I'm a little stuck this morning on Genesis 9:20-24. It's Ham who discovers his father Noah's nakedness and decides to share this rather than covering him, but it's Ham's son Canaan who receives the curse from Noah. I've read a couple of commentaries with insight as to why, but none are satisfying me.
My brow remains furrowed...
3 comments:
Hmm....I had never noticed that.
When growing up (in California) I heard time and time again that Ham means black and he was the ancestor of all black people and that the curse on him was why there was slavery and why Africa was in such disarray.
I, uh, always thought there was something incredibly - well -racist about the logic (I'm leaving some stuff out).
So now I find it interesting to actually have it pointed out that it was Canaan as in the Canaanites - who weren't black and from Africa but were from the Middle East that had the curse put on him.
I'm curious what the commentaries say - has the Lord said anything about it since you posted this musing? - Leslie
Sorry, Leslie. I accidentally published and then deleted your comment, and this was the only way I could find to undo that.
To answer your question, I haven't received any sort of ray-of-light-definitively-Divine answer. What has occurred to me, though, is that when a parent has to watch his child suffer the ramifications of his (the father's) poor decisions, the parent suffers almost more than he would if only he had to deal with the consequences...
Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well - the fact that he dishonored his father meant his son would be dishonored. Its quite interesting in fact.
And no worries about accidently deleting my comment - there was actually something buggy when I tried to post yesterday. I'm just glad you ended up with it.
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