Genesis 9:20

9:18-23 The drunkenness of Noah is recorded in the Bible, with that fairness which is found only in the Scripture, as a case and proof of human weakness and imperfection, even though he may have been surprised into the sin; and to show that the best of men cannot stand upright, unless they depend upon Divine grace, and are upheld thereby. Ham appears to have been a bad man, and probably rejoiced to find his father in an unbecoming situation. It was said of Noah, that he was perfect in his generations, ch.

Or "a man of the earth" (c), not lord of it, as Jarchi, though he was, but a tiller of the earth, as he had been before the flood, and now began to be again; he returned to his old employment, and which perhaps he improved, having invented, as the Jews (d) say, instruments of husbandry; it may be, the use of the plough, which made the tillage of the ground more easy; he was expert in husbandry, as Aben Ezra observes, and which, as he remarks, is great wisdom; and though he was so great a man, yet he employed himself in this way: and he planted a vineyard; not vines, but a vineyard; there were vines before scattered up and down, here one and there another, but he planted a number of them together, and set them in order, as the Jewish writers say (e); and some of them (f) will have it that he found a vine which the flood brought out of the garden of Eden, and planted it; but this is mere fable: where this plantation was cannot be said with certainty; the Armenians have a tradition that Noah, after quitting the ark, went and settled at Erivan, about twelve leagues from Ararat, a city full of vineyards; and that it was there he planted the vineyard, in a place where they still make excellent wine, and that their vines are of the same sort he planted there (g); which contradicts what Strabo (h) says of the country of Armenia, its hills and plains, that a vine will not easily grow there. (c) "vir terrie", Montanus. (d) Zohar, apud Hottinger, Smegma Oriental. p. 253. (e) Ben Melech

Genesis 9:20 . And Noah began to be a husbandman — (Hebrews a man of the earth, ) a man dealing in the earth, that kept ground in his hand and occupied it. Some time after his departure out of the ark he returned to his old employment, from which he had been diverted by the building of the ark first, and probably after by the building a house for himself and family. And he planted a vineyard — And when he had gathered his vintage, probably he appointed a day of mirth and feasting in his family, and had his sons and their children with him, to rejoice with him in the increase of his house, as well as in the increase of his vineyard; and we may suppose he prefaced his feast with a sacrifice to the honour of God. If that were omitted, it was just with God to leave him to himself, to end with the beasts that which did not begin with God: but we charitably hope he did. And perhaps he appointed this feast with design, in the close of it, to bless his sons, as Isaac, Genesis 27:3-4 , “That I may eat, and that my soul may bless thee.”

(20, 21) Noah began to be an husbandman. —Rather, Noah, being a husbandman (Heb., a man of the adâmâh ) , began to plant a vineyard. Noah had always been a husbandman: it was the cultivation of the vine, still abundant in Armenia, that was new. Scarcely aware, perhaps, of the intoxicating qualities of the juice which he had allowed to ferment, he drank to excess, and became the first example of the shameful effects of intemperance.

20 . And Noah began to be an husbandman ] This expression is an extremely awkward rendering of the strange Hebrew, which is literally “And Noah began man of the soil and planted,” &c. Better, “And Noah the husbandman began and planted a vineyard,” i.e. was the first to do so. “The husbandman,” lit. “man of the soil,” LXX ἄνθρωπος γεωργὸς γῆς . This description of Noah introduces him in a new capacity. The present section seems to be taken from a distinct tradition concerning the primaeval time, in which Noah appears as the founder of agriculture and of vine cultivation.

i.e. Was a husbandman, as he had been before. The verb to begin doth oft abound, and is applied to him that continueth or repeateth an action begun before. Thus Christ is said to begin to cast out, Mark 11:15 , and to begin to speak, Luke 12:1 ; for which in the parallel places he is said only to cast out, Matthew 21:12 , and to speak, Matthew 16:6 .

Verse 20. - And Noah began to be an husbandman . Literally, a man of the ground . Vir terror (Vulgate); ἄνθρωπος γεωργὸς γῆς (LXX.); Chald., נְּבַר פָלַח בְּאַרְעָא = vir co-lens terram ; agriculturae dediturus . Cf. Joshua 5:4 , "a man of war;" 2 Samuel 16:7 , "a man of blood;" Genesis 46:32 , "a man of cattle;" Exodus 4:10 , " a man of words." And he planted a vineyard. So Murphy, Wordsworth, Kalisch. Keil, Delitzsch, and Lange regard ish ha Adamah , with the art., as in apposition to Noah, and read, "And Noah, the husbandman, began and planted a vineyard," i.e. caepit plantare (cf. Gesenius, 'Gram.,' 142, 3; Glass, Sacrae Philologiae, lib. 3. tr. 3. can. 34). Neither interpretation presupposes that husbandry and vine cultivation were now practiced for the first time. That Armenia is a wine-growing country is testified by Xenophon ('Anab.,' 4:4, 9). That the vine was abundantly cultivated in Egypt is evident from representations on the monuments, as well as from Scriptural allusions. The Egyptians say that Osiris, the Greeks that Dionysus, the Romans that Saturn, first taught men the cultivation of the tree and the use of its fruit. Genesis 9:20