to become tipsy · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
uncovered
וַיִּתְגַּ֖לvai.yit.Gal
H1540
to denude (especially in a disgraceful sense) · conjunction + verb, hithpael sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
within
בְּת֥וֹךְbe.Tokh
H8432
a bisection · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
tent
אָהֳלֽוֹ'o.ho.Lo
H168
a tent (as clearly conspicuous from a distance) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Proverbs 20:1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
Habakkuk 2:15-16 Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their na…
Proverbs 23:31-32 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.
Galatians 5:21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they w…
Titus 2:2 That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.
Genesis 6:9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
Genesis 19:32-36 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
Ecclesiastes 7:20 For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 9:18-23
Here is, I. Noah's family and employment. The names of his sons are again mentioned (Gen 9:18, Gen 9:19) as those from whom the whole earth was overspread, by which it appears that Noah, after the flood, had no more children: all the world came from these three. Note, God, when he pleases, can make a little one to become a thousand, and greatly increase the latter end of those whose beginning was small. Such are the power and efficacy of a divine blessing. The business Noah applied himself to was that of a husbandman, Heb. a man of the earth, that is, a man dealing in the earth, that kept ground in his hand, and occupied it. We are all naturally men of the earth, made of it, living on it, an…
And he drank of the wine, and was drunken--perhaps at the festivities of the vintage season. This solitary stain on the character of so eminently pious a man must, it is believed, have been the result of age or inadvertency.
Adam Clarke on Genesis 9:21
He drank of the wine, etc. - It is very probable that this was the first time the wine was cultivated; and it is as probable that the strength or intoxicating power of the expressed juice was never before known. Noah, therefore, might have drunk it at this time without the least blame, as he knew not till this trial the effects it would produce. I once knew a case which I believe to be perfectly parallel. A person who had scarcely ever heard of cider, and whose beverage through his whole life had been only milk or water, coming wet and very much fatigued to a farmer's house in Somersetshire, begged for a little water or milk. The good woman of the house, seeing him very much exhausted, kindl…
And he drank of the wine, and was drunken,.... Either not being acquainted with the strength of it, as is thought by many; or having been used to weaker liquor, as water; or through the infirmity of his age; however, he was overtaken with it, and which is recorded, not to disgrace him, but to caution men against the evil of intemperance, as well as to encourage repenting sinners to expect pardon: and this shows that the best of men are not exempted from sin, nor secure from falling; and that though Noah was a perfect man, yet not as to be without sin; and that whereas he was a righteous man, he was not so by the righteousness of works, but by the righteousness of faith:
and he was uncovered…
The Church Fathers
That is why the drunkenness of Noah also has been described, so that we may guard against drunkenness as much as possible, with the picture of such a fall clearly described before our eyes in Scripture. That is why, too, the Lord blessed those who covered the shame of his drunkenness. Scripture, summing everything up in one succinct verse, has said, "Wine is sufficient for a man well taught, and upon his bed, he shall rest."
After the deluge Noah drank and became drunk in his own house, and his thighs were uncovered and he was exposed in his nakedness. The elder brother came along and laughed; the younger, however, covered him up. All this is said in type of the Savior, for on the cross he had drunk of the passion: "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me." He drank and was inebriated, and his thighs were laid bare—the dishonor of the cross. The older brothers, the Jews, came along and laughed; the younger, the Gentiles, covered up his ignominy.
And drinking the wine, he became drunk, and he was naked in his tent. The Lord drank wine when he received the cup of his passion. He was made drunk by drinking when by suffering for us he reached the utmost extremity of death. He was naked in his tent, when among the Jewish people, whom he had made his own, and in which he had long been accustomed to dwell as in his tent, enduring reproaches and mockeries, he ultimately underwent the sentence of the cross, making manifest to all most openly the truth of the mortal substance which he had deigned to assume.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Covenant — A contract or agreement between two parties. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word berith is always thus translated. Berith is derived from a root which means “to cut,” and hence a covenant is a…
Drunk — The first case of intoxication on record is that of Noah (Gen. 9:21). The sin of drunkenness is frequently and strongly condemned (Rom. 13:13; 1 Cor. 6:9, 10; Eph. 5:18; 1 Thess. 5:7, 8). The sin of…
Noah — Rest, (Heb. Noah) the grandson of Methuselah (Gen. 5:25-29), who was for two hundred and fifty years contemporary with Adam, and the son of Lamech, who was about fifty years old at the time of Adam’s…
Tent — (1.) Heb. ‘ohel (Gen. 9:21, 27). This word is used also of a dwelling or habitation (1 Kings 8:66; Isa. 16:5; Jer. 4:20), and of the temple (Ezek. 41:1). When used of the tabernacle, as in 1 Kings…
Vine — One of the most important products of Palestine. The first mention of it is in the history of Noah (Gen. 9:20). It is afterwards frequently noticed both in the Old and New Testaments, and in the…
Wine — The common Hebrew word for wine is yayin, from a root meaning “to boil up,” “to be in a ferment.” Others derive it from a root meaning “to tread out,” and hence the juice of the grape trodden out.…
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
And Noah began to be an husbandman. I do not so explain. the words, as if he then, for the first time, began to give his attention to the cultivation of the fields; but, (in my opinion,) Moses rather intimates, that Noah, with a collected mind, though now an old man, returned to the culture of the fields, and to his former labors. It is, however, uncertain whether he had been a vine-dresser or not. It is commonly believed that wine was not in use before that time. And this opinion has been the more willingly received, as affording an honorable pretext for the excuse of Noah's sin. But it does not appear to me probable that the fruit of the vine, which excels all others, should have remained…
The second occurrence in the life of Noah after the flood exhibited the germs of the future development of the human race in a threefold direction, as manifested in the characters of his three sons. As all the families and races of man descend from them, their names are repeated in Gen 9:18; and in prospective allusion to what follows, it is added that "Ham was the father of Canaan." From these three "the earth (the earth's population) spread itself out." "The earth" is used for the population of the earth, as in Gen 10:25 and Gen 11:1, and just as lands or cities are frequently substituted for their inhabitants. נפצה: probably Niphal for נפצה, from פּוּץ to scatter (Gen 11:4), to spread out…
wine . . . became drunk: Wine is a gift from God (Deut 14:26; Ps 104:15; Isa 55:1; see Luke 22:14-20; John 2:1-11). Scripture is clear, however, that excessive consumption of alcohol is a perilous sin (Prov 23:20-21, 29-35; 1 Cor 6:10).
