Genesis 9:18-29
Book of Genesis • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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We just finished seeing how God promised to never flood the earth again and how He used a Rainbow as a constant reminder to us, to God and to all the earth. You may not realize it but this next portion, gives powerful information for the rest of the old Testament all the way up to the modern world!
18 The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. 19 These were the three sons of Noah, and from them the whole earth was populated. 20 Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. 21 Then he drank some of the wine and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. 23 So Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.
Noah becomes a farmer and plants a vineyard. At some point he drank too much and was in his tent without any cloths.
His son Ham (figures it was the middle child to do this, you know the older and younger siblings would never do this HAHA). Anyways he makes a mockery of his dad, the other brothers respectfully take a blanket and walking in backwards, covered their father.
This could have been years after the ark landed, it was definitely not right after they landed I know this for a few reasons.
1. He had the time to grow an vineyard
2. He had time to ferment wine to become alcohol
3. Ham already had a few sons, Canaan was the fourth son mentioned in Chapter 10.
24 When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done to him, 25 he said, “Canaan be cursed! He will be a servant of servants to his brothers.” 26 He also said, “Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. 27 May God enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant.” 28 Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. 29 All the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, and then he died.
Notice something interesting, Ham is the second child of Noah, but here in verse 24 he is called the younger son. This brings to question what does this mean? Younger in the Hebrew here is “qatan” which means small or insignificant.
After Noah wakes up, He is informed somehow of the events of Ham. This reveals the character of Ham. and Noah blessed the two brothers that respected their father, and says nothing to the brother Ham, I’m not sure why he did not address Ham. For Canaan, the son of Ham, Noah sets a curse instead of a blessing. This is honestly a strange Idea today as we don’t practice blessing and cursing our children as was done in those days. In this scenario, it was more of a punishment passed to Canaan instead of being on his dad’s head. it would be similar to the government of today punishing someone to 30 years hard labour because of their crimes.
These events remind me of Exodus 20:12
12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
This was written to the nation of Isreal, but we can see the heart of God in this matter and we can certainly see in Gen how God does not bless those who dishonour their parents.
Canaan is now to be a servant to his two uncles.
Many people now look at the history of the Canaanite people and think this curse was to the entire nation, but that’s not what scripture says. In fact in history we don’t even see that happen. If you read chapter 10 this week you will see the nations that came from Canaan. Gen 10:15-20 tells us of all the great nations that came from Canaan. Some of them had difficult histories but definitely not all of them.
15 And Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn, and Heth, 16 And the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, 17 And the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, 18 And the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad. 19 And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha. 20 These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.
One thing I did notice that I wanted to point out, is that the Canaanite people are the ones that lived in what we call today, Isreal and Lebanon. The canaanites and the some other nations that came from Canaan, such as the Jebusites and Amorites, are the nations that Isreal fought against to obtain Isreal. These nations were similar to Isreal in the fact that they went through very prosperous times and they went through very difficult times.
Canaan himself was a servant to his two uncles but eventually his children went on to become very large and historical important nations.
if you read through all of Chapter 10 on your own you can see the nations that came from the other brothers and you can start to see the shaping of the worlds nations. one thing I want to note, in Chapter 11 we get to the tower of Babel. these nations we are talking about came after the tower of babel. did you know Genesis, like many other books is not 100% in order of when the events took place? after God explains Noah and his son’s before getting to babel, he gives the genealogy of which nations eventually came from Noahs sons.
After the genealogy, God jumps back into recording history of how these nations became to be where they were. see before the tower of babel, God says all nations spoke one language and decided to stay in one area. but in the genealogy of chapter 10 we see not only locations of different nations, we see God telling us what languages they spoke.
So you may be asking what can I learn from this simple even of Ham dishonoring his father? We can see that God’s desires us to honour your parents, notice something. Ham was an adult, Married with at least one child by this time. we are not just looking at a mouthy 13 year old child. and honouring them does not mean obeying them even if they are wrong. (Noah was not acting right here either)
you can honour your parents even if your 50 and on your own and not under their rule anymore. By doing what is right and living with Godly values. Even if your parents are not doing what is right, you can do whats right and bring them and God honour!
