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Never made since to me...
20 Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. 21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside. 23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father's nakedness. 24 When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said,
"Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers."
26 He also said,
"Praise be to the LORD, the God of Shem!
May Canaan be the slave of Shem.
27 May God extend Japheth's territory;
may Japheth live in the tents of Shem,
and may Canaan be the slave of Japheth."
What in the world is going on in this passage? Anybody???
9 comments:
i've never understood this either.
best i could come up with was...don't make fun of your dad when he passed out drunk and naked?! odd. im sure there's some deep, philosophical, contextual, theological meaning behind it all.
bill?
I don't think the issue is accidentally seeing his dad naked, rather what he did in response to that. Like what Micah said, he made fun of his dad to his brothers. Since honor was, and still is, a huge issue in their culture, Ham shamed his father and dishonored him through his actions. I'm not a biblical scholar, but I think that is why Noah was so harsh with this son, in particular. The other two sons had the decency to show respect by covering him up.
That's my take on it!
That is why I am married to La Rodriga...Bam!!
...and your title should be "sense", not "since"
:)
I think the lesson is - don't get hammered on wine when your retard youngest son is around.
This commentary says that Ham boasted about his father's nakedness.. Noah was supposed to be the guy who didn't do anything wrong.. or something.
I agree with the idea at the core of the funny comments you've received so far: I think some of the Bible is simply "history writing", i.e. recording what actually happened, simply because it happened. You could replace Noah, Japheth. Shem and Ham with Hank, Willy, Bo and Slim and call it a Jerry Springer episode. But stories like these attest to the Bible's historical accuracy. Our Bible heroes are accurately portrayed as sometimes very "un-hero like." I prefer "passed out drunk and naked" like escamilla said. But this is a measure that historians use to gauge the historicity of ancient documents. Stories like this one of Noah don't fall under the heading of "legend." They fall under "history." Just where they should.
I can't say that I advocate this view, but it is just another possiblity to throw out there. When I was in seminary, my Old Testament professor shared that some scholars think this passage has a more sexual connotation to it. It would help to know the original language here, but apparently "seeing him naked" is similar to a man "knowing" his wife. I am not sure if that is accurate, but it is another possibility. I guess we can't know for sure, but whatever happened, it sure elicited a strong reaction from Noah.
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