Genesis 8 – 11
These chapters explains what happened after the flood, which was just waiting for the water to subside and dry up, to the tower of Babel. Honestly, much of the reading is very dry and two chapters are almost dedicated to genealogy of Noah. But I did find a few things that caught my attention in the reading. After hitting dry ground and immediately doing an offering for God, Chapter 8 verse 21 assures us this will never happen again:
And when the LORD smelt the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.
The only thing that bothers me about this story is why in the first place did God do this? Was it to ensure a lesion for future mankind or did he truly get P.O.’ed at man and blow his top? I can remember a turning point of my anger. I was in 5th grade and lashed out at my friend Mike Lanning. He did something to tick me off and I grabbed the first thing I could find and hit him. It happened to be a long piece of electrical cable which left a huge welt on him. After that I stopped fighting because I saw the result of anger and what it did to other.
We always say God is the same and never changes, but did he actually change in this period? Did he “evolve” in handling his “children” from an angry dad to a benevolent grandpa? Granted he is a grandpa like my father, who being a Marine will still put me in the carpet if need be!!
The other thing that caught my eye in this story is one time Noah got drunk and his son walked in on him, passed out and naked. From there his offspring were cursed, again it appears to be Noah was being irrational, but then again who am I to figure this stuff out in a morning!
The story of Babel always intrigues me since it’s where the many languages of the earth came from. Think about how many words there are to describe on thing. Like the word “fish” where it’s molgogi, fische, isda, sakana, pescados, pesci and poisson, just to name a few. Why are most not even close? The key is trying not to build something to get to God, but to live for God.
The last little comment from the genealogy from chapter 10 is in verse 8:
Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man.
I always wondered why in today’s world a “nimrod” describes a fool. The only thing I could pull is since Babel was in his kingdom; he is the “fool” who built the tower. Anyway the key is enjoy the stories and pull as much from them as you can!