Mar
16
My Take on Noah’s Drunken Nakedness and the Sin of Ham in Genesis 9
The other week I posted “My Take on the Sons of God and Nephilim in Genesis 6”, wherein I reviewed four Study Bible commentaries regarding Gen. 6:1-4 (from two previous posts) along with a couple extra sources. This week I’m doing basically the same thing but for a longer passage, Gen. 9:18-29. As before, I will present my view and reasoning in brief, perhaps expanding a bit on a couple things but without getting too academic or (hopefully) too speculative. You might want to consider (re-)reading the relevant two “What to Make of This Weird Bible Passage?” posts I did before proceeding with this one.
“18 The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) 19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.
20 Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. 21 He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24 When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said,
‘Cursed be Canaan;
a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.’26 He also said,
‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem;
and let Canaan be his servant.27 May God enlarge Japheth,
and let him dwell in the tents of Shem,
and let Canaan be his servant.”28 After the flood Noah lived 350 years. 29 All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.” (Gen. 9:18-29 (ESV))
First, just a few bits of extra information about my overall position — things which I might be tempted to get sidetracked on but will not be addressing further in this post. 1) As should be apparent, I believe in a literal Flood, one which was geographically local/regional and likely somewhere in the area of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East. 2) I hold to the view that humanity had not spread out beyond this region by this point in time. So, while geographically limited, the Flood wiped out all humanity other than the eight on the Ark. 3) I believe that the people mentioned were actual people who lived in history. 4) Shem, Ham, and Japheth were the immediate sons (but not triplets) of Noah and his wife, just as Canaan was likely the direct offspring of Ham. (However, the genealogies do include several “gaps”.) 5) I also believe that the ages given in the Genesis genealogies of men living several hundreds of years is indeed the case, and I think it more likely that the traditional numbers taken from the Masoretic texts are correct rather than those from the Septuagint. (I have written about #1 elsewhere, and I’ll probably address at least #4 and #5 in the future.)
Onward to the main topics…
“[Noah] became drunk and lay uncovered”
The first concern I often hear about this passage has to do with Noah drinking wine to the point of drunkenness. This is usually by very conservative Christians who abstain from all alcohol and certainly consider drunkenness to be sinful. But, I don’t think this is the case here. For one, this was long before even Mosaic Law, let alone New Testament concerns; the Bible has no commands regarding “wine” or “strong drink” at this point. However, its consumption can lead to saying or doing stupid things, like falling asleep when half-dressed or undressed. Notice that, at least as far as the Bible tells us, God didn’t reprimand Noah either for being drunk or for becoming naked as a result. Mention of the former may be a sign of God’s disapproval, or it may only be there as explanation for how Noah accidentally left himself exposed. At most, I think we could say that “drinking to excess” is unwise. Thus Noah was setting a poor example not only for his sons and daughters-in-law but for any youngsters they may have had by this time, as well as leaving himself open to discovery, ridicule, and possibly more.
“[Ham] saw the nakedness of his father”
As described in an earlier post, there are multiple (and increasingly disturbing) interpretive theories for what this was actually referring to. I suppose it is possible that Ham made some sort of power-play — e.g., castrating Noah, sodomizing Noah, or raping his mother. But, I am as yet unconvinced of the arguments and instead lean toward a charge of voyeurism. It might have been that he saw his parents having sex OR that he saw his mother naked. I note that Scripture’s simple description of Shem and Japheth’s response — averting their eyes as they “covered the nakedness of their father” so as not to see said nakedness — makes sense if they were simply covering their father and/or mother’s naked (and sleeping) body/ies but seems entirely inadequate for learning that Ham had sexually assaulted one of their parents. Also, despite the arguments in favor of this idiom being used as it is in Leviticus, it occurs to me that there must also be times when “the nakedness of his father” literally meant “the nakedness of his father” — or, at least, said father’s exposed genitalia — whether or not such a sight would have been considered a moral crime in itself.
So, unless and until I am convinced otherwise, my position on this is to assume that Noah exposed himself (purposely, such as if he was hot, or not) in his own tent while drinking; Ham saw it, but instead of covering his father (and mother?) himself, he sought out his older brothers and told them about it. The implication seems to be that Ham was grossly disrespectful in his reaction to what he saw and thought that his brothers would join him in mocking their father — whether openly or just between themselves is largely irrelevant. Whether or not Ham wanted to undermine Noah’s authority is, of course, outright speculation, because the Bible doesn’t even hint at it. Some commentators think that Noah’s curse against Canaan which follows (see below) would be an overreaction to merely laughing at Noah and perhaps embarrassing him. But, remember that parents were to be highly respected in the ancient Near East, especially the fathers in patriarchal societies. In later Mosaic law, for example, one could be harshly punished, even executed, for disobeying, cursing, or otherwise dishonoring one’s parents. It may be that God was instituting, or re-instituting, such a moral code for his followers in postdiluvian times.
(For notes arguing for the “maternal rape/incest” view, see NIV Faithlife Illustrated Study Bible. For counterarguments against this or the sodomy view, see NET Full Notes Edition. Fortunately, I have them both in the same blogpost.)
“Cursed be Canaan”
More can be said on just this topic of the curse, and some of it depends on what view one has on the above debate over what exactly Ham did to warrant the curse. I’m just going to highlight a couple of very interesting points that I can get behind, and to do so I’ll quote the two study Bibles that stated them so succinctly:
Baker Illustrated Study Bible: “As a result of Ham’s involvement, Noah curses not Ham but Canaan, Noah’s grandson (9:25). This may illustrate the “eye for an eye” principle of justice. The youngest son of Noah sins, and as a result, a curse is placed on Ham’s youngest son. Other interpretations are possible.”
NET Full Notes Edition: “The curse is pronounced on Canaan, not Ham. Noah sees a problem in Ham’s character, and on the basis of that he delivers a prophecy about the future descendants who will live in slavery to such things and then be controlled by others. (For more on the idea of slavery in general, see E. M. Yamauchi, “Slaves of God,” BETS 9 [1966]: 31-49). In a similar way Jacob pronounced oracles about his sons based on their revealed character (see Gen 49). Wenham points out that “Ham’s indiscretion towards his father may easily be seen as a type of the later behavior of the Egyptians and Canaanites. Noah’s curse on Canaan thus represents God’s sentence on the sins of the Canaanites, which their forefather Ham had exemplified.” He points out that the Canaanites are seen as sexually aberrant and Lev 18:3 describes Egypt and Canaan, both descendants of Ham, as having abominable practices. See G. Wenham, Genesis vol. 1 (WBC), 202.”
Note that Wenham’s point works at least as well, perhaps better, if Ham’s sin involved sexually abusing either his father or mother.
Regarding the matter of slavery and specifically because of the question of justifying antebellum slavery in America, I will end by quoting the ESV Study Bible on the topic:
“This passage was wrongly appealed to in past centuries to justify the enslavement of African people, resulting in grievous abuse, injustice, and inhumanity to people created in the image of God. Noah’s curse of Canaan, which focuses on his being a servant, anticipates the judgment that will later befall the Canaanites (cf. Deut. 7:1-3 with Gen. 10:15-19). This, coupled with the fact that the curse falls on Canaan alone and not on Ham’s other children (who settled in northern Africa), shows how illegitimate it was to use this text to justify enslaving African people. (For more on the overall biblical position on slavery, see notes on 1 Cor. 7:21; Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22-25; 1 Tim. 1:10.) Shem, however, is given pride of place, as is implied by Noah’s remark that Japheth will dwell in the tents of Shem (Gen. 9:27).”
(H/T Hugh Ross; Hugh Henry and Daniel J. Dyke (God of the Gaps))
