From Chabadwestside.org
The Torah connects the word Noach to the word yenachameinu. This word, Rashi states, means “he will bring us ease.” Rashi then cites an alternate translation as “he will comfort us.” However, Rashi says that if that was the correct meaning for Noach, he should have been called Menachem, which means “comforter.”
On a deeper level, Rashi seems to suggest that what Noach began remained incomplete and thus he could not be called Menachem-Comforter. That name was reserved for Moshiach, as the Talmud (Sanhedrim 98b) says, Menachem is the name of Moshiach.
Rashi links these two individuals to each other. There is something these two men have in common, but they are at two ends of the historical expanse. Noach was the first to refine the world and bring some rest and ease, but he was not successful in removing the curse of Adam entirely. That was the reason for the world’s relapse and its failure to benefit over the long term from his plow, both physically and spiritually.
Moshiach who lives at the end of our period of exile will finally bring Noach’s pioneering work to fruition and bring total comfort to the entire world.
The relationship Noach has with Moshiach is actually hinted in the word for plow itself, machreisha, which contains the word HaMoshiach, the Moshiach. In addition, the Midrash relates that as the Temple was destroyed, a farmer heard his cow moo while he was plowing a field. A certain “clairvoyant” Arab passed by and told him that he could tell from the cow’s sound that the Jewish Temple had just been destroyed. When the cow mooed again, the same Arab said the Moshiach of the Jewish people was born, and his name is Menachem.
However we are to understand that enigmatic passage (a subject of discussion for another essay or two) we can see the intersection between plowing and Moshiach, whose name is Menachem-the Comforter.
A verse in Amos (9:13) in its prediction of the future Messianic Era states: “Behold, the days come, said the L-rd, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper…” The Midrash comments that the “plowman” here refers to the Moshiach, the scion of David.
Moshiach is the one who will plow the earth. In spiritual terms this means he will uplift the entire world, including its lowliest levels, on both the macro and micro level. His efforts will truly bring complete comfort to the world. Instead of the not-quite-good-enough Noach, with his risk of relapsing, there will be the permanent version of Menachem-eternal comfort.