Posted on 12/15/2014 9:12:57 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Yesterday a friend and I were talking about some of the weird, perplexing things in the Bible, swapping quotes and links to try to make sense of a strange passage. I decided I’d throw it out there today and see what others thought.
Genesis 9:18-27 describes how after Noah lands the ark and makes a covenant with God he plants an orchard, invents wine, and gets drunk. Then his son Ham “saw the nakedness of his father” and told his brothers, who then covered their eyes so they didn’t see him, but went in and covered him. Afterwards Noah curses Ham’s son Canaan. What actually happened here? Why is this so important? Why does Canaan get cursed for something his father did? And why is it so bad to just see your Dad naked and laugh about it?
What is actually going on here?
There seem to be four popular interpretations:
1. The first is just a straight literalist interpretation — the crime really was just seeing his father in an uncompromising position and then laughing about it to his brothers.
The next three interpretations are a little more plausible and have been considered over the centuries:
2. Ham castrated his father.
3. Ham sexually molested or raped his father, shaming and dishonoring them both.
4. It was actually Ham’s son Canaan that did the crime.
These ideas see the curse being inflicted on Canaan for a few different reasons. First, if Noah was castrated then he couldn’t have more sons. Second, whatever the sexually dominating act was, it’s seen as a symbolic attempt to usurp Noah’s authority in the tribe.
The fifth idea, which we’ll explore on the next page, is much more of a leap from the literal but the one that ultimately makes the most sense when read against other usages of the language in the Torah and in the bigger context of the differing marital practices of Pagan tribes…
5. Ham actually committed incest with Noah’s wife/and/or his own mother.
Thus, the reason why Canaan was cursed is because he was a child of incest, and the living symbol of his father Ham’s attempt to challenge the authority and disrupt the lineage of his father Noah.
That’s the case made here, which makes the most sense to me:
YOUR WILD BIBLE STORY FOR THE DAY, DECODED: Noah’s nakedness http://t.co/nqfvfujVbV #TCOT
— David Swindle (@DaveSwindle) December 13, 2014
Ham, Shem, and Japheth are supposed to symbolize the three forefathers from which all the cultures of the world descended. It makes sense, therefore, that the cultures descending from Ham would be ones — Canaanites — that did not prohibit incest, which the Torah would seek to clearly separate the people from in Moses time.
What do you think? How do you interpret this story and where does it fit in your value system?
I’m not seeing a priestly garment in the story
I bet he put his hand in a bowl of warm water...
Or put shaving cream in his hand and tickle his face with a feather...
When you look at the severity of the curse placed upon Canaan, Ham’s son, whatever Ham, or Canaan, had done, it must have been especially perverse. It was no misdemeanor.
Since the curse was upon Canaan, I think a clue would be the Canaanites. Abraham made his servant swear that he not take a wife for Isaak from among the Canaanites, but from his kindred, the Shemites, Gen. 24:1-4. Likewise, Jacob, Gen. 28:1,2.
The Canaanites were so wicked in God’s eyes, that when the Israelites under Joshua went into the land of the Canaanites, they were told to kill ‘em all, men, women, and children.
Halley’s Bible Handbook, p. 166, 167, says that the land of Canaan was Sodom and Gomorrah “on a national scale.” (Both - the Sodomites and Canaanites - being Hamites and children of Noah’s curse.) Halley says they were idolators of the worst kind worshiping Baal and Ashtoreth their female goddess.
They practiced abortion on a grand scale, sacrificing their children. To archaelogists, it was the sexual perversion of the Canaanites that was the most striking and definitive.
In their “high places” of worship, archealogists...
“found enormous quantities of images of Ashtoreth with rudely exaggerated sex organs. Canaanites worshiped, by immoral indulgence in the presence of their gods; and then, by murdering their first-born children, as a sacrifice to these same gods.”
Halley goes on to say,
“Do we wonder any longer why God commanded Israel to exterminate the Canaanites? Did a civilization of such abominable filth and brutality haven any right longer to exist? Archeologists that dig in the ruins of Canaan wonder that God did not destroy them sooner than he did.”
It thus appears to me, that most posters on this thread attempting to put their finger on the reason for the curse upon Canaaan, are way to skittish. Just look at evidence.
I’m not going to be skittish in what I’m going to say here:
Any people that enacts laws favoring abortion and same sex marriage, are incurring the curse of Canaan upon them. They have put themselves in the same category as Sodom and Gomorrah and the land of Canaan, both incurring the wrath of God.
Those who call themselves of the right, but can’t find in in themselves to make a stand against abortion and the Sodomites, like the Rino’s and libertarians, are placing themselves in God’s crosshairs, no different in God’s eyes than the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Canaanites.
The curse upon Canaanites, is not about taxes and finance, which so many FReepers think are most important than the cultural issues.
RE: Since the curse was upon Canaan, I think a clue would be the Canaanites. Abraham made his servant swear that he not take a wife for Isaak from among the Canaanites
Side note on some ancient custom....
The Bible says that Abraham made his servant swear that he won’t search for a bride for his son among the Cannaanites by asking him to ““Put your hand under my thigh.”
What kind of a custom is that? If you are really serious about keeping your promise, you have to put your hand on someone’s thigh? Do they do that to women too?
Just asking...
“, Since Ham was not the younger son but next to the oldest “
How do arrive at that?
Just one man’s opinion (mine).
I think it must have something to do with the promise God made to Abraham, a promise having to do with “seed,” his descendants. Women don’t have “seed,” the promise had to do with male issue, the men of Abrahamic descent. Hence, the putting of the hand of Abraham’s servant “under my thigh.”
The promise made to Abraham’s “seed” being the overarching theme, it is thus no wonder the strange custom you refer to. Strange to us, perhaps, but not to Abraham’s household.
Exactly.
In 2,000 years I wonder what people will think of us with all of our worries about global warming when we say that so many things are ‘cool’.
They may even think we hated things we really like when they read that we thought they were ‘wicked’.
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How do arrive at that?
The oldest is usually named first, ham was second, Japheth was last and probably the youngest.
“The oldest is usually named first, ham was second, Japheth was last and probably the youngest.”
Usually they are listed in order of importance. Genesis 10:21 says Japheth was the oldest.
21 And children were born also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, 4the brother of Japheth the elder.
Usually they are listed in order of importance. Genesis 10:21 says Japheth was the oldest.
Of Sem also, the father of all children of Heber, the elder brother of Japheth, sons were born.
So it looks like guessing is about the best we can do.
Your post is so sick.
Had Sharpies been invented yet?
LOL!!
(-:
Six laws were given to Adam on the day of his creation.
A seventh law was added to the children of Noah. This was the prohibition of cruelty to animals, which was given along with permission to eat meat.
Most religions and philosophies arise only in order to legitimize violation of one or more of the Seven Laws.
http://beta.moshiach.com/index.php/item/the-7-laws-of-the-children-of-noah
What is interesting is that the Canaanites (later called Phoenicians by the Graeco-Romans) and Egyptians were all Semitic peoples.
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