“[Noah] drank wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.” Gen. 9:21-22
No one knows for sure what happened in the tent that day, but there is certainly no lack of speculation. Unfortunately, the moral of this story may vary depending on what you think or are taught concerning this. I confess I do not know the answer, but can offer some potential explanations and their takeaways:
1) Ham acted illicitly in a sexual manner toward his father in some way; Although this sounds terrible, we must resist the urge to water down what scripture may be telling us. In this case we do not know for certain, but we cannot rule out the possibility. Alter’s commentary states this may be the case as “to see the nakedness of” in Gen. 9:22 frequently means “to copulate with”.
2) Ham merely saw Noah naked but did not quickly avert his eyes. According to Alter’s commentary this alone may have been taboo enough to earn the curse on his offspring. This is questionable considering the whole of humanity was so wicked that God wiped them out with a flood. What would have possibly been taboo at that point? Though perhaps it was with righteous Noah. I suppose the takeaway would be to keep your eyes free from such things; after all, in only a few chapters, Lot’s daughters sleep with him while he is drunk!
3) It was nothing Ham did, but rather Ham’s reaction to Noah. Telling his brothers about his father’s shameful state of drunkenness would be akin to gossip. More symbolically taken, this can be a picture of exposing another’s shame. This may have been curseworthy as it seems in direct opposition to God’s own actions of covering another’s shame – that of Adam, with clothing He made, as Adam could not effectively cover his own shame. Noah’s other sons – Shem and Japheth, followed God’s lead then, and covered their father’s nakedness, and ultimately received additional blessings.
4) Ham castrated his father. In Greek and Roman mythology, Uranus was castrated by his son Cronus – a story which may have its true origins in this story about Noah and Ham. This is also a difficult teaching, as no one likes to think about such things. However a stretch this interpretation may seem, consider this: Noah, unlike all the men preceding him in Genesis chapter 5, has no more children after the first three. Notice the pattern repeated in the text of Gen. 5:3-5:31:
_________ lived ____ years and became the father of _________. Then ________ lived ____ years afterward and had other sons and daughters.
From Adam to Lamech you can fill in the blanks, but for Noah you cannot. Gen. 5:32 starts the pattern for Noah – he lives 500 years and has Shem, Ham and Japheth. Then the entire flood story is laid out in chapters 6-9, and at the very end of chapter 9, in 9:28 the pattern appears to pick back up – but then simply ends with “and he (Noah) died.” Additionally, if Ham had some specific anger or resentment directed toward Noah, coupled with a lack of fear for God, it is not a far stretch to consider that Ham thought he could thwart God’s command to multiply, thus preventing Noah from being able to fulfill what God commanded. In turn, one can see how Noah may choose to curse the child of Ham, Canaan, if he was now prevented from having more children himself.
But why did Canaan get cursed?
In his Antiquities, Josephus tells us that Ham didn’t get cursed directly due to his ‘nearness in kin’ to Noah. Some rabbis believe that Noah thought it best not to curse Ham since Ham, along with Shem and Japheth, were already blessed by God (See Gen. 9:1).
Alternately, many believe that Canaan was actually the perpetrator, thus directly earning the curse — and that Ham did not do anything to stop his son. This itself is evidenced by Gen. 9:24, as it says “he knew what his youngest son had done to him.” Who is the youngest son? We assume Ham is by context – however the three sons are always listed as Shem, Ham and Japheth, which implies birth order. The only grandson we know of is Canaan, which Noah may simply be referring to as ‘his youngest son.’
Pondering Scripture 
11 comments
Comments feed for this article
August 25, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Aimee
Wow! A controversial post! I have to admit I would like to think that option number 3 is most likely simply because it is the least disturbing. Thinking of Number 1 though – its not just homosexuality its also in one way or another a form of inbred grossness… I don’t know how else to put it. I always thought, “what’s up with this story?” Now I have some ideas from reading this. This was a really well done post.
December 1, 2010 at 11:03 pm
Zach
Your first explanation is familiar to me, but I am unsure about it’s relation to Homosexuality. I think that the true offense is that of having sexual relations with one’s parents and with one’s children OR sex with one who is unconscious. We can assume that Noah would be angry after being taken advantage of regardless of who did it, as it seems anyone would be. But the additional point being that it was his own son that had relations with him that might be the point of issue. Note how the daughters of Lot had to get their father drunken and passed out before having relations with him. It seems that they were aware of relations with one’s parent is wrong and they had to wait until a point where Lot was unable to resist to have relations with him. Ham did the same where he took advantage of his father while passed out drunk. We could argue that maybe Lot would have reacted the same way Noah did if he had found out, otherwise the girls would not have had to induce their father’s drunkenness. This suggests that taboo lies with either the relations between one and their parent or children, or that of having relations with one who is unable to defend.
December 1, 2010 at 11:27 pm
jhonse
Zach, thank you for your comment.
Your point is well taken. In any event, both sexual relations between man and man, and woman and woman, are prohibited within Levitical law. That being said, I believe there are also verses about what you are saying – incestuous relationships, also being prohibited. So it is six of one and half-dozen of the other. I’m not going out of my way to single out homosexuality – it was just be simply called that because both Ham and Noah were male, that’s all.
April 14, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Genesis 26:34-35 – Esau Marries « Pondering Scripture
[…] was the son of Ham, and he was the one cursed by Noah after the incident in the tent after the flood. Later, Abraham buys the Cave of Machpelah and the adjacent field from the sons […]
May 19, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Wong
My my, i never saw it the way it is explained in #1. I always wonder what happened that day, now i know.
Thank you very much for the insight. May God continue to guide you
December 2, 2012 at 7:54 am
Drew Fraser
Good blog. I’d like to add what I have heard about Hebrew culture. It was said that in their culture the first born of any family receives justice and the second born/s receive the blessing. So not to comment on the ‘youngest son’, the point is that Ham was not a first born, therefore he couldn’t have receive the justice (curse) for his sin. So, following their culture, Cannan, the first born of Ham received the ‘justice’, which was the curse.
January 3, 2013 at 6:07 am
Kirsty
I have heard, similar to you first explanation, that seeing the nakedness of your father is a kind of idiom for having sexually legations with the father’s wife. The link below discusses this thought in more detail (not my work).
http://www.edgarphillips.org/wordpress/?p=2158
January 3, 2013 at 6:08 am
Kirsty
*relations … Sorry
February 17, 2013 at 7:36 am
K
What a fantastic post. I appreciate your openness to the many views of interpretation…it is very eye-opening. I look forward to reading more. Blessings to you on your journey, fellow believer
May 27, 2013 at 2:23 am
Pastor Charles Crawford
Gen 9:22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
The Hebrew word Ra’ah H7200 is interpreted as “saw” in verse 22 and does not provide the possible meaning of intercourse which seems to invalidate the theory of sexual assault. It also seems highly unlikely that something this important would have been alleviated from the scriptures if it would have actually occurred. We see in Gen 19:5 “And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where [are] the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.” that the same writer signified the men of Sodom’s desire for intercourse with the two men by saying that we may know them, but the wording in Gen. 9:22 only says that he saw his father’s nakedness. It would also seem likely that if a wicked sexual act or castration had been committed against Noah that either death or at the very least exile would have been spoken about as part of the punishment for such a heinous act.
Now when the scriptures refer to uncovering a person’s nakedness like in Leviticus 18:6 it normally means for the purpose of intercourse.
Lev 18:6 None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover [their] nakedness: I [am] the LORD
The Hebrew word Strong’s H1540 – galah which is interpreted as “to uncover” and means “to uncover and have intercourse” according to Gesenius’s Lexicon.
Gen 9:23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid [it] upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces [were] backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
The mere act of seeing his father’s nakedness does not seem to be an act worthy of the curse as this could have been accidental. Trumpeting the embarrassing drunken naked condition of his father does however seem to be an act worthy of the curse. It seems evident that Shem and Japheth believed that staring at their father’s nakedness, or leaving him that way would be wrong by their act of walking backwards as they went in to cover him which was an act later rewarded by their father’s blessing. Whether it was for staring at Noah’s nakedness or for shaming Noah, if Ham had not mentioned what he saw, his brothers would not have found out, they would not have told their father and Noah would not have spoken the curse.
Gen 9:24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him
After using Strong’s Concordance along with Gesenius’s Lexicon for the meaning of the word “younger” Strong’s H6996 – qatan in verse 24, we find that youngest is not a possible interpretation but that either a) he was young in age or b) he was of little authority or importance. If “a” is the case it would either lead us to believe that Canaan was the offender because Ham was not young at this time or that “younger” was alluding to immaturity which then could have been either Canaan or Ham. “B” would also allow us to believe that it could still be either Canaan or Ham. Verse 22’s wording seems to make it quite clear that Ham was the offender negating the possibility of Canaan being the offender. If “b” is the answer, it would give Ham a reason for resentment against his father because he was deemed less important and/or with little authority.
Concerning Lot and his daughters:
Because Levitical Law, a.k.a. The Law of Moses, was not yet imposed as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Levi and then eventually Moses had not yet been born the incestuous relations between Lot and his daughters was not yet frowned upon and was actually considered to be an honorable act of his daughters providing a continuing lineage for their father.