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And Lamech lived a hundred and eighty-two years and he begot a son. And he called his name Noah, as to say, “This one will console us for the pain of our hands’ work from the soil which the Lord cursed.”
-- Genesis 5: 28-29
Chapter 5 is one of those ‘begat’ passages, almost a bare genealogical listing, whose function here is evidently to clear the way for the great story of the Flood. Listed are all the antediluvians from Adam to Noah, who are all about to be wiped out, save for Noah and his family.
I was just going to append this matter onto the post on Genesis 4, but then I read Alter’s note on the verse quoted above. When Alter first raised the issue as to what might have been the relief that Noah provides, I was thinking, “Duh, the ark, right?” But apparently there is more to Noah than his ark:
-- Genesis 5: 28-29
Chapter 5 is one of those ‘begat’ passages, almost a bare genealogical listing, whose function here is evidently to clear the way for the great story of the Flood. Listed are all the antediluvians from Adam to Noah, who are all about to be wiped out, save for Noah and his family.
I was just going to append this matter onto the post on Genesis 4, but then I read Alter’s note on the verse quoted above. When Alter first raised the issue as to what might have been the relief that Noah provides, I was thinking, “Duh, the ark, right?” But apparently there is more to Noah than his ark:
What the nature of the consolation might be is a cloudier issue. Rashi’s proposal that Noah was the inventor of the plow has scant support in the subsequent text. Others, more plausibly, have linked the consolation with Noah’s role as the first cultivator of the vine. The idea that wine provides the poor man respite from his drudgery is common enough in the biblical world. Wine, then, might have been thought of as a palliative to the curse of hard labor, which is also the curse of the soil.Christianity has always been friendly to the drinking pastime, especially since Jesus devotes his first miracle to replenishing the wine at a wedding banquet, and the point seems worth its own post.
