On Husbandry

“And Noah began to be a husbandman, and he planted a vineyard, and drank of the wine, and became drunken within his house” (Gen. 9:20 f.).

Most men, not knowing the nature of things, necessarily go wrong also in giving them names. For things which are well considered and subjected as it were to dissection have appropriate designations attached to them in consequence; while others having been presented in a confused state receive names that are not thoroughly accurate.

Moses, being abundantly equipped with the knowledge that has to do with things, is in the habit of using names that are perfectly apt and expressive. We shall find the assurance just given made good in many parts of the Lawgiving, and not least in the section before us in which the righteous Noah is introduced as a husbandman.

Would not anyone who answers questions off-hand think that husbandry and working on the soil were the same things, although in reality they not only are not the same things, but are ideas utterly at variance with each other and mutually repugnant?