He also said, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant.
26. Blessed be the Lord God of Shem . Noah blesses his other children, but in a different manner. For he places Shem in the highest post of honor. And this is the reason why Noah, in blessing him, breaks forth in the praise of God, without adhering to the person of man.
Here, I. Noah comes to himself: He awoke from his wine. Sleep cured him, and, we may suppose, so cured him that he never relapsed into that sin afterwards. Those that sleep as Noah did should awake as he did, and not as that drunkard (Pro 23:35) who says when he awakes, I will seek it yet again. II.
Commenting on Genesis 9:24-27
And he said, blessed be the Lord God of Shem,.... Shem was blessed before Japheth, because he was the first and principal in advising and conducting the affair before ascribed to them, as Jarchi on Gen 9:23 suggests; and though the words are in the form of an ascription of blessedness to God, the fountain of all good, and by whose grace Shem was influenced...