Major Interpretations of what happened:
– Ham sees his father naked and makes fun of him.
– Ham had sexual relations with his mother.
– Ham had sexual relations with his father.
– Ham castrated his father to prevent a fourth son, or additional brother for Ham.
Major interpretations of why Canaan was cursed instead of Ham:
– Mistranslation: Should have been translated “the father of Canaan”.
– Ham and Canaan were both involved in the event.
– Ham had been blessed by God. You can’t curse someone who has been blessed by God.
– The ‘curse’ of Canaan is more of a prophecy.
– The provides an ‘excuse or reason’ to support why the nation of Israel coming out of Egypt is justified taking over the land of Canaan.
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Genesis 9:18 through 9:28
Text from The Bible Gateway
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Scripture Audio:
Presented as dramatizations from The Bible Gateway
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Suggested Study Resources
The following three resources should be helpful. Of course feel free to chase down any study rabbit holes and you want to chase. This is your deep dive in the Word.
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Got Questions: Why did Noah curse Canaan instead of Ham?
Nicely covers several possible theories on what happened.
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Verse by Verse Ministries – Genesis 9b
Recaps all of Chapter 9, the covenant and the sons of Noah. If you want to skip over his review of the covenant he starts discussing the Son’s of Noah around the 26th minute. His analysis of the situation in my opinion is almost entirely from a Western perspective, even though he claims his basis is on the norms of Noah’s society. This will be a great contrast to the Eastern interpretation that we study next session.
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Genesis 9:18-29 – Noah and His Sons After the Flood.
A quick read and overviews the story with a couple of ew tidbits that weren’t covered in the other sources.
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EXTRA CREDIT ARTICLES:
If you want to dive deeper into this scripture, I have found a few resources that take different views of this scripture passage. They are worth your time.
The Sons of Noah
A rather detailed look at the sons of Noah and what lands and peoples came from them. While generally good, there does seem to be a rather strong flare of ethnocentrism in places.
The Curse of Ham – Wikipedia Article
While a Wikipedia article, it covers the topic from multiple perspectives and attempts to do so in a non-biased manner. A few interesting thoughts that were not seen in the sources we listed for the class
The Sons of Noah: Shem, Ham and Japheth after the Flood (A Bible Study on Genesis 9:18-27).
Another telling which adds a few additional tidbits of interpretation. One of interest is looking at the parallel between Genesis 3 and Genesis 9.
Here are some questions and thoughts to ponder as you look into the resources for this week.
- Drinking wine verses getting drunk.
- We spent some time discussing the ‘shame’ of nakedness with Adam an Eve. Do you think that same shame is applicable here? Or do you think that something else is at play.
- What exactly was the indignity that was committed by Ham?
- What do you make of Ham neither being cursed or blessed by Noah? The blessings go to Ham’s brothers, and the curse to his son.
- Since this is the only story of Noah after the flood, do you think that it was included to provide justification from Moses, when he wrote down these stories, as justification for moving into the land of Canaan with the nation of Israel?
- Not a question, but a topic of thought. What of the descendants of the cursed genealogical line postulated as being of darker skin and/or of a lessor class of human? Are there still remnants of this thought alive and well today??
- Why do you think that the first words that we have EVER heard from Noah, are a curse?