)
SECO D CHA CE
(see also SALVAGED)
On ew Year's Day, 1929, Georgia Tech played University of California in the
Rose Bowl. In that game a man named Roy Riegels recovered a fumble for
California. Somehow, he became confused and started running 65 yards in the
wrong direction. One of his teammates, Benny Lom, outdistanced him and
downed him just before he scored for the opposing team. When California
attempted to punt, Tech blocked the kick and scored a safety which was the
ultimate margin of victory.
That strange play came in the first half, and everyone who was watching the
game was asking the same question: "What will Coach ibbs Price do with Roy
Riegels in the second half?" The men filed off the field and went into the
dressing room. They sat down on the benches and on the floor, all but Riegels.
He put his blanket around his shoulders, sat down in a corner, put his face in his
hands, and cried like a baby.
If you have played football, you know that a coach usually has a great deal to say
to his team during half time. That day Coach Price was quiet. o doubt he was
trying to decide what to do with Riegels. Then the timekeeper came in and
announced that there were three minutes before playing time. Coach Price
looked at the team and said simply, "Men the same team that played the first
half will start the second." The players got up and started out, all but Riegels.
He did not budge. The coach looked back and called to him again; still he didn't
move. Coach Price went over to where Riegels sat and said, "Roy, didn't you
hear me? The same team that played the first half will start the second." Then
Roy Riegels looked up and his cheeks were wet with a strong man's tears.

"Coach," he said, "I can't do it to save my life. I've ruined you, I've ruined the
University of California, I've ruined myself. I couldn't face that crowd in the
stadium to save my life." Then Coach Price reached out and put his hand on
Riegel's shoulder and said to him: "Roy, get up and go on back; the game is only
half over." And Roy Riegels went back, and those Tech men will tell you that
they have never seen a man play football as Roy Riegels played that second half.
"The serpent that Moses erected for the people was something that saved the
lives of the Israelites. They had been complaining, they had been sinning. They
had been angry and upset with God because of their plight in the wilderness.
And they were in danger, to the point of death, from the snakes. But this bronze
serpent served to save the lives of those who had been bit by the snakes. Looking
at the serpent, they could be saved. They have a second chance.
That, I think, is the key of the passage. Second chances. Everything Jesus
is talking about, all his cryptic language – it all signifies the fact that our life in
God is a life of repentance and renewal, seeking forgiveness, and starting over
again. Just as the serpent was lifted up for the people, so Jesus himself is lifted
up for the people, he says. By looking to Jesus, as they looked to the serpent, they
will have a chance at eternal life – the best second chance offer you’ve ever had.
Far from being a proof-test of our beliefs, John 3:16 tells us the motivation for
this plan of second chances. “For God so-loved the world.” That’s God’s reason
for action, God’s reason for sharing Jesus with us, God’s reason for offering us
chance after chance after chance to get ourselves together. God so-loved the
world. And so, Jesus concludes, he is not brought into the world to condemn the
world, but to save the world. That’s his purpose. That’s his main objective. "
The new birth is a second chance to be a true child of God.
Before Erma Bombeck died of cancer, she wrote this little piece, "If I Had My
Life to Live Over":
* "I would have talked less and listened more. I would have invited friends
over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded. I would have
eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt
when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.
* I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his
youth. I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer
day because my hair had just been done. I would have burned the pink candle
sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.
* I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass

stains. I would have cried and laughed less while watching television - and more
while watching life. I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by
my husband.
* I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth
would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day. I would never have
bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was
guaranteed to last a lifetime.
* Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every
moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only
chance in life to assist God in a miracle. When my kids kissed me impetuously, I
would never have said, "Later. ow go get washed up for dinner." There would
have been more "I love you's".. more "I'm sorrys"... but mostly, given another
shot at life, I would seize every minute...look at it and really see it... live it...and
never give it back."
A story is told of Thomas Edison when he was working on the first "light bulb"
and it took a whole team of men 24 straight hours to put just one together. When
Edison was finished with one light bulb, he gave it to a young boy helper, who
nervously carried it up the stairs. Step by step he cautiously watched his hands,
obviously frightened of dropping such a priceless piece of work. Well, you've
probably guessed what happened; the poor young fellow dropped the bulb at the
top of the stairs. It took the entire team of men twenty-four more hours to make
another bulb. Finally, tired and ready for a break, Edison was ready to have his
bulb carried up the stairs. He gave it to the same young boy who dropped the
first one.
"You know the Bible is full of people who are given second chances. One of them
is Abraham. Think of Abraham: chosen by God to be the father of the Chosen
People, Israel. Given this wonderful promise that "Through you, I will bless all
nations. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you." And
what does Abraham do shortly thereafter? He takes his wife, through whom
God said his child would be born, and he goes to another country where for fear
of his life, that they might kill him to get his wife, he lies and says, "Oh she's not
my wife, she's my sister. Go ahead and take her." What kind of spiritual leader
of the household of God is that? Later on he takes his wife's maid in order to
beget a child, hoping to get around the difficult part of the promise. ot exactly
your regular, upstanding, spiritual leader. Yet God never left him, and Abraham
was ultimately repentant for his failure and trusted that Gods grace was greater
than his sin. And he did end up being the father of a great nation and ultimately
the great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather of Jesus Christ, the
Messiah.
Or how about David? The greatest king of Israel. Pretty good guy except for the

time he committed adultery with the wife of a commander in his army and then
had the commander killed on the front lines to try to cover things up. ow
there's a spiritual leader, for sure, right? But remember what happens? David
tries to hide it for a while, but God doesn't let him. God sends athan the
prophet to expose him. And David, when confronted, confesses and repents. He
turns to God and asks for forgiveness. He has to suffer some consequences for
his sin, but God continues to use him for his purposes, for great purposes in the
world.
Even Paul the Apostle, who was approving of the stoning of one of the early
Christian leaders, Saint Stephen, and who went on to persecute the church - God
restored and healed him. Each of these people ended up dealing with their sin
head on, were willing to receive God's forgiveness and move forward in the
ministries to which they were called. "
"God is a tough, tender, relentless, loving, gracious friend, who lifts us up when
we are down, helps us when we can't help ourselves, and gives us a second
chance when it is the last thing we deserve."
"The couple who chooses to try to rediscover what holds them together after an
experience of betrayal faces that unbearable gift of a second chance. The mother
or father who tries to live again after the death of a child faces it. The woman or
man who learns to walk or talk again after an accident or stroke left them
unable to do either faces that painful and uncertain work of second chances."
Mary Kay Beard was a shotgun-toting bank robber with flaming red hair. When
Mary Kay was arrested she faced 180 years in prison if convicted of all the
charges against her. But God had other plans for Mary Kay - plans that would
ultimately affect millions of kids.
While Mary Kay awaited sentencing, she began attending the jail church
services. ot because she was interested in God, but because it was the only way
to get out of solitary confinement. As she sat in the chapel, Mary Kay was struck
by the volunteers at these early morning services. "Why", she wondered, "would
any sane person get up at 5 a.m. on the weekend just to visit prisoners?"
"Why do you bother?" she finally asked the elderly volunteer sitting beside her.
The answer blew her away. "Jesus loved you enough to go all the way to
Calvary," the woman replied. "So we love you enough to come in here and tell
you about him".

Over the next few weeks, the Holy Spirit began to work on Mary Kay's heart.
Alone in her cell one night, she opened her Bible. A verse from Ezekiel caught
her eye: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you, I will take away
your stubborn heart of stone and give you an obedient heart" (36:26). God did
change Mary Kay's heart. She began to study God's Word and grew in her
relationship with Christ. Amazingly, she received a sentence of just eight years.
When she left prison, Mary Kay was haunted by images of the women she'd left
behind. She remembered how, at Christmas, these women saved the things
volunteers brought them - soap, shampoo, toothpaste - and then gave these to
their kids for Christmas. When those children came to visit she saw how much
they cherished these small gifts from their mothers.
Mary Kay went back to the jail she'd once occupied and asked the women for
the names and addresses of their children. She wrote them on paper angels, and
hung them on a Christmas tree. She then prayed she would find enough
volunteers to buy gifts for all of them. Amazingly, every child's name was gone
in just a few days! On Christmas day 1982, 556 kids received Christmas gifts on
behalf of their mums in jail. Since then, countless thousands of children around
the world have benefited from the change that took place in Mary Kay’s life.
God had given her a second chance.
Prodigal came home and was welcome to a second chance to be a son.
"This past week I read of how women viewed as the most hopeless of God’s
people are getting a chance to start over. It was about prostitutes, women who
seem like lost souls, working the dark places of society. The United ations says
there is over 1 million women under the age of 18 involved in this kind of life.
Some are sold into slavery as early as age 6 or 7. Several groups of Christians,
calling themselves by such names as "Project Rescue," "The Scarlet Cord," and
" ew Life Center," are telling the story of God’s love to hundreds upon
hundreds of women, primarily in the Third World, who are finding a new life.
Once they hear that the Creator loved them, entered the world to save them,
they want to live in brand new way.
Have you heard the story of Barry Minkow? He made millions of dollars by the
time he was 18 working a Ponzi scheme through a company called, ZZZZ Best
Carpet and Furniture Cleaning Company, claiming the company’s outrageous
profits were from doing multi-million dollar restoration projects on buildings
with fire and water damage. After it was exposed by the Los Angeles Times the
company quickly unraveled and he was indicted. In prison he converted, and
today serves as the pastor of a congregation and works with the FBI helping to
identify others who are bilking the public. He says, "We all need a heart
transplant and Jesus is our donor."

In a recent book on the life of Billy Graham, William Martin says that the
primary reason for Dr. Graham’s lifelong phenomenal success is that he
consistently preached “the transforming power of a second chance.”
"Lee Strobel recently told this story about Billy Moore (Preaching Today,
Volume 211). Billy Moore grew up in a tough city in Ohio to an impoverished
family. He got involved with crime when he was very young. He and his friends
would smoke dope and get drunk and break into taverns and steal cash registers
– break into cigarette machines and steal the coins – and all other kinds of petty
theft. He later joined the army and got married. But shortly after that his wife
left him and took their son with her. He was broke, and he was desperate.
One night he and a friend were drinking and talking about how broke they
were. His friend said: “I know about a guy who lives not too far from here, and
the word is, he doesn’t trust banks. He keeps all his money in his bedroom.”
Billy said, “You know where he lives?”
His friend said: “Yea”
“Is he some big, tough guy?”
And the friend said, “ o, he’s an old guy. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
So a plot hatched in Billy’s mind. He went back to the barracks, got his gun, and
loaded it. He drove to that man’s home, broke in, and starting ransacking the
house.
The elderly man was in his bedroom when Billy broke through the front door.
He had a shotgun he used for hunting. And so as Billy Moore broke through the
bedroom door with a gun in his hand, this elderly gentleman pointed the
shotgun, pulled the trigger, and a blast went off.
The buckshot went over Billy’s shoulder, missed him completely. Billy took his
gun, pointed it at the old man, pulled the trigger twice. The elderly gentleman
fell dead. Billy rifled through his pockets, stepped over the body, ransacked the
bedroom, and walked away with $5,600 in cash. He fled to his trailer in rural
Georgia.
It didn’t take long for the police to track him down. He wasn’t exactly a clever
criminal. They arrested him and took him to jail. Billy thought his life was over.
He was being charged with capital murder, which was a death penalty case. He
believed he would never see the light of day again. He thought his life was over.

Billy Moore’s mother was a Christian, and she knew a Christian couple who
lived near the jail in Georgia. She called and said, “I’ve got a son, who is charged
with capital murder. Would you please go visit him?” They went to visit Billy,
and told him about Jesus. They said: “Billy, Jesus is willing to give you a second
chance and a fresh start at life.”
Billy looked back at them dumbfounded: “You’ve got to be kidding me. Don’t
you realize my situation here? I have murdered an old man. I am charged with a
death penalty case. My life is over! It’s too late for a fresh start! It’s too late for a
second chance! There are no new beginnings for me!”
But that Christian man looked back at Billy Moore and said: “ o, you don’t
understand. Jesus Christ loves you so much he wants to give you a second
chance and help you find a way to make your life count.” Billy not only heard
these words from this man and woman, but he saw Jesus in them. He later said:
“ obody ever told me that Jesus loved me. obody ever told me that Jesus had
died for me. It was a love I could feel. It was a love I wanted. It was a love I
needed.”
And so Billy Moore, as hopeless and broken an individual as you’re ever going
to see, got down on his knees in his jail cell and said, “God, are you telling me
that you want the likes of me? That you can forgive the likes of me? If that’s
true, Jesus, then have at it! I’m sorry for all I’ve done, and I want to live for you.
If you would adopt me and take me to heaven, that would be the best. But I
don’t have much time left, and if you could do something to make my life count,
it would be like icing on the cake.”
God heard that prayer. There was a bathtub there in the jail. They received
permission from the guards to fill it up with water. Billy Moore knelt in that
bathtub and was baptized.
Billy later went to court and pleaded guilty. He said to the jury: “How can I tell
you I didn’t do it when I did?” They found him guilty and sentenced him to
death. For sixteen years of living Billy waited to die. But during those sixteen
years Billy opened his life up more and more to God, and God continued to
change him from the inside out.
Billy Moore became a model prisoner, so much so that the guards had a
nickname for him. They called him “the peacemaker.” Death row was an ugly,
forsaken, violent, hateful place until Billy got there. But Billy led Bible studies
with the other inmates, and one by one they found hope and redemption and
new life in Jesus Christ. And this place that had been so awful and violent
became a place for second chances where people cared for each other. The whole
environment of death row changed for the good.
Billy took thirty-two courses from a Bible college by correspondence. He became
such an expert in counseling other people in spiritual matters, that when local

churches had real troublesome cases they would send these people to death row
to be counseled by Billy Moore!
He began writing and corresponding with hundreds of people throughout the
country. He did it for sixteen years, living in his cell, waiting for the day he
would die. And God continued working in his life.
In August of 1990 the court system finally caught up with Billy Moore. The
hours were ticking down to August 22, which is when Billy would go to the
electric chair. He was put in the deathwatch cell, where prisoners were held
during the last hours of their lives.
On August 21, 1990, seven hours before Billy Moore was to be electrocuted
something absolutely amazing took place. In fact, it is still unprecedented in
American legal history! The Georgia Pardon and Parole Board held an
emergency hearing about this model prisoner that they’d heard about who had
changed so many lives.
Guess who came to the hearing? All of the relatives of the victim who Billy
Moore had murdered! They came before that Parole Board and begged them to
spare his life. Why? Because when Billy had become a Christian sixteen years
before, he had begged their forgiveness and established a relationship with them.
The largest newspaper in the state of Georgia, the Atlanta Journal &
Constitution, wrote about Billy Moore and called him the “Saintly figure of
death row.” Mother Teresa called the pardon and parole board all the way from
India and offered only one sentence of counsel. She said: “Just do what Jesus
would do.”
The five members of that Pardon and Parole Board looked at this repentant
man, and did something so amazing that the next day it made the front page of
the ew York Times. They threw out the death penalty against him and did
something that had never been done before in American history: they set the
gears in motion to actually release him from prison. It was the first time in
history a confessed killer on death row was to be set free.
And do you know what happened in that room when the pardon and parole
board announced its decision? Spontaneously, everybody stood up and began
singing: “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!”
All they could think to do was sing the anthem of forgiven people.
Do you know where Billy Moore is right now? Billy Moore is today where he is
every Sunday. He’s in church worshiping the God of the second chance, because
Billy Moore is a pastor. His church is located between two housing projects in
Rome, Georgia. And today he is one of the most gentle, compassionate men you
would ever want to meet. He spends his afternoons searching the streets of
Rome, Georgia for the outcasts and unlovable.
Lee Strobel recently had a chance to interview Billy Moore. He asked: “Billy, it’s

just the two of us here. You can tell me the truth now. What is really at the root
of the miraculous change in your life? It was the prison rehabilitation system,
wasn’t it?”
Billy laughed: “ o, it wasn’t that.”
Lee asked: “What was it then? Was it the self-help program? Was it positive
thinking?”
He answered: “ o, it wasn’t that either.”
Lee asked: “Was it transcendental meditation? Was it just psychological
counseling?”
Billy answered again: “Come on. You know better than that. You know what it
was.”
Lee Strobel later said he knew the answer, but he wanted to hear Billy say it:
“ o, Billy, you tell me. What changed you?”
Billy said: “I will tell you plain and simple. It was Jesus Christ. He changed me
in ways I could never change myself. He gave me a reason to live. He helped me
do the right thing for a change. He gave me a heart for other people. And, Lee,
he saved my soul.”
Billy Moore deserved to die. He had committed a heinous crime. But he was set
free! Doesn’t that sound a lot like the God of the second chance?
There is no person outside the sphere of God’s redemption, whether that is Saul,
Billy Moore, or even you. You can know the God of the second chance."
Former death row inmate Billy Moore: "I was considered the worst of the
worst"
Billy Moore spent almost 17 years on Georgia’s death row for the robbery-
murder of 77-year-old Fredger Stapleton. Moore confessed to the murder to
police plead guilty, and was given the death sentence. Billy was paroled in 1991,
after a group of the victim’s family spoke out against his execution at a parole
board hearing. He has spent the last 12 years of freedom determined to show
that the death penalty is no solution to crime. In ovember, Billy will be a
featured speaker at the Campaign to End the Death Penalty’s national
convention which will be held in Chicago on the weekend of ovember 13 and
14th. He talked to Marlene Martin about his story.
Could you talk about how you ended up on death row?

I was told by a guy I had met that he knew a man who kept $30,000 in his house.
And he was old. We could rob him, and nobody would have to get hurt. But of
course, when you’re using drugs and drinking alcohol, you think you have
things under control, and you don’t. While we were in this man’s house, he shot
at me with a shotgun. And being intoxicated and messed up as I was, this scared
me and caused me to shoot him.
I was 22 years old. After I got home and sobered up, it began to dawn on me that
I had killed someone. It was the worst thing that I could have realized--even
though the military teaches you that you can kill and you can be hard. The
motive was that my first wife had left me with our three-year-old son. I didn’t
have a place to stay, I had a three-year-old son, and I needed money. So when
George told me about an old man who had $30,000, I said alright, this will help.
There was never any intent any plan to kill anybody.
When Mr. Stapleton was killed and I sobered up at home in my trailer, I
wondered how in the world could I have done this. So I was really happy when
the police arrested me the next day. I felt like we could get this over with. But I
was deeply hurt, because I had to put my son in the same position I was left in--
when I was four, my father went to prison for 17 years. He came home just
before I joined the service. My mother had multiple sclerosis. My two older
sisters went to ew York to live, my other sister lived on the other side of town,
and my two brothers went to ew York with my older sisters.
So I was the only person home, taking care of my mother. I’m up cooking,
cleaning the house, going to school. I worked all the way through junior high
school as an assistant janitor at the school, and I worked at a foundry after
school in high school in the 10th, 11th and part of the 12th grade, until I joined
the service. I worked regular eight-hour jobs. I was leaving school at 2:30 p.m.,
getting to work at 3 p.m. and working until 11:30 p.m., and coming home and
going to bed--then going to school the next day.
So when my father got out of prison, the service was an avenue for a break. My
mom had gotten to the point where she couldn’t walk, she needed a wheelchair,
and it was getting hard for me to pick her up and clean her up and do all this
stuff. But like I said, the problem was me--I committed the crime. They arrested
me and the sheriff told me the night they arrested me that he was going to make
sure I got a death sentence. I didn’t care--I wanted to die. That’s how bad I was
feeling.
What happened at the trial?
We went to court, and I pled guilty--no jury, just the judge. When the state was
done with their side, my lawyer said that we were admitting to the crime and
asking for mercy. I got on the stand and explained everything to the judge that I
could remember--and that I didn’t intend to do it, but I did, so I was pleading

guilty.
So that was the trial--half a day. The transcript is 55 pages long. In some cases,
just the selection of the jury is like 1,200 pages.
I got a copy of my transcript and court records, and in those records were the
addresses and names of some of the members of the victim’s family. When I saw
that, I knew in my heart that I had to write to these people to apologize. I did,
and they wrote me back and said they were Christian people and forgave me. It
was like a breath of life. They were giving me a breath of life. Here are the
people who should want me to die--who had every reason to want me to die--
saying that they didn’t want me to die and that they forgave me. We continue to
write, even to this present day, and talk on the phone. I even go visit them at
times.
These family members then testified on your behalf when you petitioned the
parole board to have your death sentence commuted didn’t they?
When the parole board hearing took place, the victim’s family got everybody
together that Mr. Stapleton knew. They brought a bus with about 50 people--
family members and friends.
I had told my lawyers that I don’t want anybody to go down there and harass
them or ask them to do anything. I said that we were friends, and if they wanted
to do anything for me, they would do it for me on their own. So when they found
out that they could come to the hearing, they got everybody together and went.
They told the parole board, "Listen, we lost one family member, and Billy is like
another member, and we don’t want to lose another member of our family. We
do not want you to execute him."
Then there were probably five or six ministers that I knew from being in prison
who testified. And a friend of mine who was a Jesuit priest had talked to Mother
Theresa about me. The parole board heard about her wanting to talk to them, so
they called her, and she told them that they should commute the case. And they
did. On August 22, 1990, they said that my sentence was commuted from death
to life, and I would have to do 25 years before becoming eligible for parole.
A year later, the parole board had to overturn that 25-year limit and paroled
you. That makes you among a very small number who are guilty of the crime
that they were sent to death row for, and are now free.
I believe that I stand alone as a person who pled guilty who is now free. I’m a
death row inmate who pled guilty whose sentence that was commuted to life.
That puts me in a very unique position. With people who are innocent, they
never should have been there in the first place. You’re going to look at the tactics
of the police and the prosecutors that put people there.

But when you come to me, you have to deal with capital punishment itself--
because I’m guilty. I’ve never said that I wasn’t guilty. If we’re going to get
people to oppose capital punishment, they have to deal with me--a person who’s
guilty.
Most people don’t know anybody who’s on death row. So all they know is what
they hear in the paper, and what they’ve seen--how bad and how terrible death
row inmates are. But when they see me and listen to me, that changes things.
And I’m no different than anybody else on death row--people need to know that.
Defenders of the death penalty say that executions should be carried out for the
worst of the worst.
I was considered the worst of the worst. That’s why I was sent to death row--I
was considered the worst criminal.
Capital punishment is a political tool. That’s how George Bush’s father won--
using the crime issue against Michael Dukakis and talking about how he was soft
and let Willie Horton out, who committed a crime when he was supposed to have
a life sentence.
But there are statistics that show that of the people from pre-Fuhrman cases
whose death sentences were overturned in 1972, very few are back in prison.
That’s a person who got a life sentence, did time, and grew up and matured.
They don’t get in trouble again.
Wouldn’t society’s efforts be better put into other areas than running a death
penalty system?
The state of Georgia spent more than $1.5 million trying to kill me. If somebody
had invested just $100,000 in my life as a child, I would have never got to where
I ended up.
The state is spending all this money trying to kill folks, but if it would invest that
money into neighborhoods and into young people’s lives to better them, they
wouldn’t be committing crimes.
For people on death row, you can go look at their backgrounds and see the
hardship that they had as a child. That doesn’t excuse the crime, because there
are a lot of people who’ve had bad backgrounds and hardship as they grow up.
But the poverty, the racism, the lack of education--that has an effect on kids. It
would be different if you gave them a chance and an opportunity to do better.

Chapter 8 of the Book of umbers tells us that the year after the children of
Israel left Egypt, all the Israelites were commanded to observe the Passover
celebration. But some members of the community were not able to celebrate at
that time, and they appealed to Moses for another occasion to observe Passover.
Moses’s final decision was that if people had health problems or were on a
journey, so that they were not able to observe the holiday at its prescribed time,
then they could celebrate it a month later. If you missed the officially appointed
time, you got a second chance.
Broken Leaders and Second Chances
Last week I wrote about the Biblical qualifications for leadership after reading a
post by La Shawn Barber about ewt Gingrich's character flaws. On his blog,
James Jewell of the Rooftop Blog posed an interesting question to La Shawn and
I,
" ewt will have to deal with the character issue openly and honestly. But
ladies, don’t politicians get second chances, too?"
I think this is a great question and, as Christians, one with which we have to
wrestle. What is the role of repentance, forgiveness, and second chances at
leadership?
These are the issues I think we need to consider: 1) the words of repentance, 2)
the immediate works of repentance, 3) a record that demonstrates victory over
this sin.
Speaking words of repentance can be a relatively easy thing to do. o doubt it is
humbling, but words are easy. We are unable, to see into the hearts of others,
and often in situations where we are hurting from the sting of offenses, it is
difficult to believe that a person speaking words of repentance is being sincere.
onetheless, we need to always think the best we can of others, and I believe we
need to offer forgiveness when repentance is spoken. Speaking words of
repentance is not the same thing as saying, "I'm sorry," though. or is it a broad
sweeping, "I repent of my sins." Words of repentance are specific statements
about what was done wrong and why it was wrong.
Words of repentance need to be accompanied by works of repentance. I am not
speaking here of works to earn forgiveness. I am speaking of works to undo, or
make restitution for damage that was done. Perhaps property needs to be
restored, perhaps a reputation or a marriage or a friendship needs to be
repaired. Sometimes the damage our sin has caused cannot be undone, but as
much as is possible, the truly repentant person will try. Again, when we see these
works of repentance, we can be more fully assured that the repentance spoken
was sincere, and begin again to trust the one who has offended us.

The third thing we must consider is a record, following repentance, of victory
over this particular sin. This is the factor that I think relates most to whether or
not men are qualified to lead. As an example, a drunk is not qualified to lead,
and George W. Bush admits to have been an abuser of alcohol. If he had this
problem last year and now repents of it, I would forgive him, but I wouldn't
consider him qualified for office. However, he has shown decades of sobriety,
and that, in my opinion, removes the concern that this sin will hinder his
leadership. ability.
When I was young I knew of a very gifted pastor who left his wife. I was too
young at the time to be told whether there was another woman involved, but
whatever the case, a man leaving his wife is sufficient cause to be concerned
about his qualification to pastor a church. He rather quickly repented of his sin.
He worked at and eventually achieved a restoration of his marriage, however he
was not immediately restored to a pastorate. The church worked with him for
many years. Eventually, as he demonstrated a victory over his sin, he was given
more and more responsibility in the church. After many years he was again
allowed to be a pastor. I think this is the right way to go. When a sin is sufficient
to disqualify someone for office, there needs to be a clear demonstration that
that sin no longer has its hold on that man.
There is a difference, then, between forgiving someone for sins, and restoring
them to or calling them to leadership. We often confuse the two. Leadership is
not a right. or is it something we must grant to people unless there is some
reason not to do so. Leadership is something we grant to those who demonstrate
that God has equipped them to lead. It is not a strike against someone to not
grant leadership, and in fact, we do no favors when we place someone in a
leadership position they are not equipped to handle. ewt's a great thinker.
Let's encourage him to keep thinking and not burden him with a leadership
position for which he has not been prepared.
As we go through this passage, keep in mind that it’s all about God. He’s the
only person who speaks or acts. oah doesn’t say a thing and he doesn’t do a
thing. God is the subject, the actor, the initiator. He establishes a new beginning,
puts forth a new command, and gives a new promise. If we pay attention, we will
discover vital principles regarding the possibility of spiritual renewal in every
age and in any situation.
I. A ew Beginning 1-3
“Then God blessed oah and his sons, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase
in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the
beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves
along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your
hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you

the green plants, I now give you everything’” (Genesis 9:1-3).
If the first verse sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a repeat of what God said to
Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28. This is Eden all over again. God commissions
oah and his family to spread out across the earth and re-establish human
civilization. oah is to become the patriarch of a vast clan that will eventually
branch out to form all the various tribes and nations on earth. Just as Adam was
head of the human race in the beginning, oah is now the head of the
reconstituted human race after the flood. Everything flows from him through his
three sons. And now God adds one significant permission: Humans are given
permission to use animals for food. Evidently before the flood, everyone was a
vegetarian. But now it is permissible to hunt animals for food and to raise
animals for meat.
There is a vital spiritual truth underlying these verses. God will not be defeated
by human sin, not even by sin as gross as the immorality that brought on the
flood. Your sin may seem (from a human point of view) to hinder God’s plan, it
may seem to delay it for days or months or years or even for generations, but in
the end, God’s will will be done. What God has spoken must come to pass. o
evil done by men can thwart the plans of the Almighty. Has he not spoken? Will
he not do it? Who dares to stand against him? Some may dare, but none can
succeed.
This truth is hugely encouraging because it gives us hope when we have messed
up royally. We may wonder, and may secretly think, that God is through with us
because of our sin. “I’ve sinned too much. God will never give me another
chance.” Those who say that know too much about their sin and too little about
their God. Isaiah 55:7 contains a wonderful invitation to those who feel their sin
is too great to be forgiven: “Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his
thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our
God, for he will freely pardon.” The King James translates the last phrase—“he
will abundantly pardon.” I like that because that’s precisely what I need. When
I stray, when I fall, when I make a mess of my life, I need a God who will
“abundantly” pardon me. With God there is always the possibility of a new
beginning.
CO STABLE, "Verses 1-7
At this new beginning of the human family, God again commanded oah and his
sons to fill the earth with their descendants ( Genesis 9:1; cf. Genesis 1:28; Genesis
9:7). [ ote: See Bernhard W. Anderson, "Creation and Ecology," American
Journal of Theology and Philosophy4:1 (January1983):14-30; and Waltke, Genesis ,
pp155-56.] As with Adam, He also gave them dominion over the animals and
permission to eat food with only one prohibition (cf. Genesis 1:26; Genesis 1:28-29;
Genesis 2:16-17).
God gave oah permission to eat animals ( Genesis 9:3). Until now, evidently people

had eaten only plants (cf. Genesis 1:29). ow humanity received the power of life
and death over the animal kingdom.
"God did not expressly prohibit the eating of meat in the initial stipulation at
creation, but by inference Genesis 9:3"s provision for flesh is used as a dividing
mark between the antediluvian and postdiluvian periods. Whether or not early man
could eat meat by permission from the beginning, now it is stated formally in the
oahic covenant." [ ote: Mathews, p401.]
God did, however, prohibit the eating of animal blood to instill respect for the
sacredness of life, since blood is a symbol of life (cf. Leviticus 3:17; Leviticus 7:2-27;
Leviticus 19:26; Deuteronomy 12:1-24; 1 Samuel 14:32-34).
Until the Mosaic Law, God made no distinction between clean and unclean animals
with regard to human consumption. Under the Mosaic Law, the Israelites could not
eat certain foods. Under the law of Christ ( Galatians 6:2), we may again eat any
foods ( Romans 14:14; 1 Timothy 4:3). These changes illustrate the fact that God has
changed some of the rules for human conduct at various strategic times in history.
These changes are significant features that help us identify the various dispensations
(economies) by which God has ruled historically. [ ote: See Charles C. Ryrie,
Dispensationalism Today, pp22-64; or idem, Dispensationalism, pp23-59.]
God not only reasserted the cultural mandate to reproduce and modified the food
law, but He also reasserted the sanctity of human life (cf. ch4). The reason for
capital punishment ( Genesis 9:6) is that God made man in His own image. This is
one reason, therefore, that murder is so serious. A person extinguishes a revelation
of God when he or she murders someone. [ ote: See Elmer L. Gray, "Capital
Punishment in the Ancient ear East," Biblical Illustrator13:1 (Fall1986):65-67;
Charles C. Ryrie, "The Doctrine of Capital Punishment," Bibliotheca Sacra129:515
(July-September1972):211-17; Marshall Shelley, "The Death Penalty: Two Sides of
a Growing Issue," Christianity Today (March2 , 1984), pp14-17; James A. Stahr,
"The Death Penalty," Interest (March1984), pp2-3; Duane C. Caylor, "Capital
Punishment, a different Christian perspective," Reformed Journal36:7
(July1986):10-12; Bruce W. Ballard, "The Death Penalty: God"s Timeless Standard
for the ations?" Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society43:3
(September2000):471-87; Hamilton, p315; and Mathews, pp403-6.] Later the
writing prophets announced that God would judge certain foreign nations because
they shed human blood without divine authorization (e.g, Amos 1:3; Amos 1:11;
Amos 1:13; Amos 2:1). God has never countermanded this command, so it is still in
force. Before the Flood the lack of capital punishment led to bloody vendettas (cf.
ch4).
"This command laid the foundation for all civil government." [ ote: Keil and
Delitzsch, 1:153. See Waltke, Genesis , pp157-58.]
"The human government and the governors that existed previously-as in the city
which Cain established ( Genesis 4:17), or in the case of the mighty men ( Genesis

6:4)-existed solely on human authority. ow, however, divine authority was
conferred on human government to exercise oversight over those who lived under its
jurisdiction." [ ote: Pentecost, p46.]
"I sometimes feel that often the hue and cry against capital punishment today does
not so much rest upon humanitarian interest or even an interest in justice, but
rather in a failure to understand that man is unique. The simple fact is that Genesis
9:6 is a sociological statement: The reason that the punishment for murder can be so
severe is that Prayer of Manasseh , being created in the image of God, has a
particular value-not just a theoretical value at some time before the Fall, but such a
value yet today." [ ote: Schaeffer, pp50-51.]
2
The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the
beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air,
upon every creature that moves along the
ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they
are given into your hands.
The entire animal kingdom is afraid of man and because of it man is the master
of the animal kingdom.
JAMISO , "The second part re-establishes man's dominion over the inferior
animals; it was now founded not as at first in love and kindness, but in terror;
this dread of man prevails among all the stronger as well as the weaker members
of the animal tribes and keeps away from his haunts all but those employed in
his service.
BAR ES, "2. ‫מורא‬ môrā', “fear, reverence, awful deed.” ‫חת‬ chat, “dread, breaking of
the courage.”

Noah is saved from the deluge. His life is twice given to him by God. He had found
grace in the sight of the Lord, and now he and his family have been graciously accepted
when they approached the Lord with burnt-offerings. In him, therefore, the race of man
is to be begun anew. Accordingly, as at the beginning, the Lord proceeds to bless him.
First. The grant of increase is the same as at first, but expressed in ampler terms.
Second. Dominion over the other animals is renewed. But some reluctance on their part
to yield obedience is intimated. “The fear and dread of you.” These terms give token of a
master whose power is dreaded, rather than of a superior whose friendly protection is
sought. “Into your hand are they given.” They are placed entirely at the disposal of man.
GUZIK
For the protection of animals, God instills in them a fear of mankind.
i. Again, presumably before the flood, man had a completely different
relationship with the animals. God had not instilled this fear in animals, because
man did not look to them as a source of food.
ii. "Did the horse know his own strength, and the weakness of the miserable
wretch who unmercifully rides, drives, whips, goads, and oppresses him, would
he not with one stroke of his hoof destroy his tyrant possessor? But while God
hides these things from him he impresses his mind with the fear of his owner, so
that . . . he is trained up for, and employed in, the most useful and important
purposes." (Clarke)
GILL
This is a renewal, at least in part, of the grant of dominion to Adam over all the
creatures; these obeyed him cheerfully, and from love, but sinning, he in a good
measure lost his power over them, they rebelled against him; but now though the
charter of power over them is renewed, they do not serve man freely, but are in
dread of him, and flee from him; some are more easily brought into subjection to
him, and even the fiercest and wildest of them may be tamed by him; and this
power over them was the more easily retrieved in all probability by oah and his
sons, from the inhabitation of the creatures with them for so long a time in the
ark:
CLARKE
Prior to the fall, man ruled the inferior animals by love and kindness, for then
gentleness and docility were their principal characteristics. After the fall,
untractableness, with savage ferocity, prevailed among almost all orders of the
brute creation; enmity to man seems particularly to prevail; and had not God in
his mercy impressed their minds with the fear and terror of man, so that some

submit to his will while others flee from his residence, the human race would
long ere this have been totally destroyed by the beasts of the field. Did the horse
know his own strength, and the weakness of the miserable wretch who
unmercifully rides, drives, whips, goads, and oppresses him, would he not with
one stroke of his hoof destroy his tyrant possessor? But while God hides these
things from him he impresses his mind with the fear of his owner, so that either
by cheerful or sullen submission he is trained up for, and employed in, the most
useful and important purposes; and even willingly submits, when tortured for
the sport and amusement of his more bruitish oppressor. Tigers, wolves, lions,
and hyaenas, the determinate foes of man, incapable of being tamed or
domesticated, flee, through the principle of terror, from the dwelling of man,
and thus he is providentially safe. Hence, by fear and by dread man rules every
beast of the earth, every fowl of the air, and every fish of the sea. How wise and
gracious is this order of the Divine providence! and with what thankfulness
should it be considered by every human being!
CALVI
We see indeed that wild beasts rush violently upon men, and rend and tear many
of them in pieces; and if God did not wonderfully restrain their fierceness, the
human race would be utterly destroyed. Therefore, what we have said respecting
the inclemency of the air, and the irregularity of the seasons, is also here
applicable. Savage beasts indeed prevail and rage against men in various ways,
and no wonder; for since we perversely exalt ourselves against God, why should
not the beasts rise up against us? evertheless, the providence of God is a secret
bridle to restrain their violence. For, whence does it arise that serpents spare us,
unless because he represses their virulence? Whence is it that tigers, elephants,
lions, bears, wolves, and other wild beasts without number, do not rend, tear,
and devour everything human, except that they are withheld by this subjection,
as by a barrier? Therefore, it ought to be referred to the special protection and
guardianship of God, that we remain in safety. For, were it otherwise, what
could we expect; since they seem as if born for our destruction, and burn with
the furious desire to injure us? Moreover, the bridle with which the Lord
restrains the cruelty of wild beasts, to prevent them falling upon men, is a
certain fear and dread which God has implanted in them, to the end that they
might reverence the presence of men. Daniel especially declares this respecting
kings; namely, that they are possessed of dominion, because the Lord has put the
fear and the dread of them both on men and beasts. But as the first use of fear is
to defend the society of mankind; so, according to the measure in which God has
given to men a general authority over the beasts, there exists in the greatest and
the least of men, I know not what hidden mark, which does not suffer the cruelty
of wild beasts, by its violence to prevail. Another advantage, however and one
more widely extended, is here noted; namely, that men may render animals
subservient to their own convenience, and may apply them to various uses,
according to their wishes and their necessities. Therefore, the fact that oxen
become accustomed to bear the yoke; that the wildness of horses is so subdued as
to cause them to carry a rider; that they receive the pack-saddle to bear

burdens; that cows give milk, and suffer themselves to be milked; that sheep are
mute under the hand of the shearer; all these facts are the result of this
dominion, which, although greatly diminished, is nevertheless not entirely
abolished.We see indeed that wild beasts rush violently upon men, and rend and
tear many of them in pieces; and if God did not wonderfully restrain their
fierceness, the human race would be utterly destroyed. Therefore, what we have
said respecting the inclemency of the air, and the irregularity of the seasons, is
also here applicable. Savage beasts indeed prevail and rage against men in
various ways, and no wonder; for since we perversely exalt ourselves against
God, why should not the beasts rise up against us? evertheless, the providence
of God is a secret bridle to restrain their violence. For, whence does it arise that
serpents spare us, unless because he represses their virulence? Whence is it that
tigers, elephants, lions, bears, wolves, and other wild beasts without number, do
not rend, tear, and devour everything human, except that they are withheld by
this subjection, as by a barrier? Therefore, it ought to be referred to the special
protection and guardianship of God, that we remain in safety. For, were it
otherwise, what could we expect; since they seem as if born for our destruction,
and burn with the furious desire to injure us? Moreover, the bridle with which
the Lord restrains the cruelty of wild beasts, to prevent them falling upon men,
is a certain fear and dread which God has implanted in them, to the end that
they might reverence the presence of men. Daniel especially declares this
respecting kings; namely, that they are possessed of dominion, because the Lord
has put the fear and the dread of them both on men and beasts. But as the first
use of fear is to defend the society of mankind; so, according to the measure in
which God has given to men a general authority over the beasts, there exists in
the greatest and the least of men, I know not what hidden mark, which does not
suffer the cruelty of wild beasts, by its violence to prevail. Another advantage,
however and one more widely extended, is here noted; namely, that men may
render animals subservient to their own convenience, and may apply them to
various uses, according to their wishes and their necessities. Therefore, the fact
that oxen become accustomed to bear the yoke; that the wildness of horses is so
subdued as to cause them to carry a rider; that they receive the pack-saddle to
bear burdens; that cows give milk, and suffer themselves to be milked; that
sheep are mute under the hand of the shearer; all these facts are the result of this
dominion, which, although greatly diminished, is nevertheless not entirely
abolished.
HE RY
A grant of power over the inferior creatures, Genesis 9:2. He grants, (1.) A title
to them: Into your hands they are delivered, for your use and benefit. (2.) A
dominion over them, without which the title would avail little: The fear of you
and the dread of you shall be upon every beast. This revives a former grant
(Genesis 1:28), only with this difference, that man in innocence ruled by love,
fallen man rules by fear. ow this grant remains in force, and thus far we have
still the benefit of it, [1.] That those creatures which are any way useful to us are

reclaimed, and we use them either for service or food, or both, as they are
capable. The horse and ox patiently submit to the bridle and yoke, and the sheep
is dumb both before the shearer and before the butcher; for the fear and dread
of man are upon them. [2.] Those creatures that are any way hurtful to us are
restrained, so that, though now and then man may be hurt by some of them, they
do not combine together to rise up in rebellion against man, else God could by
these destroy the world as effectually as he did by a deluge; it is one of God's
sore judgments, Ezekiel 14:21. What is it that keeps wolves out of our towns, and
lions out of our streets, and confines them to the wilderness, but this fear and
dread? ay, some have been tamed, James 9:7.
PETT, "Genesis 9:2-5
‘And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every animal on the earth
and every bird of the air, along with everything with which creeps on the
ground, and all the fishes of the sea, all are delivered into your hand. Every
moving thing that lives shall be food for you, and as I gave you the green plants,
I give you everything. But you shall not eat the flesh with its life, that is, its
blood.’
Man’s authority over the animals is again stressed and he is now given express
permission to eat them as food. This is almost certainly a confirmation of what
man has already been doing as we have seen.
But one thing is forbidden, the eating of the blood. That is because the blood is
the life. Man must recognise that what he eats, he eats as a gift from God. But he
must still recognise God’s overlordship. Part therefore is forbidden him, the part
that symbolises the life God gave them, the life which He created on top of the
initial creation, which belongs to God. The blood replaces the tree of knowing
good and evil as the test of man’s obedience. He is not to eat the blood, whether
it is in order to try to absorb the soul of the animal or its ‘power’, to share in its
life, or simply through careless disregard. Rather the animal’s flesh alone is to
be for food.
Here God is stressing that man and animal are distinct. They are not to be
intermingled. Man is not like the beast, he is different, for he shares the nature
of the heavenly. Thus he should look to Heaven for his ‘power’ and for his ‘life’.
Properly observed this prohibition against eating the blood would have saved
mankind from many diseases.

3
Everything that lives and moves will be food for
you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now
give you everything.
This verse is the end of the line fors vegetarians for God says all that lives and
moves is for food.
CLARKE
There is no positive evidence that animal food was ever used before the flood.
oah had the first grant of this kind, and it has been continued to all his
posterity ever since. It is not likely that this grant would have been now made if
some extraordinary alteration had not taken place in the vegetable world, so as
to render its productions less nutritive than they were before; and probably such
a change in the constitution of man as to render a grosser and higher diet
necessary. We may therefore safely infer that the earth was less productive after
the flood than it was before, and that the human constitution was greatly
impaired by the alterations which had taken place through the whole economy
of nature. Morbid debility, induced by an often unfriendly state of the
atmosphere, with sore and long-continued labour, would necessarily require a
higher nutriment than vegetables could supply. That this was the case appears
sufficiently clear from the grant of animal food, which, had it not been
indispensably necessary, had not been made. That the constitution of man was
then much altered appears in the greatly contracted lives of the postdiluvians;
yet from the deluge to the day of Abraham the lives of several of the patriarchs
amounted to some hundreds of years; but this was the effect of a peculiar
providence, that the new world might be the more speedily repeopled.
BAR ES
Gen_9:3
The grant of sustenance is no longer confined to the vegetable, but extended to the
animal kinds, with two solemn restrictions. This explains how fully the animals are
handed over to the will of man. They were slain for sacrifice from the earliest times.
Whether they were used for food before this time we are not informed. But now “every
creeper that is alive” is granted for food. “Every creeper” is everything that moves with
the body prone to the earth, and therefore in a creeping posture. This seems to describe

the inferior animals in contradistinction to man, who walks erect. The phrase “that is
alive” seems to exclude animals that have died a natural death from being used as food.
CALVI
Moses now first relates that this right was given to men, nearly all commentators
infer, that it was not lawful for man to eat flesh before the deluge, but that the
natural fruits of the earth were his only food. But the argument is not
sufficiently firm. For I hold to this principle; that God here does not bestow on
men more than he had previously given, but only restores what had been taken
away, that they might again enter on the possession of those good things from
which they had been excluded. For since they had before offered sacrifices to
God, and were also permitted to kill wild beasts, from the hides and skins of
which, they might make for themselves garments and tents, I do not see what
obligation should prevent them from the eating of flesh. But since it is of little
consequence what opinion is held, I affirm nothing on the subject.
And now we must firmly retain the liberty given us by the Lord, which he
designed to be recorded as on public tables. For, by this word, he addresses all
the posterity of oah, and renders this gift common to all ages. And why is this
done, but that the faithful may boldly assert their right to that which, they know,
has proceeded from God as its Author? For it is an insupportable tyranny, when
God, the Creator of all things, has laid open to us the earth and the air, in order
that we may thence take food as from his storehouse, for these to be shut up
from us by mortal man, who is not able to create even a snail or a fly. I do not
speak of external prohibition; 287 but I assert, that atrocious injury is done to
God, when we give such license to men as to allow them to pronounce that
unlawful which God designs to be lawful, and to bind consciences which the
word of God sets free, with their fictitious laws. The fact that God prohibited his
ancient people from the use of unclean animals, seeing that exception was but
temporary, is here passed over by Moses.
The question which Calvin here dismisses as one of little importance has, in
modern controversy, assumed a very different position; and most commentators
have come to a decision, the reverse of that to which he inclines. His arguments
appears chargeable with the want of firmness, which he imputes to others. The
inference that the flesh of sacrifices was eaten, since otherwise it must have been
wasted, is of no force, if we suppose the first sacrifices to have been all
holocausts, or whole burnt offering unto the Lord. The garments or tents
referred to as made from the skins of animals were, in all probability, those of
the very animals which were thus sacrificed; so that there is no reason hence to
conclude, that flesh was eaten before the deluge. But let the reader refer to
Magee on the Atonement, Dissertation, o.li2 — Ed.
GILL

That is, every beast, fowl, and fish, without exception; for though there was a
difference at this time of clean and unclean creatures with respect to sacrifice,
yet not with respect to food; every creature of God was good then, as it is now,
and it was left to man's reason and judgment what to make use of, as would be
most conducive to his health, and agreeable to his taste: and though there was a
distinction afterwards made under the Levitical dispensation among the Jews,
who were forbid the use of some creatures; yet they themselves say F11, that all
unclean beasts will be clean in the world to come, in the times of the Messiah, as
they were to the sons of oah, and refer to this text in proof of it; the only
exception in the text is, that they must be living creatures which are taken, and
used for food; not such as die of themselves, or are torn to pieces by wild beasts,
but such as are taken alive, and killed in a proper manner:
even as the green herb have I given you all things;
as every green herb was given for meat to Adam originally, without any
exception, (Genesis 1:29,30) so every living creature, without exception, was
given to oah and his sons for food. Some think, and it is a general opinion, that
this was a new grant, that man had no right before to eat flesh, nor did he; and it
is certain it is not before expressed, but it may be included in the general grant
of power and dominion over the creatures made to Adam; and since what is
before observed is only a renewal of former grants, this may be considered in the
same light; or otherwise the dominion over the creatures first granted to Adam
will be reduced to a small matter, if he had no right nor power to kill and eat
them; besides, in so large a space of time as 1600 years and upwards, the world
must have been overstocked with creatures, if they were not used for such a
purpose; nor will Abel's offering the firstling and fattest of his flock appear so
praiseworthy, when it made no difference with him, if he ate not of them,
whether they were fat or lean; and who will deny that there were peace offerings
before the flood, which the offerer always ate of? to which may be added the
luxury of men before the flood, who thereby were given to impure and carnal
lusts; and our Lord expressly says of the men of that age, that they were "eating
and drinking", living in a voluptuous manner, which can hardly be accounted
for, if they lived only on herbs, see (Luke 17:22) though it must be owned, that it
was a common notion of poets and philosophers F12, that men in the golden age,
as they call it, did not eat flesh, but lived on herbs and fruit.
HE RY
A grant of maintenance and subsistence: Every moving thing that liveth shall be
meat for you, Genesis 9:3. Hitherto, most think, man had been confined to feed
only upon the products of the earth, fruits, herbs, and roots, and all sorts of corn
and milk; so was the first grant, Genesis 1:29. But the flood having perhaps
washed away much of the virtue of the earth, and so rendered its fruits less
pleasing and less nourishing, God now enlarged the grant, and allowed man to
eat flesh, which perhaps man himself never thought of, till now that God

directed him to it, nor had any more desire to than a sheep has to suck blood like
a wolf. But now man is allowed to feed upon flesh, as freely and safely as upon
the green herb. ow here see, (1.) That God is a good master, and provides, not
only that we may live, but that we may live comfortably, in his service; not for
necessity only, but for delight. (2.) That every creature of God is good, and
nothing to be refused, 1 Timothy 4:4. Afterwards some meats that were proper
enough for food were prohibited by the ceremonial law; but from the beginning,
it seems, it was not so, and therefore is not so under the gospel.
JAMISO , "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you — The third
part concerns the means of sustaining life; man was for the first time, it would seem,
allowed the use of animal food, but the grant was accompanied with one restriction.
BENSON, "Genesis 9:3. Every moving thing — Which is wholesome and fit for food,
shall be meat for you: That liveth — This may be added to exclude the use of those
creatures which died of themselves, or were killed by wild beasts. These, which were
afterward expressly forbidden to be eaten, (see Exodus 22:31, Leviticus 22:8,) may here
be forbidden implicitly. Hitherto man had been confined to feed only upon the products
of the earth, fruits, herbs, and roots, and all sorts of corn and milk; such was the first
grant, Genesis 1:29. But the flood having perhaps washed away much of the virtue of the
earth, and so rendered its fruits less pleasing, and less nourishing, God now enlarged the
grant, and allowed man to eat flesh, which perhaps man himself never thought of till
now. The Jewish doctors speak so often of the seven precepts of Noah, which they say
were to be observed by all nations, that it may not be amiss to set them down here.
The first was against the worship of idols: the second against blasphemy; and requires to
bless the name of God: the third against murder: the fourth against incest and all
uncleanness: the fifth against theft and rapine: the sixth required the administration of
justice: the seventh was against eating flesh with life. The Jews required the observation
of these from the proselytes of the gate. But the precepts here given, all concern the life
of man. Man must not prejudice his own life by eating that food which is unwholesome
and prejudicial to his health.
K&D, "“Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; even as the green of
the herb have I given you all (‫ּל‬ⅴ‫ת־‬ ֶ‫א‬ = ‫ּל‬ⅴ ַ‫”.)ח‬ These words do not affirm that man then
first began to eat animal food, but only that God then for the first time authorized, or
allowed him to do, what probably he had previously done in opposition to His will. “Only
flesh in its soul, its blood (‫ּו‬‫מ‬ ָ‫ד‬ in apposition to ‫ּו‬‫שׁ‬ ְ‫פ‬ַ‫נ‬ ְ ), shall ye not eat;” i.e., flesh in which
there is still blood, because the soul of the animal is in the blood. The prohibition applies
to the eating of flesh with blood in it, whether of living animals, as is the barbarous
custom in Abyssinia, or of slaughtered animals from which the blood has not been
properly drained at death. This prohibition presented, on the one hand, a safeguard
against harshness and cruelty; and contained, on the other, “an undoubted reference to
the sacrifice of animals, which was afterwards made the subject of command, and in
which it was the blood especially that was offered, as the seat and soul of life (see note on
Lev_17:11, Lev_17:14); so that from this point of view sacrifice denotes the surrender of
one's own inmost life, of the very essence of life, to God” (Ziegler). Allusion is made to

Genesis 9 1 17 commentary

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Genesis 9 1 17 commentary