my covenant] Because Noah was now not onely by word, but by a strange work, to forewarne a whole world of wicked ones of imminent destruction, and therefore was like from men to receive much discouragement by derision, both of his commination of danger, and preparation against it; God, to confirme him in that great enterprize, maketh a covenant with him, that his faith might not faile, and so he might be assured both that he who made the world, could marre it if he pleased, and that he who was able both to make and marre it, could save whom he pleased from perdition. and thy sonnes] Ham as well as Shem and Iaphet: Bad children, if they have good parents, are partakers of some temporall favours for their parents sake, 1 Kings 11:12-13. None besides these; no, not the Carpenters that made the Ark, had any entertainment in the Ark: They wrought, it seems, as Noah’s workmen for their hire, not apprehending their work as a service to Gods providence, in preservation of a seed-plot for a second world: It may be so with some Preachers, who preach others into the Church, and live themselves out of it; so it falleth out with them, as Paul feared of himselfe, 1 Corinthians 9:27.