1. You can forgive them and teach them how to live rightly.
2. You can harm them, exacting vengeance on them so they experience your pain.
Which do you choose?
This is a story of Noah.
Here is the setup:
There are Four Characters
There is Deception
There is Nakedness
There is Shame
There is a telling (Who told you that you were naked?)
There is Curse and Covering / Covering and Curse
Genesis 3 and Genesis 9 include these same elements in almost the exact same order
In Genesis 3 we have FOUR CHARACTERS: God, Adam, Eve & the serpent. There is DECEPTION, causing disobedience which leads to seeing their NAKEDNESS. They are ASHAMED. There is a (TELLING OF NAKEDNESS: who told you?). God CURSES the serpent & the ground, and then COVERS Adam & Eve.
In Genesis 9, we have FOUR CHARACTERS: Noah, Shem, Japheth & Ham. There is DECEPTION (Proverbs 20:1 links deception to wine) which leads to seeing Noah’s NAKEDNESS. He is SHAMED by his son Ham to his brothers as there is a (TELLING OF NAKEDNESS). The brothers COVER Noah, and then Noah CURSES Ham’s son.
Rabbi Marty Solomon, quoting Rabbi Fohrman sees a clear link here. He suggests Noah was familiar with the story of Genesis 3, and he could have learned the lesson: God cursed a wicked thing and forgave the ones who disobeyed.
Instead, Noah curses the one who shamed him, even after the brothers cover him.
In this view, Noah is even reminded about the covering by his sons before he launches into vengeance. He had every opportunity to stop and remember God’s handling of Adam and Eve. He could have forgiven them and covered their shame.
But he choses violence instead.
I’m tempted to fault Noah here, but given the power to forgive, taking the pain on myself or the chance to exact vengeance where I can inflict my pain back on them (7-times? 77-times?), how often do I fail to forgive?
This is a story about all of us. And here, we are shown the consequence of what happens when we fail to forgive.
By cursing Canaan, an entire people are subjected and enslaved. This curse is so great that Israel’s suffering is largely because of the generations of Canaan that live in the Promised Land.
Perhaps generational curses are the result of unforgiveness.
Perhaps forgiveness changes the world.