Genesis 9:18-24

Evidently Noah became so drunk that he took off all his clothes and then passed out naked in his tent. There is no explicit indication that Ham disrobed his father or committed some homosexual act. [Note: See Mathews, pp. 417, 419.] However, because the expression "to see one’s nakedness" is sometimes used of sexual intercourse, it is possible that sexual immorality was involved. [Note: Wolf, pp. 106-7.] Noah’s shame was not that he drank wine but that he drank to excess and thereby lost self-control that resulted in immodesty (cf. Ephesians 5:18). Certainly this incident should warn the reader of the potential harm of drunkenness both for the drinker and for his or her family. The stumbling block for Adam and Eve had also been food.

"Whatever the actual nature of his [Noah’s] conduct might have been [in becoming drunk and uncovering himself in his tent] . . . , the author presents his deed as one of disgrace and shame (’nakedness,’ as in Genesis 3), and he seems intent on depicting the scene in such a way as to establish parallels between Noah’s disgrace (he took of the fruit of his orchard and became naked) and that of Adam and Eve (who took of the fruit of the Garden and saw that they were naked)." [Note: Sailhaver, The Pentateuch . . ., p. 120. See also Mathews, p. 418.]

Ham’s gazing on Noah’s nakedness represents an early step in the abandonment of the moral code after the Flood. Ham dishonored Noah not by seeing him naked but by his outspoken delight in his father’s condition (cf. Genesis 19:26; Exodus 33:20; Judges 13:22; 1 Samuel 6:19).

"It is difficult for someone living in the modern world to understand the modesty and discretion of privacy called for in ancient morality. Nakedness in the OT was from the beginning a thing of shame for fallen man [Genesis 3:7] . . . the state of nakedness was both undignified and vulnerable. . . . To see someone uncovered was to bring dishonor and to gain advantage for potential exploitation." [Note: Allen P. Ross, "The Curse of Canaan," Bibliotheca Sacra 137:547 (July-September 1980):230.]

"The sons of Noah are here shown to belong to two groups of humankind, those who like Adam and Eve hide the shame of their nakedness and those who like Ham, or rather the Canaanites, have no sense of their shame before God. The one group, the line of Shem, will be blessed (Genesis 9:26); but the other, the Canaanites (not the Hamites), can only be cursed (Genesis 9:25)." [Note: Sailhamer, The Pentateuch . . ., p. 130.]

"Shem, the father of Abraham, is the paradigm of later Israel; and Ham of their archenemies, Egypt and Canaan (Genesis 10:6). Lying behind this is the ancient concept of corporate personality. Because of this unity of father-son, the character of the father is anticipated in the deeds of the sons. Hebrew theology recognized that due to parental influence future generations usually committed the same acts as their fathers whether for ill or good. In this case the curse is directed at Ham’s son as Ham’s just deserts for the disrespect he had toward his own father, Noah." [Note: Mathews, p. 421.]

Ham’s action also may have involved an attempt to take leadership of the family from Noah. [Note: See Jordan, pp. 47-52.] Shem and Japheth’s act of covering their father’s nakedness, however, imitated God who covered Adam and Eve’s nakedness in the garden (Genesis 3:21).