Genesis 9:2

And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

9:1-3 The blessing of God is the cause of our doing well. On him we depend, to him we should be thankful. Let us not forget the advantage and pleasure we have from the labour of beasts, and which their flesh affords. Nor ought we to be less thankful for the security we enjoy from the savage and hurtful beasts, through the fear of man which God has fixed deep in them. We see the fulfilment of this promise every day, and on every side. This grant of the animals for food fully warrants the use of them, but not the abuse of them by gluttony, still less by cruelty. We ought not to pain them needlessly whilst they live, nor when we take away their lives.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

- The Blessing of Noah

2. מורא môrā', "fear, reverence, awful deed." חת chat, "dread, breaking of the courage."

Noah is saved from the deluge. His life is twice given to him by God. He had found grace in the sight of the Lord, and now he and his family have been graciously accepted when they approached the Lord with burnt-offerings. In him, therefore, the race of man is to be begun anew. Accordingly, as at the beginning, the Lord proceeds to bless him. First. The grant of increase is the same as at first, but expressed in ampler terms. Second. Dominion over the other animals is renewed. But some reluctance on their part to yield obedience is intimated. "The fear and dread of you." These terms give token of a master whose power is dreaded, rather than of a superior whose friendly protection is sought. "Into your hand are they given." They are placed entirely at the disposal of man.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. And the fear of you and the dread of you—The second part re-establishes man's dominion over the inferior animals; it was now founded not as at first in love and kindness, but in terror; this dread of man prevails among all the stronger as well as the weaker members of the animal tribes and keeps away from his haunts all but those employed in his service.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Before they loved and reverenced you as lords and friends, now they shall dread you as enemies and tyrants.

Into your hand are they delivered, for your use and service. I restore you in part to that dominion over them which you for your sins have forfeited.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the fear or you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth,.... This is a renewal, at least in part, of the grant of dominion to Adam over all the creatures; these obeyed him cheerfully, and from love, but sinning, he in a good measure lost his power over them, they rebelled against him; but now though the charter of power over them is renewed, they do not serve man freely, but are in dread of him, and flee from him; some are more easily brought into subjection to him, and even the fiercest and wildest of them may be tamed by him; and this power over them was the more easily retrieved in all probability by Noah and his sons, from the inhabitation of the creatures with them for so long a time in the ark:

and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; as appears by fowls flying away, by beasts and creeping things getting off as fast as they can, and by fishes swimming away at the sight of men:

into your hand are they delivered; as the lords and proprietors of them, for their use and service, and particularly for what follows, see Psalm 8:6 where there is an enumeration of the creatures subject to men.

Geneva Study Bible

And the {b} fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

(b) By the virtue of this commandment, beasts do not rage as much against man as they would, yea and many serve his purposes by it.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. the fear of you and the dread of you] This is a new feature in God’s ordering of the world. Hitherto (Genesis 1:28) man had received the command (1) to replenish the earth, (2) to subdue it, (3) to have dominion over the animals. Now, however, a new stage is reached. Man hereafter is invested with the right to take the life of animals for food. The animals, therefore, are in a new measure placed at the mercy of man; and “the fear and the dread” of him are associated with man’s fresh prerogatives.

teemeth] R.V. marg. creepeth, as in Genesis 1:29-30 (P).

into your hand … delivered] i.e. placed at the mercy of you who now have absolute power. Cf. Deuteronomy 19:12, “deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - And the fear of you and the dread of you. Not simply of Noah and his sons, but of man in general. Shall be. Not for the first time, as it could not fail to be evoked by the sin of man during the previous generations, but, having already been developed, it was henceforth to be turned back upon the creature rather than directed against man. Upon. The verb to be is first construed with עַל, and afterwards with בְּ. The LXX. render both by ἐπὶ, though perhaps the latter should be taken as equivalent to ἔν, in which case the three clauses of the verse will express a gradation. The dread of man shall first overhang the beasts, then it shall enter into and take possession of them, and finally under its influence they shall fall into man's hand. Every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon (literally, in; vide supra. Murphy translates with) all that moveth upon the earth, and upon (literally, in) all the fishes of the sea. This does not imply that the animals may not sometimes rise against man and destroy him (cf. Exodus 8:6, 17, 24; Leviticus 26:22; 1 Kings 13:24, 25; 1 Kings 20:36; 2 Kings 2:24; Ezekiel 14:15; Acts 12:23, for instances in which the creatures were made ministers of Divine justice), but simply that the normal condition of the lower creatures will be one of instinctive dread of man, causing them rather to avoid than to seek his presence - a Statement sufficiently confirmed by the facts that wherever human civilization penetrates, there the dominion of the beasts retires; that even ferocious animals, such as lions, tigers, and other beasts of prey, unless provoked, usually flee from man rather than assail him. Into your hand are they delivered. Attested by

(1) man's actual dominion over such of the creatures as are either immediately needful for or helpful to him, such as the horse, the ox, the sheep, &c.; and

(2) by man's capability of taming and so reducing to subjection every kind of wild beast - lions, tigers, &c. Genesis 9:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

These divine purposes of peace, which were communicated to Noah while sacrificing, were solemnly confirmed by the renewal of the blessing pronounced at the creation and the establishment of a covenant through a visible sign, which would be a pledge for all time that there should never be a flood again. In the words by which the first blessing was transferred to Noah and his sons (Genesis 9:2), the supremacy granted to man over the animal world was expressed still more forcibly than in Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 1:28; because, inasmuch as sin with its consequences had loosened the bond of voluntary subjection on the part of the animals to the will of man-man, on the one hand, having lost the power of the spirit over nature, and nature, on the other hand, having become estranged from man, or rather having rebelled against him, through the curse pronounced upon the earth-henceforth it was only by force that he could rule over it, by that "fear and dread" which God instilled into the animal creation. Whilst the animals were thus placed in the hand (power) of man, permission was also given to him to slaughter them for food, the eating of the blood being the only thing forbidden.