Tag: Ham

The Two Boats

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There is a link between the boat of Genesis and the boat of Jonah.

When God called Jonah (Shem) to preach to Nineveh (Ham), Jonah fled to Tarshish (Japheth).

Javen, son of Japheth:

The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittites and the Rodanites.
Genesis 10:4 (NIV)

This is Nimrod, son of Cush, son of Ham:

From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah
Genesis 10:11 (NIV)

God has set Himself against the curse from the beginning.

Japheth

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The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshek and Tiras.
The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah.
The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittites and the Rodanites. (From these the maritime peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each with its own language.)
Genesis 10:2-5 (NIV)

Of the three sons of Noah, you’d think Ham and his son Canaan would get the fewest page-space on account of the curse, cutting their line short. But oddly, they get the most written about them in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10.

It’s Japheth who gets the fewest words written about his lineage. In the chapter, only two of his sons get any more detail written about them.

It’s strange.

Backwards

Posted on by jovial_cynic

When something is repeated in scripture, it might be because you are supposed to pay attention to it. Underline it. Highlight it.

I wondered why the text uses this word אֲחֹרַנִּית (ahoraneeth) twice in the same sentence. Backwards, or Reverse.

But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it on both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were [a]turned away, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness.
Genesis 9:23 (NASB)

[a] Lit backward

If you’ve followed along, you know that I have to chase these words down and try to find meaning in them and their usage in the text. Sometimes, this results in dead ends, but often it’s quite enlightening.

But sometimes, it gets very interesting…

One learning is that Genesis is full of spiritual versions of words that later are demonstrated in physical words.

Examples:
Good is the spiritual root of beautiful
Shame is the spiritual root of naked/uncovered

So we’re supposed to view them in a related way. This is the nature of parables.

The Genesis Ark is covered inside and out in “pitch,” and we later learn that this word is the same word used for “atonement.” In Exodus, when Moses is in the basket (same word: Ark), it’s also covered in “pitch,” but it’s the natural version of this word. But it’s linked.

And then there is the relationship between the Genesis Ark (“tayVah”) and the Exodus Ark (“ahRon”) of the Covenant. Same concept… except different words are used. One covered in pitch/atonement, the other covered in gold/purity. Sort of like our house vs God’s house? Maybe.

So anyhow, this word “backwards” appears here in Genesis 9, and the next time we see it is in 1 Samuel 4.

Samuel learns that his two wicked sons have died and that the Ark of the Covenant has been taken. In his shock, he falls backwards and dies.

Then the one who brought the news replied, “Israel has fled before the Philistines and there has also been a great defeat among the people, and your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas are also dead; and the ark of God has been taken.” When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell off the seat backward beside the gate, and his neck was broken and he died, for he was old and heavy. And so he judged Israel for forty years.
1 Samuel 4:17-18 (NASB)

Isn’t that interesting?

Eli has two wicked sons who die, and Noah has two good sons who are blessed. The Ark was taken away instead of God’s people exiting it. Eli falls backwards, breaks his neck, and is forever shamed in the text for being fat vs. the two good sons walking in backwards to protect Noah’s dignity to prevent further shame. These stories seem so connected.

Kind of weird, right? But stranger yet, we later have three back to back instances in Scripture that point to another set of “backwards.”

It’s when Elijah demonstrates the power of God to Hezekiah. He appears to reverse the clock, and then set it forward again by 10-degrees.

So Hezekiah said, “It is easy for the shadow to decline ten steps; no, but have the shadow turn backward ten steps.”
2 Kings 20:10 (NASB)

Then Isaiah the prophet called out to the Lord, and He brought the shadow on the stairway back ten steps by which it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.
2 Kings 20:11 (NASB)

Behold, I will make the shadow on the stairway, which has gone down with the sun on the stairway of Ahaz, go back ten steps.” So the sun’s shadow went back ten steps on the stairway on which it had gone down.
Isaiah 38:8 (NASB)

Incidentally, ten degrees by the sun-dial equates to… 40 minutes. And we’ve already learned that 40 = testing or trials. It represents a time of testing.

So here’s an interpretation:

Noah cursed Canaan instead of forgiving him. He thinks he has good reason for this: he wants vengeance.

We can choose vengeance (Noah’s way) or forgiveness (God’s way). There’s time to consider it – a time of testing where God makes the clock stand still. Through our forgiveness or acting out in wrath, we move the sun. We either move forward or backward. We create or destroy.

That’s what forgiveness and wrath do: they create and they destroy. They move creation forward or they undo it and send it back into chaos.

Perhaps we’re meant to see this and understand that time is connected to all of this. God is telling us how to move through time rightly.

The last, and possibly most important instance of “backwards” is in the center of the listings, in 1 Kings 18. This is when Elijah faces off against the prophets of Ba’al, when he calls down fire from heaven.

He prays that God turns the clock of hearts… “backwards.” Back to Him.

Answer me, Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that You, Lord, are God, and that You have turned their heart back.

—

And here’s another thought:

Based on these connections, I suspect Noah did not merely curse Canaan. He pummeled him with his fists.

Why?

Because Eli’s sons names are as follows:

Phinehas: – root meaning: mouth. This points to the curse from Noah’s mouth.

Hophni – root meaning: fist. This points to the physical beating from Noah’s hands.

Their deaths points to undoing all of Noah’s vengeance as God turns the clock back.

Good Deeds

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One of the faults in reform-adjacent Christianity is this insistence on a works-less faith. We have a whole system for what “good works” even means, taking Isaiah’s “righteousness is like filthy rags” and rendering good acts of nonbelievers as meaningless.

This is broken.

I’ve often argued that Paul’s “war against works” was never intended to be used the way the reformers wield it, and that Paul was pushing back against a pious self-righteous boasting about accomplishments and holiness.

In Genesis, it seems like God looks for good works.

After Ham does something (we’re not really sure what) to Noah, the text says that Ham’s brothers address their father’s shame by taking a garment and covering him, shielding him from further humiliation.

But the Hebrew language hides a clue here.

But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it on both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness.
Genesis 9:23 (NASB)

While we read “Shem and Japheth” in English, the Hebrew uses an idiom that doesn’t translate well into English. It’s not “they.” It’s “he,” and it points to Shem as the initiator.

The focus is on Shem.

(Gen. 9:23:) THEN HE, SHEM AND JAPHETH, TOOK A GARMENT. R. Johanan said: “Then they took” is not stated here, but THEN HE TOOK. Shem first showed his courage [in the worthy act] and afterwards Japheth. Ergo: THEN HE, SHEM AND JAPHETH, TOOK A GARMENT.
Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Noach 21:2

Without seeing this, the resulting blessing by Noah makes little sense. While the fate of Ham’s son is repeated, we are told that Shem is God’s man, and Japheth will be blessed by Shem’s abundance.

Why is Shem singled out? The text gives one answer: his good deed.

He also said,

“Blessed be the Lord,
The God of Shem;
And may Canaan be his servant.
May God enlarge Japheth,
And may he live in the tents of Shem;
And may Canaan be his servant.”
Genesis 9: 26-27 (NASB)

And the good deed here is God’s own heart: to defend those who are shamed. We can quibble about drunkenness and nakedness, but the focus is Shem honoring his father and defending the vulnerable from shame.

This is the work God desires. Perhaps this is why God uses Shem.

Why Ham and not Canaan?

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When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, he said,

“Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers.”
Genesis 9:24-25 (NIV)

Why did Noah’s curse in Genesis 9:25 fall on Canaan and not on Ham?

Perhaps Ham might not be able to be cursed, because he was already blessed in Genesis 9:1.

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.”
Genesis 9:1 (NIV)

No curse can fall on him because the Lord had already blessed him, and Noah’s curse cannot be greater than God’s blessing.

Four Rivers

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One read of Genesis 9 is that Ham did *something* to prevent Noah from having more children.

Here are the clues:

Noah had three sons, and could not have four.
Ham had four sons (Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan); Noah curses Canaan, who is the fourth one.

And there is one more clue.

A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters.
The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.)
The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.
The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur.
And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
Genesis 2:10-14 (NIV)

A quick glance at Genesis 2 lists four rivers. I broke down the verses by river, and you see a clearly descending order of detail, with the Pishon given a lot of page-space, and the Euphrates barely being described at all.

Ironically, we have no clue where the Pishon or the Gihon are. They don’t exist anymore. They’re never even mentioned outside these verses listed, or outside the Bible. But we know the Tigris and the Euphrates.

You might think the Genesis writers were like, “Oh, everybody knows the Tigris and Euphrates, so we don’t need to describe them much,” but that would mean you haven’t been paying attention. That’s not how how the writers organized the words.

There are allegories here.

Rabbi Fohrman wrote that the Genesis 2 account of rivers is a prophetic cutting-off of what should have been. God told Noah to be fruitful and multiply: to have a fourth river, but Ham’s action (whatever it may have been) made it impossible.

The river is named, but it goes nowhere, like a child you’ve named in the womb, or a child you dreams of having.

Noah’s action of cursing Ham, in this view, is retaliation: you cut me off, so I’m cutting you off in the same way; your fourth for my fourth. Your river for my river.

Maybe Noah even named this fourth planned son, but the plan goes nowhere.

So maybe Noah stopped trusting God at this point.

When Adam and Eve were told to be fruitful and multiply, the consequence of eating the fruit was death, which created the first “oh no! How will God fulfill his blessing of *be fruitful and multiply* if humanity dies?”

God’s solution: Adam names his wife Eve, which means LIFE. The antidote to death.

When Eve thought that Cain was God’s promise, only to have Cain kill Abel, this was the second “on no! How will God fulfill his blessing? There are no more sons!”

God’s solution: Seth is born. God appointed Seth as the conduit to bring His promises into humanity.

When God sees the whole world is corrupt and will wipe it all out in a flood, the reader experiences the third “oh no!”

God’s solution: He preserved Noah and his family, even though the sons were not “good” according to the story. They were corrupt like the world.

So Noah is accustomed to this. When God tells him directly to be fruitful and multiply (to replace his corrupt sons?), whatever Ham does creates the next “oh no!”

Rather than wait for God to provide a solution, Noah unleashes a curse into his own family line.

So what will God do now?

God’s solution: I will use Shem, broken or not, and I will bring the fulfillment of my promise through him. I will maintain the goodness of my Name through him.

And “Shem” means “name.”

The story of Scripture is about God fulfilling His promise, no matter what happens, whether it’s our own disobedience, or the disobedience of our children, or of the whole corrupt world.

God will not be stopped from fulfilling His promises.

The Power to Forgive

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Suppose you have all the power in the world to address those who have wounded you.

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.

A Problem with Noah

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Noah is a problematic character for mainline Christian theology, which suggests that once a man is “saved” or “declared righteous,” they are sort of on an upward trajectory forever, getting better with age like a fine wine.

But the rabbis point out four things about Noah. Narratively, Noah introduces the following to humanity:

1. Planting – he plants a vineyard.
2. Drunkenness – he shames himself with wine.
3. Curses – he curses his grandson.
4. Slavery – he condemns his grandson’s house to slavery.

We tend to leave out the Genesis 9 parts of Noah’s life when we teach Sunday School to little children, but there they are in glaring detail.

There’s obviously nothing wrong with planting, but Noah’s other 3 actions seem quite disastrous.

From Genesis 5 to 8, we see a man who obeys God; his heart appears inclined towards God.

But in Genesis 9, we have a different picture. I can’t help but see an angry, bitter man who yells at his grandchildren, drowning himself in wine to cope with the tragedy of the flood.

It’s a tragic end. But God uses him.

A Covering

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Now it came about in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, that the water was dried up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground had dried up.
Genesis 8:13 (NASB)

If you’ve been paying very close attention to the boat building project, you’ll see something odd in Genesis 8.

Noah removes a “covering” that was never mentioned before. It’s meant to be understood like a giant sheet. It must have been massive.

This Hebrew word for “covering” is new to the text. We haven’t seen it before, but it comes up again in Exodus, when the Tabernacle is being described. It, too, is being covered.

The cubit on one side and the cubit on the other, of what is left over in the length of the curtains of the tent, shall hang over the sides of the tabernacle on one side and on the other, to cover it. And you shall make a covering for the tent of rams’ skins dyed red and a covering of fine leather above.
Exodus 26:13-14 (NASB)

The next time we see this covering happen is when the Ark of the Covenant is being described in Numbers.

When the camp sets out, Aaron and his sons shall go in and take down the veil of the curtain, and cover the ark of the testimony with it; and they shall place a covering of fine leather on it, and spread over it a cloth of pure violet, and insert its carrying poles.
Numbers 4:5-6 (NASB)

In these two later cases, the Holy Place is being covered.

But in Genesis, the ark is being uncovered.

And if we see this symbols of Holy Places being covered and uncovered, perhaps we should consider the contents.

In the Ark of the Covenant, there are three things: the 10 commandments in stone, Aaron’s staff, and a golden pot of manna.

In the Arc of of the Flood, Noah has THREE sons.

Perhaps these three things are related. Perhaps it points to the future.

And on this mountain He will destroy the covering which is over all peoples,
The veil which is stretched over all nations.
He will swallow up death for all time,
And the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces,
And He will remove the disgrace of His people from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken.
Isaiah 25:7-8 (NASB)

By the Numbers

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You shall take with you seven pairs of every clean animal, a male and his female; and two of the animals that are not clean, a male and his female
Genesis 7:2 (NASB)

Also of the birds of the sky, seven pairs, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.
Genesis 7:3 (NASB)

For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights; and I will wipe out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made.”
Genesis 7:4 (NASB)

By the time we get to Genesis 7, we should start noticing some patterns involving numbers. We’re going to start looking at Hebrew numerology, because we’ve finally gotten to the part of the story where the numbers themselves carry the narrative.

Some of the numbers are repeated almost absurdly. It can’t be ignored: seven, two, and forty.

But there is a hint of threes being repeated, too. Back in Genesis 1, we learned about three types of animals. And we read in Genesis 6 that Noah had three sons.

These numbers all have meanings.

Then Noah and his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives with him entered the ark because of the waters of the flood.
Genesis 7:7 (NASB)

They all went into the ark to Noah by twos, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.
Genesis 7:9 (NASB)

Now it came about after the seven days, that the waters of the flood came upon the earth.
Genesis 7:10 (NASB)

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.
Genesis 7:11 (NASB)

The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
Genesis 7:12 (NASB)

Here the three types of animals are listed again, in conjunction with the three sons again: the animals, the livestock, and the crawling things: threes.

And then twos again in the pairs.

On this very same day Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark
Genesis 7:13 (NASB)

They and every animal according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kind, and every crawling thing that crawls on the earth according to its kind, and every bird according to its kind, all sorts of birds.
Genesis 7:14 (NASB)

So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh in which there was the breath of life.
Genesis 7:15 (NASB)

And the chapter closes out with forty again, and then another mention of the three kinds of animals.

(I keep the birds off the list for a reason, and it’s because of how Genesis 1-3 keep them separate. They are different. They represent something different.)

Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth.
Genesis 7:17 (NASB)

So all creatures that moved on the earth perished: birds, livestock, animals, and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind.
Genesis 7:21 (NASB)

There’s a lot of study on numerology — far too much to explain in detail, but here are some basics:

2 = separations, agreements
3 = community
7 = perfection
10 = completeness, fullness
40 = testing, trials

And some might see some larger numbers as being combinations of these underlying numbers. For example, 430 is written 30 and 400 in Hebrew, and it can be read this way: 3×10 and 40×10. Or perhaps “the fullness of community and the fullness of testing.”

Just something to consider.