In Genesis 10, we are given a biographical sketch of Nimrod, who was a “mighty hunter before the LORD.” As I noted in the preceding post, the narrative arc of Noah’s flood is rooted in his fulfilling Adam’s calling to serve as co-creator with God. Noah takes the raw matter of the preflood world and shapes it according to the precise model revealed to him from Heaven. As such, he fulfills man’s vocation as the one in whom both the “heavens and the earth” are generated into a single body (Genesis 2:4). As God’s sovereignty over life is predicated on his being Creator, so also is Noah delegated sovereignty over life and death- in a single divine word, Man is both given the right to eat animal meat and the commission to carry out divine justice on those who take human life. Noah’s authority to carry out the death penalty is a royal authority. Man grows from priesthood to kingship. Moreover, Noah’s royal authority unfolds from his faithful service as a priest-steward in God’s house- which is the ark, a world-model which serves as a temple, installed on the holy mountain. Noah, therefore, is a priest-king, and as the Noahic covenant is the covenant according to which the nations of the world were related to God prior to the coming of Jesus Christ, perhaps this provides some explanatory framework for why the gentile nations of the world- from Mesopotamia to Mesoamerica- were generally governed by priest-kings. In Israel the two offices were separated, but among the nations whose operation was under the Noahic pattern, their unity was retained.
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