Noah's Drunkenness, Ham's Sin, and
While reading through Genesis, I was perplexed by the story of Noah's drunkenness in Genesis 9. In that story, Noah drinks too much wine, and falls asleep in his tent. His son, Ham, comes into the tent, sees his father's "nakedness" (as the text says), and invites his brothers in to see it as well. They decline, instead bringing a blanket to cover their sleeping father. When Noah wakes up from his drunken stupor, he learns what had happened, and proceeds to curse ... Ham's son? So says the text. As a youngster, I could not understand why Noah would curse Ham's son for a sin that Ham himself committed.
Through varied study over the last several years, I have since come across several scholarly papers that attempt to address this issue, and as the ideas have been batted around, it seems that a child-hood riddle has now at last been solved - at least to some extent. It will be the purpose of this essay to relate and regurgitate some of that material in order to answer the question: what was Ham's sin, and why did his son have to bear the brunt of the curse?
In Genesis 6-9, we have what amounts to a recapitulation of the Creation story - and indeed, I believe Moses was intent on constructing the narrative of the Flood story with exactly that purpose in mind.
In Genesis 1, the earth was covered with water, and the Spirit of God "hovered" over the chaotic deep; likewise, during the Flood Noah finds himself in a situation where the earth is again covered with water, and he sends out a dove to see if there is inhabitable land in sight. The image of the dove, hovering over the flooded earth, is reminiscent of the Spirit of God hovering over the original chaotic waters of Creation (curiously, at the baptism of Jesus in Matt. 3, the Spirit of God hovers over Him precisely in the form of a dove).
At the end of the Creation narrative, God commands His first children to "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it." (Gen. 1:28) Similarly, after Noah and his family have de-boarded the
Adam is placed in the garden to till it and cultivate it; Noah is described as "the first tiller of the soil." (Gen. 9:20)
The Creation story culminates in a sin committed by Adam in the garden, consisting of eating forbidden fruit; the Flood story, then, culminates in Noah eating of the fruit of his own garden (vineyard), getting drunk, and concludes with the commission of a great sin (by Ham).
Adam, as a result of his sin, is aware and ashamed of his nakedness; Noah, as a result of his drunkenness, winds up lying naked in his tent. Both the Creation and the Flood narratives end with a hair-raising curse: against the serpent in Gen. 3, and against
The full text of the narrative in Genesis 9 is as follows:
The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of
When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, "Cursed be
What are the problems raised by the story of Ham's sin in Genesis 9? There are several.
First, why does Noah react with such intensity against what appears to be such a minor infraction? Ham's sin is, on the surface, apparently nothing more than a rather juvenile prank - he sees his father's nakedness, and goes to tell his brothers. Does that really warrant a cursing of Ham's lineage in perpetuity?
Second, the text says that Noah uttered his curses after he "awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him." (9:24) How in the world did he know what Ham had done? It seems that there would have to have been some kind of visible effect of the sin of Ham (perhaps he left a sandal behind in Noah's tent?) in order for Noah to have knowledge of it. Perhaps one of Ham's brothers played the tattle-tale and told Noah what Ham had done - the text doesn't say.
Third, why does the text describe the sin as an active offense - "what his youngest son had done to him" - rather than a passive offense, which is how we would normally consider an act of voyeurism? Ham only looked at Noah, says the text; it isn't as though he actively caused Noah any harm.
Fourth, and most obviously, why is Ham's son
Fifth, why was Noah naked in the first place? It is plausible that a man might get drunk; it is also plausible that, after getting drunk, the man might pass out for a while. But who gets drunk, strips naked, and then passes out? Did he start out naked when he began drinking (a bizarre thing in itself, if it were true)? If not, why would he take the time to take off his clothing before passing out?
Sixth, why would one man seeing another man naked be considered a sin at all, even if they were father and son? Consider that both Abraham and Jacob required men of their houses to swear oaths that involved placing a hand "under my thigh." Abraham makes Eliezer place his hand under Abraham's thigh; the case of Jacob is even more interesting, because he makes his own son (as opposed to a servant, as Eliezer was) place his hand under Jacob's thigh.
The Jewish Targums (Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Old Testament, which in many places contain explanations and interpretations of the text by way of paraphrase) are even more explicit about what this oath-swearing ceremony involved - i.e., to place your hand under "the thigh" of the other party was a polite way of saying that you place your hand on the reproductive organs of the other party:
And Abraham said to Eliezer his servant, the senior of his house, who had rule over all his property, Put now thy hand upon the section of my circumcision. (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, sec. 5, XXIV)
And [Jacob] called to his son, to Joseph, and said to him, If now I have found favour before thee, put thy hand on the place of my circumcision. (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, sec. 12, XLVII)
The question presents itself: if Jacob could ask his own son Joseph to actually touch Jacob's reproductive organs, why is Ham punished for merely looking at his father's nakedness? Someone could object that Joseph suffered no repercussions because his actions were specifically requested by his father, and in the context of a sacred oath-swearing ceremony; but that is precisely the point: if the act of touching/seeing your father's sacred parts was inherently evil, no righteous patriarch would ask his son to do it, much less include it as part of a sacred ceremony.
I would suggest - following the conclusions presented by my research - that more is involved in Ham's sin than merely a passive act of voyeurism. Rather, the evidence suggests that the sin of Ham was an act of sexual aggression.
To put it plainly and state the conclusion up front: the sin of Ham was, in all likelihood, an act of maternal rape, politely described in Genesis 9 using the euphemistic terminology of "uncovering the nakedness" of Noah.
There is a certain pattern that can be detected in various Old Testament narratives: a pattern wherein sons attempt to either secure their own familial position of blessing and power, or to usurp the father's authority in general, by taking advantage of the father's harem.
Jacob's son Reuben is passed over for the patriarchal blessing in Genesis 49 because he slept with Jacob's concubine:
Reuben, you are my first-born, my might, and the first fruits of my strength, pre-eminent in pride and pre-eminent in power. Unstable as water, you shall not have pre-eminence because you went up to your father's bed; then you defiled it--you went up to my couch! (Gen. 49:3-4)
This act is described earlier in Genesis:
Likewise, when Absalom leads a rebellion against his father the king, one of the first things he does after driving David out of
Then Absalom said to Ahithophel, "Give your counsel; what shall we do?" Ahithophel said to Absalom, "Go in to your father's concubines, whom he has left to keep the house; and all
Following on the same principle, David's son Adonijah, when he wished to secure the kingdom for himself in place of his half-brother Solomon, requested permission (via Bathsheba, Solomon's mother) to marry Abishag, David's last concubine before he died:
Now King David was old and advanced in years; and although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm. Therefore his servants said to him, "Let a young maiden be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait upon the king, and be his nurse; let her lie in your bosom, that my lord the king may be warm." So they sought for a beautiful maiden throughout all the
Then Adonijah the son of Haggith came to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon. And she said, "Do you come peaceably?" He said, "Peaceably." Then he said, "I have something to say to you." She said, "Say on." He said, "You know that the kingdom was mine, and that all
Solomon recognized immediately what his half-brother and contender for the throne was up to, as is indicated by his otherwise-inexplicably harsh response - Adonijah loses his life as a result. Solomon knew full well that by taking King David's concubine, Adonijah would have a greater claim to the throne itself, and so he responds decisively:
[Bathsheba] said, "Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah your brother as his wife." King Solomon answered his mother, "And why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also; for he is my elder brother, and on his side are Abiathar the priest and Joab the son of Zeruiah."
Then King Solomon swore by the LORD, saying, "God do so to me and more also if this word does not cost Adonijah his life! Now therefore as the LORD lives, who has established me, and placed me on the throne of David my father, and who has made me a house, as he promised, Adonijah shall be put to death this day." So King Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he struck him down, and he died. (2 Kings 2:21-25)
Keeping this pattern of usurpation-by-sexual-relation in mind, we can look at another pattern found in the Old Testament narratives: the diabolical serpent always attempts to insert himself between the Covenant Head and his Bride. This is merely a variation on the above theme, and examples can be seen in the acts of Reuben and Absalom. Both men attempt to come between the Covenant Head (Jacob, in the one case, and David, in the other) and their "brides." Other examples can be seen in the attempts of Pharaoh and Abimilech to steal the wives of Abraham and Isaac, respectively.
When Abram entered
When the men of the place asked [Isaac] about his wife, he said, "She is my sister"; for he feared to say, "My wife," thinking, "lest the men of the place should kill me for the sake of Rebekah"; because she was fair to look upon. When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac fondling Rebekah his wife. So Abimelech called Isaac, and said, "Behold, she is your wife; how then could you say, 'She is my sister'?" Isaac said to him, "Because I thought, 'Lest I die because of her.'" Abimelech said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us." (Gen. 26:7-10)
All of this is nothing new, of course. The primary model for this paradigm is found in the very beginning, in the Creation narrative. The serpent himself comes between Adam, as Covenant Head, and his bride, Eve. There is a strong sexual undercurrent (albeit a subtle one) in the narrative of the Fall.
It begins with a word-play that associates the serpent's subtlety with marital nakedness: ignoring the artificial chapter/verse distinctions, the transition between chapter 2 and chapter 3 reads as follows:
And the man and his wife were both naked ['arowm], and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more subtle ['aruwm] than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made. (Gen. 2:25-3:1)
This is followed by the account of the serpent tempting Eve to eat of some kind of forbidden fruit. If interpreted as a kind of metaphorical "eating," or even as a literal eating of a fruit which is simply symbolic of something else, there is a strong sexual element here. "Fruit" is the Scriptural designation for children, i.e., the "fruit of the womb."
Lo, sons are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. (Ps. 127:3)
Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! (Lk. 1:42)
Further, in the Song of Solomon, marital/sexual relations are described in terms of the Lover going to his garden to eat of its fruit (incidentally, in conjunction with the question of Ham's sin, it should be noted that drinking wine is also used by Solomon as a metaphorical way of referring to marital/sexual relations):
A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a garden locked, a fountain sealed. Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits ... Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden, let its fragrance be wafted abroad. Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits. (Canticles 4:12-16)
How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride! how much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice! ... I come to my garden, my sister, my bride, I gather my myrrh with my spice, I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends, and drink: drink deeply, O lovers! (Canticles 4:10; 5:1)
It is not surprising, then, that the ancient Jewish commentaries on this narrative are far more explicit in seeing sexual overtones in the Fall. One commentary says that when the serpent "saw [Adam and Eve] engaged in their natural functions, he conceived a passion for her." (Gen. Rabbah, 18.6)
Another commentary is even more explicit:
When the serpent copulated with Eve, he infused her with lust. (Yebamoth, 103b)
This is not at all to conclude or put forward the notion - as some later rabbis were to do - that the sin of the Garden was a literal act of adultery, wherein the serpent literally conceived a child with Eve. It is merely to point out that there is, in fact, a strong undercurrent of marital/adultery imagery in the Genesis 3 account, which can (so it seems) be taken too far in the literal direction, but need not be discounted entirely.
Perhaps the most interesting comment of the rabbis, for our purposes in this discussion of Ham's sin, is this: in answer to the question of where Adam was during Eve's temptation, the commentary states:
He had engaged in his natural functions [intercourse] and then fallen asleep. (Gen. Rabbah, 19.3, emphasis added)
This is a parallel situation to Noah, because he was, as I will argue, preparing for "his natural functions" when he passed out from too much wine - which explains why he was naked when Ham happened upon him. Along these same lines, to create another tentative connection with Noah, another Jewish commentary links Adam's sin precisely with wine
the ancient Adam ... through wine, received the penalty of death. (Num. Rabbah, 10.2)
Finally, even in the New Testament we find some support for seeing sexual overtones in the temptation of Eve: in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians,
But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. (2 Cor. 11:3)
Eve, so goes the argument, was a chaste virgin herself, prior to her encounter with the serpent; the implication is that, after her encounter with the serpent, she was no longer chaste or a virgin. This is, perhaps, why
But we must return to the question of Ham. All of this digressionary material is simply supplied to show that, to the already-numerous parallels between the Creation and the Flood, we must include this: that just as the Creation narrative ended with the serpentine seduction of the Covenant Head's bride, so also does the Flood end with an evil seduction of the bride, with an intruder who violates the sanctity of the marriage relationship.
Again, a cautionary note is in order: I am not claiming that the temptation of Eve necessarily included a literal sexual act; only that there are several strong suggestions in the text, and in later commentaries, that there was a sexual element (whether literal or metaphorical) to the temptation.
This tentative link between the Fall and Ham's sin is obviously not the only (much less the strongest) evidence for suggesting that Ham's sin was one of maternal incest. The internal evidence of the Genesis 9 text itself is far stronger.
For example, this narrative contains the first reference in Genesis to
Yet the narrative seems to emphasize - in the midst of recounting the sin of Ham - that Ham was the father of
The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of
This genealogical fact is repeated a few verses later, at the very point in which the narrative describes the sin of Ham itself:
And Ham, the father of
This oddity is explained if we understand that Moses is recounting the sin of Ham precisely to recount for his readers the genealogical origins of
It is striking that Ham is named father at the precise moment when he is introduced as a son. Later, at the transgression of Ham, exactly the same thing happens ... Evidently the text wants to put all the emphasis on the fatherhood of Ham or, rather, on the fact that he is the father of Canaan (Ellen van Wolde, Stories of the Beginning, p. 146, cited in Hahn/Bergsma, "Noah's Nakedness and the Curse on Canaan (Gen. 9:20-27)", JBL 124 [2005], p. 35)
Hahn and Bergsma argue, quite rightly, that this repetition in the text makes complete sense "if the pericope is explaining how Ham fathered
This would explain the presentation of Ham's sin as an active sin, rather than a passive sin - "Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him."
The maternal incest view, moreover, explains why
Put another way, the text is intent on emphasizing that Ham "was the father of Canaan," because it wants to show how Ham became the father of Canaan: he "saw the nakedness of his father," an incestuous union with Noah's wife that resulted in the birth of Canaan.
Finally, we look to the most relevant evidence of all: the idiom "saw the nakedness of his father."
It is in the book of Leviticus that we find the most suggestive evidence of the nature of Ham's sin. In Leviticus 18, a litany of prohibited sexual acts is enumerated, with the curious repetition of the phrase galah 'ervah - "uncover the nakedness." For example, we read:
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law; she is your son's wife. (Lev. 18:15)
The usage of the phrase "uncover the nakedness" indicates that it is a euphemism for sexual relations, and not for a literal act of undressing a woman and viewing her naked body. This is confirmed by a similar prohibition:
You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness. (Lev. 18:19)
This does not refer to merely seeing a woman in a state of undress, but to the ritually impure act of having relations with her during her monthly cycle.
What is significant in this discussion is that one of the very first sexual perversions listed in Leviticus 18 concerns uncovering the nakedness of one's own father - the text shows us that this is a code-phrase which actually means something else:
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife; it is your father's nakedness. (Lev. 18:8)
Thus, to uncover the nakedness of your father is, in reality, to "uncover the nakedness" of his wife - i.e., to have sexual relations with her.
It should be noted in passing that the command "You shall not uncover the nakedness of ... your mother" (v. 7) is distinct from the command "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife." (v. 8) The former command concerns sexual relations with one's biological mother, while the latter command concerns relations with one's step-mother - not the woman who bore you, but the woman your father married after you were born.
I draw attention to this only because there is some speculation that Noah's wife (identified in some midrash commentaries as "Naamah" of Gen. 4:22) after the Flood was not his first wife, nor was she the mother of Ham. If that is the case, then Ham's sin is very much like that of Reuben and Absalom, for they did not rape their mothers, but their fathers' concubines.
To this growing collection of evidence must be added the opening verses of Leviticus 18, the words which introduce this list of sexual perversions:
You shall not do as they do in the
If what has been suggested about the sin of Ham is true, then this verse means that Canaan, who was conceived by an act of incest, went on to become the founder of an entire tribe of sexual degenerates who perpetuated the sin by which their patriarch was conceived - such that they became known for and identified with the sins listed in Leviticus 18.
Allow me to summarize and clear up a few loose ends, then. In short, what is being proposed here is that Noah became drunk with wine, and entered into his tent (or perhaps his wife's tent - the Hebrew leaves the question open) to have relations with his wife; he got carried away with the wine and wound up lying on the ground naked and asleep. Ham found Noah and his wife in this condition, and took advantage of his step-mother, in an effort to usurp his father's authority and the rights of primogeniture of Noah's first-born son Shem.
What took place with Shem and Japheth is unclear; that they covered Noah's nakedness with a garment may be literal, metaphorical, or both at the same time. It may mean that they merely refused to participate in the sin of Ham, or it may mean that they literally covered their father's nakedness with a garment. Perhaps it was a literal act that had a significant meaning, in which case, both explanations are acceptable.
It is entirely possible that Ham kept his father's garment as proof of his "victory," and showed it to his brothers - this would not be the first time in Scripture that we find one of the participants in a sexual encounter keeping articles of clothing as proof of the deed (c.f. Judah and Tamar in Gen. 38:24ff; cf. also the rules for a wife who must prove her virginity in Dt. 22:13-19). In this case, we might speculate that Ham took his father's garment as a trophy, and that his brothers took it back and returned it to their father in an effort to restore some of his dignity.
Ham's evil act was later discovered by Noah (indeed, it would be difficult for him to not realize that his wife had become pregnant), and the fruit of this illicit union was roundly cursed as a result.
It may be objected that Genesis 9 says that Noah realized what Ham had done to him, not to his wife - therefore it is more likely that, if any sexual sin is involved here, it is a case of paternal rape, not maternal incest.
But this is unlikely for a few reasons. First, this position does not explain the emphasis in the text upon Ham as "father of Canaan"; second, it does not explain why Canaan is cursed instead of Ham; third, to "uncover the nakedness" of someone, as a euphemism used in Leviticus, always refers to a heterosexual act - not to an act of sodomy.
The phrase galah 'ervah ("uncover the nakedness") is used repeatedly to describe a man's illicit relations with his mother, his father's wife, his sister, his grand-daughter, his step-sister, his aunt, his brother's wife, a menstruating woman, etc. When it describes acts of sodomy or acts of bestiality, however, it does not use galah 'ervah - it uses shekobeth, "to lie with."
The lone exception here is the case in which a man sleeps with a woman who is already married; this is the one and only case in which a heterosexual relationship is not described with galah 'ervah, but rather, with shekobeth zerah, "to lie with the seed." In this case, the word tame' is used to describe the result: it is a "defilement" or a "pollution." The same word ("defile/pollute") is used for acts of bestiality.
We may speculate that this is the case because an adulterous union would be the union most likely to involve some form of contraception, and, like bestiality, would be a sterile sexual act. There may be some connection here with the consistent historical Judaeo-Christian use of the term "pollution" or "defilement" with regard to Onan's sin of contraception. Either way, the point remains: galah 'ervah is never used to describe anything but a heterosexual act.
The "maternal incest" position, in short, appears to best explains the riddle of Genesis 9. It makes the most sense out of all the data given there, and it offers explanations for the six issues raised at the beginning of this essay:
- Why does Noah react with such intensity against what appears to be such a minor infraction? Because it was indeed a major offense, a violation of the sacred marital covenant
- How did Noah know what Ham had done? The visible effects of the sin were evident in his wife's body, and in the son she bore
- Why is the sin of Ham described in active, rather than passive terms? Because his sin was indeed an active sin of sexual assault, not merely a passive act of seeing
- Why is
- Why was Noah naked when he passed out? His drinking of the wine was a prelude to marital relations, as was his nakedness
- Why would an act of seeing another man's nakedness be considered a sin? According to Leviticus, to "see" or "uncover" another man's nakedness is to engage in carnal relations with his wife
Finally, this position connects itself with the Genesis narrative of the Fall, and also finds a natural home within the broader paradigm of serpentine/sexual violation of the Bride of the Covenant Head.
