Bible Strands
Genesis 9:20
Now Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator describes Noah immediately after the flood recedes and his three sons repopulate the earth. The passage marks the narrative pivot between the post-flood covenant and the subsequent incident inside his tent.
The words — The text highlights וַ/יָּ֥חֶל (va/i.Ya.chel), meaning "and he began," paired with אִ֣ישׁ הָ/אֲדָמָ֑ה ('ish ha/'a.da.Mah), literally "man of the ground." These terms frame Noah’s agricultural action as a deliberate initiation rather than a passive occurrence.
The thread — The motif of tilling the soil runs back to Genesis 3:18 and Genesis 3:23, where humanity’s post-fall existence is bound to working the ground, and forward to Genesis 4:2, where Cain is identified as a tiller of the soil. The narrative consistently ties human labor to the earth’s altered condition.
Why it lands — The passage requires the reader to acknowledge that agricultural labor resumes after divine judgment. It presents Noah’s planting as a concrete historical step in human restoration, not a symbolic gesture.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
Cross-references
- Genesis 3:18 Both thorns and thistles it will yield for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
- Genesis 3:23 Therefore the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
- Genesis 4:2 Later she gave birth to Cain’s brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, while Cain was a tiller of the soil.
- Genesis 5:29 And he named him Noah, saying, “May this one comfort us in the labor and toil of our hands caused by the ground that the LORD has cursed.”
- Deuteronomy 20:6 Has any man planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy its fruit? Let him return home, or he may die in battle and another man enjoy its fruit.
- Deuteronomy 28:30 You will be pledged in marriage to a woman, but another man will violate her. You will build a house but will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but will not enjoy its fruit.
- Proverbs 10:11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
- Proverbs 12:11 The one who works his land will have plenty of food, but whoever chases fantasies lacks judgment.
- Ecclesiastes 5:9 The produce of the earth is taken by all; the king himself profits from the fields.
- Isaiah 28:24 Does the plowman plow for planting every day? Does he continuously loosen and harrow the soil?