Commentary on Genesis - Luther on Sin and the Flood · Martin Luther

029 - Chapter IX Part I

·20 min·1 clip

Martin Luther argues that human reasoning controls animals more effectively than physical strength.

1. Commentary on Genesis, Chapter 9 Part 1, presents Martin Luther’s reading of God’s blessing of Noah and the post-flood human order. 2. Gillian Hendry reads Luther’s text, translated by John Nicholas Lenker, Conrad Bruno Godis, and others, making the historical commentary available as a LibriVox recording. 3. The episode asks how Genesis 9 re-establishes marriage, authorizes animal food, and limits violence after only eight souls survive the flood. 4. Luther interprets God’s command to Noah and his sons to “be fruitful and multiply” as a renewed blessing for humanity’s future offspring. 5. Genesis 9’s marriage command is presented as evidence that lawful union between man and woman is not rejected despite the pre-flood sin of lust. 6. Luther calls wedlock the foundation of the family and state and the nursery of the church. 7. Psalm 127, verse 3, is cited to support the claim that children are a gift of God rather than merely products of nature or chance. 8. Genesis 9 expands human dominion over animals by placing beasts, birds, and fish into human hands. 9. Luther argues that the post-flood permission to eat meat establishes hunting, animal husbandry, and the butcher’s trade. 10. The commentary debates whether Noah’s permission covered unclean animals, with Luther favoring the use of clean beasts for food and sacrifice. 11. A ten-year-old boy guiding cattle and a person directing a horse illustrate Luther’s claim that human skill surpasses animal strength. 12. Wolves, lions, bears, wild boars, tigers, and serpents are described as both fearful of humans and capable of harming them when enraged. 13. Deuteronomy 32:34, Numbers 21:6, and 2 Kings 2:24 are used to connect dangerous animals with punishment for human sin. 14. Luther cites the English sweat, the 1542 locusts in Poland and Silesia, the drought of 1504, and later heavy rains as examples of disrupted blessings. 15. The country of the Sodomites is described as changing from a paradise into asphalt, with apples said to contain ashes and an offensive odor. 16. Bruges is presented as a former port whose sea retreated after King Maximilian was held captive, while Venice is cited as another declining city. 17. The reading follows numbered commentary sections and verse-by-verse interpretation rather than an interview or conversation format. 18. Its tone is theological and argumentative, moving between Hebrew terminology, biblical cross-references, historical examples, and moral conclusions. 19. Readers of Reformation theology and Genesis commentary. 20. Listeners seeking contemporary biblical scholarship or conversational interviews.

As heard by us

A severe, patient reading of Genesis 9 that joins food, mercy, and murder into one argument.

Genesis 9 is treated as a question of what the Flood altered: food, mercy, and man''s relation to the beasts. Luther asks whether "every moving thing" really cancels the older clean and unclean distinction, then answers by narrowing the text instead of flattening it.

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Why you'd press play

You want Luther on Genesis to read like law, not lore, with mercy after the Flood and clean beasts still in view.

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