Scripture: Genesis 9:25-27 "Then [Noah] said, 'Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants he shall be to his brethren.' And he said: 'Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japeth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem..."Observation: Noah's cursed Canaan and not Ham who actually did the deed. I can't get into that in a journal; I've already written an entire essay on that topic. As far as I can tell Canaan wasn't even Ham's first-born.
Noah blessed Japheth.
Noah blessed the God of Shem. This indicates two things:
(1) Shem followed the Lord.
(2) Noah was prophetically pronouncing that God would do great things that would go much farther than Shem's life (as is then described in the narrative of Genesis 11:10 to 12:1, when Abram is called away by God). Here again is the sovereignty of God. It wouldn't be seen in blessings of wealth and expanse. God was going to do a sovereign, electing work through a specified line of individuals that would eventually lead to Jesus, the chosen one.
Application: Far greater is it to be known as the servant, than the materially blessed. If all I am remembered by is the name of my God, then it's God that gets all the fame, hey? I am determined to commit my life to God and to live my life for Him in a way that my name is not mentioned without it bringing about greater glory to my Lord.
Prayer: May I become lower and You greater. Blessed be the God of Dale. I love You. Amen.
So interesting that you should be writing about this, Dale; was just talking about Shem to somebody the other day. Do you remember when Melchizedech gave "The Blessing" to Abraham? I heard Scott Hahn say that the first century Jewish Targums, kind of like paraphrases, refer to him as "Melchizedech, the great Shem", that Melchizedech was a title name. He noted that even Martin Luther knew this, and spoke of a Jewish rabbi from the 15th century, I think, who was friends with a Franciscan monk that spoke of it, so it must have been fairly common knowledge at least down until that time...
ReplyDeleteAre you back from San Antonio? Yesterday, I found out about a restaurant there called Grimaldi's, that is owned by Grimaldi's in NYC - they are supposed to make the one of NYC's best pizzas : )
Love, Mom