And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
Parallel translations
- WEB He said, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Shem. Let Canaan be his servant.
- BSB He also declared: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the servant of Shem.
- NKJV And he said: “Blessed be the Lord, The God of Shem, And may Canaan be his servant.
- NASB He also said, “Blessed be the Lord, The God of Shem; And may Canaan be his servant.
- NLT Then Noah said, “May the Lord, the God of Shem, be blessed, and may Canaan be his servant!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Noah blessed Yahweh, the God of Shem, and consigned Canaan to servitude. The blessing centers on God's special relationship with Shem's line.
Overview
By blessing the Lord as the God of Shem, Noah points to the line through which God's redemptive purposes will flow, leading to Abraham, Israel, and ultimately Christ. The focus is on God's covenant favor resting upon Shem's descendants. Here the thread of salvation history is drawn forward toward the Messiah who comes from Shem's line.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ps 144:15Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD.
- Heb 11:16But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.
- Gen 12:1–3Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
- Rom 9:5Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
- Deut 33:26There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky.
- Luke 3:23–36And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,
- Gen 10:10–26And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
- Gen 27:37And Isaac answered and said unto Esau, Behold, I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren have I given to him for servants; and with corn and wine have I sustained him: and what shall I do now unto thee, my son?
- Gen 27:40And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
From the first promise that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent (3:15), through Abraham's blessing to all nations and Judah's coming ruler, Genesis sows every seed that flowers in Christ — the true offspring, the better Adam, the ram caught for Isaac.
How Genesis 9:26 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.