So What Really Happened in Noah's Tent After the Flood?
Here is the story in Genesis 9.
Gen 9:20 "And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
Gen 9:21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
Gen 9:22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
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.
Gen 9:24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
Gen 9:25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
Gen 9:26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant."
Leviticus 18:7 says,
"The nakedness of thy father's wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father's nakedness."
So we have:
Thy father's wife = thy father's nakedness.
So when Genesis 9:22 says,
"And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, "
It is saying that the nakedness of his father (Noah) was Noah's wife.
It is talking about Noah's wife!
This is done for the obvious reason so as not to humilate her within the Scriptures.
Also, why was Canaan cursed?
Because God's written Word shows us that sleeping with one's mother is punishable by death!
Leviticus 20:11 says,
"And the man that lieth with his father’s wife hath uncovered his father’s nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.."
We also have to realize here that discovering "nakedness" is a euphemism for sexual relations. This makes Genesis 9 all the more clear.
So if we were to summarize the story in these verses:
Gen 9:20 Noah begins making wine.
Gen 9:21 Noah gets drunk and passes out naked (more than likely because he got frisky with his wife as a result of his drunkenness).
Gen 9:22 Ham (father of Canaan is highlighted) seeing that his father is incapacitated makes advances on his mother. After all, sex is pleasurable, men tend to desire multiple partners, not many women are available after a global flood, and his mother is probably still attractive due to pre-flood aging conditions. He gloats of his conquest to his brothers.
Gen 9:23 The brothers try damage control. They cover up their mother (is she drunk also?). The Bible tends to omit relevant facts about woman in Genesis (what was her name?).
Gen 9:24 Noah comes back into consciousness and finds out or realizes that his wife was violated by Ham.
***[A Lapse or a Gap in Time]***
(For an example of an unexplained gap in time, see Matthew 3:13 and compare with Matthew 2)
Gen 9:25-26 Then Noah curses Canaan and or the new nation that will be formed from this union.
The verse 22 highlighting of Ham as Canaan’s father makes sense if the Jewish reader understood the incestuous origin of Canaan. This would also be an anachronistic clarification that would be very helpful to the reader in this circumstance. Otherwise, it makes very little sense.
In Summary, the literalist story is different:
Gen 9:20 Noah begins making wine.
Gen 9:21 Noah gets drunk.
Gen 9:22 Ham walks into Noah’s tent and sees him naked. Ham then has perverted thoughts or has some sort of debased enjoyment (Literalists claim this with no textual evidence).
Gen 9:23 The brothers walk into the tent backwards and cover up their naked father.
Gen 9:24 Noah comes back into consciousness and figures out that Ham saw him naked (how? The text does not tell, so the literalist must think this happened by magic).
Gen 9:25-26 He curses a baby/child/young boy for the sin of the father presumably because the son was wicked (though the text never indicates this).
Note the time lapse between verses 24 and 25 in this version as well. Did Noah wake up, realize what had happened and then proclaim a curse all without talking to the brothers or even leaving the tent? Some sort of time lapse is indicated in the sentence. Storytellers use time lapses for convenience.
In short, those who claim that Ham merely saw his father naked have no explanation for Canaan’s curse and end up claiming that God curses children for the sins of their fathers. They also end up believing that multi-generational curses can be levied for mere sight of something that naturally occurs in human beings (nakedness). They also violate their own interpretation rules with candor. The facts point to Canaan being the result of an incestuous relationship between Noah’s wife and Ham.
In fact, we see this event repeated in the Bible elsewhere.
Lot's Daughters get Lot drunk and they take advantage of him and they get pregnant. God destroyed both the nations (offspring) of the result of Canaan and from the two daughters of Lot. Death is the punishment for incest according to God's Word (Leviticus 20:11).
Source Used:
was Canaan the child of Ham and Noah’s wife
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