"And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that _the bow shall be seen in the cloud_." Beautiful and most expressive emblem! The beams of the sun, reflected from that which threatens judgment, tranquillize the heart, as telling of God's covenant, God's salvation, and God's remembrance. Precious, most precious sunbeams, deriving additional beauty from the very cloud which reflects them! How forcibly does this bow in the cloud remind us of Calvary. There we see a cloud indeed,--a dark, thick, heavy cloud of judgment, discharging itself upon the sacred head of the Lamb of God,--a cloud so dark, that even at mid-day "there was darkness over all the earth." But, blessed be God, faith discerns, in that heaviest cloud that ever gathered, the most brilliant and beauteous bow that ever appeared; for it sees the bright beams of God's eternal love darting through the awful gloom, and reflected in the cloud. It hears, too, the words, "It is finished," issuing from amid the darkness, and in those words it recognizes the perfect ratification of God's everlasting covenant, not only with creation, but with the tribes of Israel and the Church of God.
The last paragraph of this chapter presents a humiliating spectacle. The lord of creation fails to govern himself: "And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent." What a condition for Noah, the only righteous man, the preacher of righteousness, to be found in! Alas! what is man? Look at him where you will, and you see only failure. In Eden, he fails; in the restored earth, he fails; in Canaan, he fails; in the Church, he fails; in the presence of millennial bliss and glory, he fails. He fails everywhere, and in all things: there is no good thing in him. Let his advantages be ever so great, his privileges ever so vast, his position ever so desirable, he can only exhibit failure and sin.
We must, however, look at Noah in two ways, namely, as _a type_, and as _a man_; and while the type is full of beauty and meaning, the man is full of sin and folly; yet the Holy Ghost has written these words, "Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation; and Noah walked with God." Divine grace had covered all his sins, and clothed his person with a spotless robe of righteousness. Though Noah exposed his nakedness, God did not see it, for he looked not at him in the weakness of his own condition, but in the full power of divine and everlasting righteousness. Hence we may see how entirely astray--how totally alienated from God and his thoughts--Ham was in the course he adopted; he evidently knew nothing of the blessedness of the man whose iniquity is forgiven and his sin covered. On the contrary, Shem and Japheth exhibit in their conduct a fine specimen of the divine method of dealing with human nakedness; wherefore they inherit a blessing, whereas Ham inherits a curse.