After the Great Flood, Noah and his family had the opportunity of a fresh start. Immediately, Noah began to work the land.
(Genesis
9:20) Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a
vineyard.
Undoubtedly
Noah planted several crops, but it specifically mentions a vineyard because of
what happened next. Vineyards produce grapes, and from the grapes wine is
produced. On a particular occasion, Noah drank too much, so much that he got
drunk. He was a righteous man, but he was not perfect – nobody is (Ecclesiastes
7:20).
(Genesis
9:21) He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in
his tent.
The
Bible speaks about drinking wine, but repeatedly warns against drunkenness
(Isaiah 28:7, Hosea 4:11, Habakkuk 2:15-16, Galatians 5:21).
(Proverbs
20:1) Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is
led astray by it is not wise.
(Ephesians
5:18) And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but
be filled with the Spirit.
The
danger in getting drunk is that it leads a person to doing things he would
never do in a sober state. The boundaries between good and evil become unclear.
(Leviticus 10:9-11). This is what happened to Noah.
(Genesis
9:21) He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in
his tent.
To
make matters worse, another serious misconduct was added, because it was done
in a sober state.
(Genesis
9:22) And Ham, the father of Canaan ,
saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.
Some
may say: “What was wrong with that? Ham only pointed out what was happening”.
But the attitude the other brothers had shows us what the right thing to do
under this situation was.
(Genesis
9:23) Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their
shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their
faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness.
Instead
of covering his father, Ham exposed his faults and his shame. Isn’t this what
many of us do when we criticize the faults of others, instead of “covering”
them? This is not about “concealing”, or in other words, hiding the truth,
since that would be complicity. Better yet, it is about “covering”, in other
words, talking to the person in private to give him or her the opportunity to
repent and change, and thus remove his or her fault.
The
consequences of Ham’s fault were in the same measure as his own sin. Just as he
shamed his father, one of his children would bring shame to him.
(Genesis
9:24-27) When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest
son had done to him, he said, "Cursed be Canaan ;
a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers."
Even
though it was Ham that was at fault, it was his son that received the curse. According
to Jewish tradition, Canaan was the first to
notice Noah naked, and he told his father Ham, who then exposed him before the
others. That is why he was the object of the curse, since he had the same
inclination his father did.
Noah
cursed the son of Ham, and in contrast, blessed his other children for their
good attitudes.
(Genesis
9:26-27) He also said, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem;
and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge
Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan
be his servant."
Throughout
the Bible, and especially in Genesis, it is made evident that the actions of a
person have consequences both for him and for his descendants… unless there is
repentance, or one of his descendants rises up to overturn the inherited
iniquity through a complete transformation. This transformation and overturn is
known in Hebrew as Tikun, and in future studies we will speak more in depth about
it.
THE
GENEALOGY OF THE SONS OF NOAH
As
we previously mentioned, genealogies are very important in the book of Genesis.
In Genesis chapter 10 we find the genealogy of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham and
Japheth.
(Genesis
10:1) These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham,
and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood.
All
humanity comes from them. In other words, every human being is a “son of Noah”.
According to Jewish tradition, the descendants of the sons of Noah were 70 in
number, and from them come the 70 nations that populated the entire world.
(Genesis
9:18-19) The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem,
Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan .)
These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth
were dispersed.
(Genesis
10:32) These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their
genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the
earth after the flood.
The
sons of Noah took literally the commandment to multiply and fill the Earth.
They did not stay in any particular place, but each one took his own way. They
inhabited the following regions:
* Japheth - Europe
* Ham - Egypt
and the seven nations in the Canaan area
(10:15-20)
* Shem - Mesopotamia and
Asia
We
know this because the places where they settled received their names (for
example: Misrayim is now Egypt ,
Cush is Ethiopia , Tarsus
is Spain , Babel
is Iraq
But
there was a man who was not satisfied by occupying one particular place. He
wanted to have under his dominion several peoples and nations. His name was
Nimrod.
NIMROD
Nimrod
was the son of Cush, Ham’s firstborn. He was a great
hunter, but he was not contented with hunting animals alone, he also wanted to subdue
peoples.
(Genesis
10:8-9) Cush
When
we read in the Bible the phrase “before the Lord” it literally means: Face to
face with God. This can be either positive or negative. In Nimrod’s case, he
stood before God in defiance, not in humility or submission.
For
Nimrod it was not enough to be the lord of one city, he wanted to be the king
of several nations.
(Genesis
10:10-12) The beginning of his kingdom was Babel ,
Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land
of Shinar Nineveh ,
Rehoboth-Ir, Calah , and Resen between Nineveh and Calah
The
capital of his Kingdom was Babel
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