Genesis 9: On the 27^th day, God tells Noah to have everyone exit the Arc and to ‘be fruitful and multiply.’ God shares that now animals will be fearful of man, and man will hunt animals for food- I guess we aren’t vegetarians anymore. He also tells Noah to be sure to remove blood from the animals before they are eaten. We also see the forming of a type of government in this new beginning, telling him that Murder will be a punishable act, punishable by death to image its equal action. God also makes a covenant between he and every living creature on earth, which tells is that animals do have a soul and a type of comprehension. Racial identity is established through Noah’s son; represented Iraq, Iran, and somewhere else Africa. Noah becomes a farmer and starts to lose control of his drinking habit. Cannan sees his father passed out drunk and naked. He goes to his other brothers, Shem and Japheth, to make fun of this father, Noah. In response, Shem and Japheth feel sorry for their father, and instead of playing into mocking their father they choose to cover him up, because they wanted to hide their father’s sin instead of exposing it. This implies that we should not highlight someone else’s poor choices and gossip, but to instead give them grace for their mistakes. Noah learns of Cannan’s actions, and he curses Cannan to serve his brothers because of his cruel intentions. Is essence, this may be justifying slavery as a form of punishment. At the end of chapter 9, Noah dies at 950 years old.

Genesis 10: This chapter explains in depth the grandchildren of Noah, genealogically speaking, following the entire gigantic family tree. It shares that each of these children grow to live in their own lands, including a son, Nimrod which means ‘rebel.’ This is where the offensive term “nimrod” derives from. It sets a list of many different lands, and all their nations and different languages. This reminds us that knowing where our identity comes from is important to know.

Genesis 11: Interestingly, this chapter explains that some nations spoke different languages, however they were still able to communicate and understand each other’s languages up until this point. This shares that the people of Iraq choose to create something for their own good against what God has told them to do, working in their own favor. Instead of dispersing throughout the land to avoid overpopulation as God had told them to do, they choose to stay put build a city for themselves. They also choose to take the easy way out with how they constructed their buildings, and used brick to build instead of stone- stone is much stronger.  When God sees that the people had manipulated his instructions, he chose to separate everyone into groups of people, by confusing language among one another. This grouped together the people who spoke alike languages, forcing them to spread throughout the world in their own lands. In this chapter, it also shares an in-depth genealogy, ending with introducing Abram, Sarai, Lot, Milcah. We learn that Sarai was not able to have children. There is disobedience when God tells Abram to leave alone to travel to a specific place. Instead, Abram takes his father and nephew, Lot, and stops their travel in Haran instead of traveling to where they were instructed to go, all the way to the land of Cannan.

Genesis 12: God makes 7 promises with Abram if he travels to a new land alone; The promises are Land, many descendants, blessings for him, blessings for his children, blessing for his nations and those who respect him, that he will rule over a nation, and that anyone who goes against him will be cursed. Again, he disobeys God and brings along people, his nephew Lot and his wife Sarai, yet he still leaves the comfort of everything he knows behind. Abram was obedient in the way God tells him to travel, going through the city if Cannan, a dangerous city, instead of going around it. It is said in this chapter that Cannan belongs to Isreal- it’s biblically written before our time. Abram pitches a tent in Cannan and builds an alter to try and teach people about God’s word and reduce the crime and evil in the city. Due to a famine that came in Cannan, Abram travels down to Egypt. For this travel, he brought his wife Sarai. He knows that Sarai very beautiful, and fears that the Egyptians will murder Abram to take and enslave Sarai if they know that they are married. He tells Sarai to lie to the Egyptians when they enter, and to tell them that Sarai is his sister not his wife. This is half true- she is also his half-sister, but also his wife- back then incest was the only way to procreate. Gross, I know. The Pharoh meets Abram and Sarai, and takes Sarai for himself, and showers Abram with gifts. God comes to the Pharoh and tells him that he will be punished to death for taking Sarai, a Married woman. He immediately returns Sarai to Abram, very upset that he could have committed adultery- a very serious crime- and sends them away.