Genesis 9 · Verse 20

Genesis 9:20

And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
Genesis 9:20, King James Version

Genesis 9:20 in other translations

BSBNow Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard.
WEBNoah began to be a farmer, and planted a vineyard.
ASVAnd Noah began to be a husbandman, and planted a vineyard:
YLTAnd Noah remaineth a man of the ground, and planteth a vineyard,
DARBYAnd Noah began to be a husbandman, and planted a vineyard.
BBEIn those days Noah became a farmer, and he made a vine-garden.
WebsterAnd Noah began to be a husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:

What does Genesis 9:20 mean?

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
20. And Noah ... planted a vineyard--Noah had been probably bred to the culture of the soil, and resumed that employment on leaving the ark.

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown, 1871 · public domain

Adam Clarke's Commentary
Verse 20 Noah began to be a husbandman - איש האדמה ish haadamah, A man of the ground, a farmer; by his beginning to be a husbandman we are to understand his recommencing his agricultural operations, which undoubtedly he had carried on for six hundred years before, but this had been interrupted by the flood. And the transaction here mentioned might have occurred many years posterior to the deluge, even after Canaan was born and grown up, for the date of it is not fixed in the text. The word husband first occurs here, and scarcely appears proper, because it is always applied to man in his married state, as wife is to the woman. The etymology of the term will at once show its propriety when applied to the head of a family. Husband, is Anglo-Saxon, and simply signifies the bond of the house or family; as by him the family is formed, united, and bound together, which, on his death, is disunited and scattered. It is on this etymology of the word that we can account for the farmers and petty landholders being called so early as the twelfth century, husbandi, as appears in a statute of David II., king of Scotland: we may therefore safely derive the word from hus, a house, and bond from binben, to bind or tie; and this etymology appears plainer in the orthography which prevailed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in which I have often found the word written house-bond; so it is in a MS. Bible before me, written in the fourteenth century. Junius disputes this etymology, but I think on no just ground.

Adam Clarke, 1831 · public domain

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on Genesis 9:18-23

The drunkenness of Noah is recorded in the Bible, with that fairness which is found only in the Scripture, as a case and proof of human weakness and imperfection, even though he may have been surprised into the sin; and to show that the best of men cannot stand upright, unless they depend upon Divine grace, and are upheld thereby. Ham appears to have been a bad man, and probably rejoiced to find his father in an…

Read the full comment on Genesis 9:18-23 →

Genesis 9:20 in the original Hebrew

Word-by-word with transliteration, English gloss and Strong's number. Tap a number for the full definition and every place the word is used.

וַיָּ֥חֶלvai.Ya.cheland he beganH2490
נֹ֖חַNo.achNoahH5146
אִ֣ישׁ'ish[the] man ofH376
הָֽאֲדָמָ֑הha.'a.da.Mahthe groundH127
וַיִּטַּ֖עvai.yi.Ta'and he plantedH5193
כָּֽרֶם\׃Ka.rema vineyardH3754

Source: STEPBible TAHOT/TAGNT (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0).

Cross references for Genesis 9:20

  • Proverbs 12:11

    He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that followeth vain persons is void of understanding.

  • Isaiah 28:24-26

    Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.

  • Deuteronomy 28:30

    Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof.

  • Deuteronomy 20:6

    And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not yet eaten of it? let him also go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man eat of it.

  • Genesis 3:23

    Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

  • Ecclesiastes 5:9

    Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field.

  • Genesis 3:18-19

    Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

  • Proverbs 10:11

    The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked.

  • Genesis 5:29

    And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.

  • Genesis 4:2

    And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

  • Song of Solomon 1:6

    Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.

  • Proverbs 24:30

    I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;

Ranked by reader votes · OpenBible.info cross references (CC BY).

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
an husbandman.
3:18,19,23; 4:2; 5:29; Pr 10:11; 12:11; Ec 5:9; Isa 28:24-26
planted.
De 20:6; 28:30; Pr 24:30; So 1:6; 1Co 9:7

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (Samuel Bagster, c. 1836) · public domain

Context

  • Genesis 9:19

    These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.

  • Genesis 9:20

    And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:

  • Genesis 9:21

    And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.

Read all of Genesis 9

Genesis 9:20 in other languages

Spanish
Reina-Valera 1909		Y comenzó Noé á labrar la tierra, y plantó una viña:
French
Bible J.N. Darby 1885		Et Noé commença à être cultivateur et il planta une vigne;
German
Elberfelder 1871		Und Noah fing an ein Ackermann zu werden und pflanzte einen Weinberg.
Latin
Clementine Vulgate		Cœpitque Noë vir agricola exercere terram, et plantavit vineam.