Genesis 9:1-9:17

     God blessed Noah¹ and his sons, and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything². Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life. Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person's blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind.³ And you, be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it."
     Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "As for me, I am establishing my covenant⁴ with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth." God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."

^[1] God "blessed" Noah. It took me a while to really catch this. It's a blessing, not a command. Fertility was a huge blessing back then, in an agricultural society where infertility was the worst thing that could happen to your family or your farm. To read this as a command and try to "figure out" what it means is totally wrong. Now I have to erase a bunch of notes.
^[2] This very much sounds like they didn't eat meat before (at least in the "priestly" version). Why not? What about the post-flood period led to the first eating of meat?
^[3] With the clear command against murder, which makes moral sense to us, also comes a command against eating animal blood. What does it mean for the "life" to be in the blood? Is this a cultural understanding that just doesn't apply to us anymore?
^[4] A covenant! Notice that God is responsible for all of it here - humans are not required to do anything.


Take-home: God blesses humans with fertility and authority over all animals and plants. Murder is forbidden. God promises to Noah what He had already thought in his heart - that he will never again destroy the earth with a flood. He makes this promise as a covenant, which requires nothing from Noah's side.