And Noah began [to be] a husbandman, and planted a vineyard.
Genesis 9 gives Noah a cleansed earth, a covenant, and authority no man had held before. Then the record turns to a vineyard, and to what the head of the new world did with it all.
Everything was in Noah's favour when he stepped onto dry ground. One writer lists what God gave him before the test began.
Noah sits in the new world — gifted and blessed, enriched and honoured, taught too, and appointed as "the power" under God. With all this he is at ease, and knows he is safe, with no evil or enemy present. A new trial of man was going on, under new circumstances. As with Adam in Eden, God leaves nothing undone on His part... And Noah, like the rest, fails. The very first foot that trod the fresh soil of the new world quickly stained it.
Farming is an honest calling. Commentators notice which crop Noah chose, and what came of it.
We may note, in passing, that Noah failed in this covenant, as man always has. Instead of drawing blessings out of the earth by working the soil, he starts to grow the vine, and gets drunk. Through this forgetfulness and fault of his, the true principle of government also lost its force at the very start. Noah held the reins of that government, and one of his sons mocked him.
One writer traces Noah's turn to the soil back to an earlier man.
Noah followed in the way of Cain and turned his attention to the ground, and serious failure followed. And so it is in Christian experience. As soon as we follow Cain's way and become occupied with the earth, Satan traps us in one of his snares.
God had just placed authority over life and death in human hands. The failure lands there.
Noah's work as a farmer was of course commendable, but people can misuse anything and bring trouble. This man had received the dignity of authority in government. Yet he allowed himself too much wine, became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent. This illustrates the weakness of human government from its very beginning. Why is human government doomed to fail? Because those in authority fail to exercise self-government. If a man does not rule himself well, how can anyone trust him to rule others?
The man chosen was the best available. That is the sting of it.
God entrusted government over life and death to his keeping. And the man who first received that trust was by far the best fitted for it, in godliness and in experience. Yet look at the very next thing recorded of him. No doubt through self-indulgence and a lack of watchfulness, he not only sinned himself, but brought God's ordinance of government into open dishonour.
People have always tried to explain this episode away. One commentator refuses.
This, truly, was a high position — a place of immense power, privilege, and responsibility. How does Noah carry himself in it? He gets drunk, and degrades himself in front of his sons! Such is the plain, obvious fact. Men may reason as they will. They try to smooth it, soften it, and pare it down. They always do that when a great truth bears down on human pride and self-congratulation. But they cannot set aside the humbling fact that the head of the restored earth got drunk.
Long experience with God is no protection in itself.
Although Noah lived 350 years after he began to be a farmer, his name is never mentioned again... Men did not take notice of him that he had been with the Lord. Satan had won the victory over "the preacher of righteousness." This episode comes home with living power to every Christian, the oldest as well as the youngest. We do well to be watchful. "Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall." (1 Cor. 10:12).
The passage does not end in despair, because the failure of the first ruler is a signpost.
Human government is now set up. It shows its weakness, not in the authority given to it, but in the feeble hands that received it. Noah fails to govern himself. So he becomes a picture of the failure of all government. Yet he is also a hint that One is coming who will reign in righteousness and bring blessing through His reign.
- Trial — God left nothing undone: covenant, authority, a cleansed earth. The new world was a fresh test of man, not a fresh kind of man.
- Snare — He turned to the ground, as Cain had, and its fruit trapped him. Good things become snares when we grow occupied with the earth.
- Self-rule — No one can rule others who cannot rule himself. The first man given authority could not govern one man: himself.
- Silence — Noah lived 350 more years and is never named again. One unguarded hour can end a lifetime's testimony.
- Successor — The first ruler failed. He points forward to the One who will reign in righteousness, where man's rule could not stand.
And he drank of the wine, and was drunken, and he uncovered himself in his tent.
God had cleared the earth by the flood and put the sword of government into Noah's hand. The first act recorded of the man He saved is a drunken collapse in his own tent.
The first question is what Noah actually drank.
Several Hebrew words are translated wine. Scripture attaches various words to it — "sweet," "new," "strong," "good," "mixed," "spiced," "on the lees" — yet all are wine. And the wine was intoxicating, as we already see in the days of Noah. Drinking to excess is the abuse of it, and Scripture is full of protests and warnings against such abuse.
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The point is pressed further by noting where the word first appears at all: when yayin is first used in Scripture it carries the sense of fermented grape juice, as this verse and the account of Lot both show.
God had just made Noah responsible for human life and death. He broke down at that very point.
Man fails with government as well as without it — not the governed only, but the governor. Noah, that is, man, proves completely unable to wield the sword in righteousness before God. Whoever governs must first know how to rule himself. But Noah got drunk. And so another point comes out: man must have a ruler, and he clearly cannot be his own master. Part of God's purpose is to show this — to show the absolute need for the Man of His right hand to come and rule the earth.
Nothing dramatic brought Noah down. He was at ease, and off his guard.
This new trial had barely begun when man broke down. He failed at the very point he was responsible to keep intact before God and his fellow men. God had entrusted government over life and death to his keeping. The man who first received that trust was by far the best suited to it, in piety and in experience. Yet the next fact recorded of him is that, no doubt through self-indulgence and lack of watchfulness, he not only sinned himself, but brought God's ordinance of government into open dishonour. And the sin and the dishonour produced no godly sorrow in his own household, but contempt.
God left nothing out on His side.
Noah sits in the new world, endowed and blessed, enriched and honoured. He is instructed too, and appointed as "the power" under God. With all this he is at ease and knows he is safe, with no evil or enemy in sight. A new trial of man was going forward, under new circumstances. As with Adam in Eden, God leaves nothing undone on His part... In Christ, and in Him only, are unfailing faithfulness and strength. And Noah, like the rest, fails. The very first foot that trod the fresh soil of the new world stained it.
The same pattern repeats through the whole Bible.
What a condition to find Noah in — the only righteous man, the preacher of righteousness! What is man? Look at him where you will, and you see only failure. In Eden he fails. On the restored earth he fails. In Canaan he fails. In the Church he fails. In the presence of millennial blessing and glory he fails.
But this failure is not God's whole view of Noah.
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We must look at Noah in two ways: as a picture, and as a man. The picture is full of beauty and meaning, but the man is full of sin and folly... Divine grace had covered all his sins, and clothed him with a spotless robe of righteousness. Though Noah exposed his nakedness, God did not see it. He looked at Noah not in the weakness of his own condition, but in the full power of divine and everlasting righteousness.
Noah's long record of favour and experience did not protect him.
Noah had all this high favour and special experience. Yet as soon as he was left to his own will, he became a slave to lust under Satan's influence. Noah followed in the way of Cain and turned his attention to the ground, and grievous failure followed. So it is in Christian experience. As soon as we become occupied with the earth, Satan traps us in one of his snares. Although Noah lived 350 years after he became a farmer, his name is never mentioned again. He was alive through the whole godless period that ended with the building of the Tower of Babel. Yet his presence did not restrain his descendants... "Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall."
- Trust. God handed Noah power over life and death in a cleansed world. He was the best-qualified man, in the best conditions.
- Fall. The wine was real and intoxicating. The man given the sword could not rule himself, and so man needs the Man of God's right hand to rule.
- Cause. He was at ease, with no enemy in sight. Self-indulgence and a lack of watchfulness dishonoured the trust he held.
- Cover. Exposed before his own household, Noah was still clothed before God in a righteousness grace had given him.
- Watch. Long experience gives no protection. The man who is silent for his last 350 years warns anyone who thinks he stands.