(with Genesis 9:1-9)
No one has ever doubted that the words in Genesis 9:1-7 are a Divine blessing upon the human race.
I. There is something especially appropriate in this language to the inhabitants of a restored earth. Compare it with the simple records of the garden life of Adam, and you perceive that you are entering upon a more advanced stage in human history. Two steps in advance have been taken: (1) Every man is now his brother's keeper. Every man is shedding his own blood when he sheds his brother's blood. The words "every man's brother" expanded the principle of the family to a higher power. They declared that the race was a family; they intimated that society was to be built up on the recognition of an actual relationship among the different members of it; (2) a higher dignity is put upon life than it had before, whether it dwells in a man or only in an inferior creature.
II. This is the first occasion on which we meet with the phrase "covenant." Man was a party to the covenant in the sense that he might believe or disbelieve the sign which was said to bear that Divine testimony. All his future acts would depend on this difference, because they would depend upon the question whether he worshipped a being in whom he trusted, or one whom he regarded as an enemy. Man lives by faith; and till faith is called forth in him he is still but an animal with the capacities of a spirit.
III. The history of Abram is the grand illustration of this truth. Every unfaithful man of the race of Abram, every unfaithful man anywhere, would be a god; he would not claim the right of knowing God and being like Him. Therefore all such were tempted to make gods of their own, and to forget the living God. Abram's faith consisted in not doing this in acknowledging the Lord to be God. He believed God's promise. He counted it the highest blessing and glory, not that he should be blessed, but that he should be the channel of blessing to multitudes unknown.
F. D. Maurice, The Patriarchs and Law-Givers of the Old Testament,p. 68. Reference: xii 1-3. Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxix., p. 394.