Join us today as we finish up chapter 9 and discuss the curse of Canaan.
Journey by Faith
Genesis Part 22: Noah Plants a Vineyard
You're listening to Journey by Faith, the official podcast of Faith Bible College in Norfolk, Virginia. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Here we go. Welcome back, everybody, to the Faith Bible College podcast. We are into September at the time this is going to air. We've had several weeks of classes already underway. We've got lots of exciting things going on. Dr. Newman, how are your classes going? They are going very well so far. Yeah, good. That's awesome. Both in-person and online. Yep. We offer all kinds of classes, whatever you are able to do. We've got in-person. A lot of people love to teach and learn in-person. We've got online. We can take them live synced with us or live streamed with us over Zoom. Then we've got, of course, their asynchronous classes that you can take on your own pace for the especially busy person. So I'm teaching one of those this semester, teaching through Genesis, so lots of exciting things going on. You can join us anytime for classes. Check us out online, faithbiblecollege.com. Request some information. Love to see you in a class sometime. Yeah. Today on the podcast, we are back in Genesis chapter 9. We have just had Noah go off of the ark. His family is resettling. They've been given this command to repopulate the earth. And now we have a list of Noah's descendants, starting in verse 18. Sons of Noah, who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan, so we have a little side note here because this is going to be important. Yes. The three sons of Noah and from these people of the whole earth were dispersed. I need to read that again. Verse 19, "These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed." There we go. That sounds way better. And again, this is the repopulation of the earth. Anything to say on these two verses before we go on? No, like you said, it's interesting that we do have a little foreshadowing here. In verse 18, Ham was the father of Canaan. You would say, "Well, why is that important here?" But it's going to become very important in the verses to come. And one of the Hebrew words here, in verse 19, that says the whole earth were dispersed and also referred to the whole earth being populated, in other words. So from Noah and Shem, Ham, and Japheth comes all the descendants, all the people groups, all the nationalities that are around today, the entire human race goes back here. So again, it gives us a reason to look and to think and to say, you know, what really divides us, what makes us so different? Well, we've got much more in common, especially genetically and spiritually than we have different. So unfortunately, we just don't keep that in mind often enough. True. Right. Yeah, that's absolutely right. Yes. We have a common ancestry, of course, back to Adam and the first man, but definitely here to Noah as well. So yeah, we're right to remember that. That is very good. Thank you for that insight on that. That's true. It's a good thing for us to remember. After this, it says in verse 20, "Noah began to be a man of the soil and he planted a vineyard, a vineyard is where you grow grapes to make one." Yes. Yes. And you'll notice, again, a very important word here, Noah began to be a man of the soil, meaning that this is kind of new to him. Okay. Yeah. We don't really know what he did before the flood, and obviously that's not important, and we don't really know why he decided to become a man of the soil and plant a vineyard, but he does, and he is now going to be planting grapes. Now, I'm not a horticulturist by any stretch of the imagination, and I most definitely do not have a green thumb. But from my research, I found that typically grapes take one or two seasons to really come in well. So you plant them, you're not going to get a bumper crop the very first year. So in other words, there's a little bit of time that's transpiring here between the time that Noah plows the ground, plants to vineyard, and then what's going to happen in the verses to come actually in the very next verse, verse 21. Right. Yeah. And I think this is a footnote that I have in what I'm reading here, says that he's certainly the first to plant a vineyard. So that's the first time we see this. How did he know how to do this? We don't know. Again, we're not told. This is maybe it's something he learned before the flood, but we don't know. Yeah. Like you said, not important, doesn't tell us if it was important, God would have told us. Right. All we need to know is he is now. Like you said, he began to be one now. Yes. So he goes on and says he drank of the one and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. And well, that is just not a good look on Noah. No, no, it's not. And so here we have this righteous man that God had chosen out of the entire population of the earth to save and preserve him and his family. And soon after the flood, we see him falling into sin. Now, you know, I believe that there are explanations for this. And notice, I use the word explanation, not excuse. Right. Yes. And that is that, you know, we've talked previously about the canopy and how important that was in producing waters for the flood and the climate prior to the flood. Now that that canopy is gone, we had noted in previous episodes that that canopy would have been responsible for blocking most of the UV, the ultraviolet rays hitting the earth, which we know that ultraviolet rays are a key component in aging and in this case in the area of fermentation. So what we have here is that it is quite possible that this wine that Noah makes now is much closer to the type of wine that is produced today. And that any kind of wine prior to the flood may have been more like grape juice without an alcohol content or, you know, at least not a very high alcohol content. So that may explain why he's drinking this wine and not thinking anything of it. Sure. It could. Yeah. However, the fact of the matter is that now I can speak for myself here. I can't speak for you. But you know, as a young person, you know, I dabbled at times with alcohol. And I never really enjoyed it much. Still don't. But, and I don't know if I can ever say that I was actually drunk as you might label that. But I can tell you that there were a few times that I definitely got buzzed and the thing is what I'm getting at here is I knew I was getting buzzed. Right. It didn't happen all of a sudden. Yeah. Right. It wasn't like I took a drink and then the next thing I knew flat on my back drunk, you know, and it just doesn't happen that way. So whatever the situation here, no one must be realizing that he's getting buzzed. Right. And at that point, he has the choice to make. I'm either going to keep doing this. And maybe he has no idea what's going to happen as the end result. Never having been drunk before. Sure. But, you know, he still makes the choice to continue on in that. And we find here that the result is that he lays uncovered in his tent. So he is in his tent, but he is naked. Now, how he got that way, I'm sure he probably did it himself. Why? I've got no idea. Yeah, here we have a good old Noah drunk off his gourd naked, but at least in his tent. Yep. Okay. At least he is. Yes. Like you said, like he's in his tent, hopefully by himself, but in common, somebody else. So it says ham, the father of Canaan, again, this, I have a lot of questions, but we'll get to him as we get through here. Him, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. So here we see ham, one of Noah's sons, we're told, oddly here, that this is the father of Canaan. Right. But then that, for some reason comes up, and again, I've got some questions. We'll get to it when we get there. But he comes in and this word saw could be translated differently. Is that right? Where the nakedness could be, there's different things that could be here. I'm not 100% sure on it. Actually, there have been some that have proposed that what took place here is ham having a homosexual act with his father, a sexual act. However, the Hebrew word here gives no indication of that. Okay. Good. Yeah. Because I've heard that as well, and I was worried. Yeah. That's good that it doesn't. It doesn't seem to be anything here. In fact, what we, what we glean from this is that you notice, what does he do? Well, he goes out and tells his brothers. So, you know, if this was a, some kind of sexual act, you'd have to wonder, you know, why is he going out and bragging about it? Right. But here, the fact is, ham takes delight in his father's nakedness. He takes delight in his father's shame, we might say. Now, does that mean that maybe there was an underlying feeling in ham of resentment towards his father? Yeah. Well, you know, quite possibly, you know, I've known kids who, you know, in fact, I was a teacher at one time and I had a couple kids in my class whose, whose fathers were pretty well known in the area, especially in the church and had a good reputation in the church, but where it did not have that reputation at home and the kids would delight in coming and telling me and they say, Hey, you know, my dad, let me tell you what he's really like. Wow. This is what he says. This is what he does. Yeah. He's not the man the people thinks he is. And, you know, and I thought, why are you telling me this? And, you know, part of it, one of them said, well, you know, as his son, I get this pressure to be just like him and I don't want to be like him, you know, because he's not the good man, the righteous man that everybody thinks he is. And so he, this student of mine took delight in his father's sin knowing that his father's not perfect like everybody else thinks he is. And it appears to be that that's what's going on here with him, right? He takes delight and again, he goes out and he tells his brothers. Yeah. So he's kind of pleased. Hey, guess what? I got drunk and he's laying naked in his tent. Yeah. You know, good old dad isn't who everybody thought he was, you know, so now, you know, you have referenced the movie Noah from time to time. I was just thinking about it. And I can tell you, I think if I remember the movie right, Noah was not nearly the bad man that he's portrayed in that movie. Correct. Yeah. You know, not a nice guy at all. Yeah. In that. Very young movie. Yeah. Yeah. In the movie, I was thinking the movie is way off. Yes. So I know I reference it a lot. You know, it, and because the reason that it portrays Noah as fighting against God, as, you know, telling God, I'm not going to kill the offspring, my grand, granddaughters, like you have told me to, and which is very clearly unbiblical. Right. So this is why he's having this crisis. This kind of portrays that this is why he drinks and why he drinks of the one. And then also in the movie, Ham goes to find a wife before the arc leaves and she ends up getting killed on the way to the arc is what happens, which again is not in the Bible because it says Ham had a wife and the sick. And so again, the reason that Ham is, you know, takes delight in the shame of his father is portrayed for those reasons. So the movie gives us no help. Right. Basically. Well, normally we don't. Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. So for whatever reason, right, it seems, yeah, like you said, I am, I've heard people translate perhaps, you know, there was something that went on here that was more than what is said and I'm glad that it's not that. So, but again, like you said, something shameful happens, like, and I think that a really good interpretation is what you said here is that Ham is delighted that his father is being ashamed in this way. For whatever reason that is, he resents his father, whatever the reason, there's some kind of resentment that he holds that he's happy. He said, look, look at how embarrassed embarrassing this is for dad. Yeah. Goes out and tells his brothers and says, hey, come look. Yep. Exactly. So then it says in verse 23, Shem and J. Feth took a garment and laid it on both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward and they did not see or look upon their father's nakedness. So Shem, Shem and J. Feth are in this trying to respect and trying to protect him from this shame. Right. And they show honor to their father. Again, you know, they took a garment. They, as it says, they put it on their shoulders. They walked backwards into the tent, never once looking at their father or his nakedness. And again, we're told they did not see their father's nakedness. So they refuse to look upon his shame. And, you know, this brings to mind a fairly well-known, what we might call benediction that we hear in churches sometimes of, may the Lord make his face to shine upon you. And in a culture that is honor, shame. Right. And by the way, we do not live in an honor, shame called. Yes. Which is good. Yes. I don't know. I'm quite sure how good it is. Yeah. Maybe not. No, no, no, no. Debatable, topic for another day. Yeah. You know, I can tell you that having ministered a native culture for a number of years, native culture is still honor and shame in concept. And it definitely has some advantages. You know, in fact, you know, we use the phrase have you no shame. And we, you know, and what we mean by that is to say, hey, you know, there's nothing brings shame to you. So a little bit of shame is not a bad thing. Sure. Right. But honor is the key. And the thing about an honor and shame culture is that both honor and shame is defined and given by the community. Right. Okay. Not so much your actions, but by the community. And so what shem and Jay 5 do in walking him backwards and never looking at their father's nakedness or his shame is that as the community, they are restoring his honor. Okay. And again, here, we noticed we're told they refuse to look at their father's nakedness. They would not turn their face. Okay. And so they're turning their back on him, right? But not to say, oh, we're ashamed of you, but we are not going to look upon your shame. Right. We are going to do our best to restore your honor and the Bible tells us that that is exactly what God does for us. Yeah. When we sin, he does not look at our shame, but he restores honor to us. He is the lifter of our head, the Psalms tells us. So when our heads are bowed in shame, he takes us by the chin and lifts them up and restores honor to us. And what a beautiful picture this is displayed by Shem and Jay 5 of how God restores honor to his people. Absolutely. Yeah. I read a, had a book I used several years ago for class called Jesus on every page. Yes. And that's just the title itself speaks for itself. You can look in the Bible and see Jesus on every page. Yes. And this is one of those places. So we should always be looking for that. So thank you for making that connection. All right. Then this verse comes on with, or this passage goes on with Noah waking from his wine. This is verse 24. And he knew what his youngest son had done to him. Now I want to stop here because something interesting happens here. The whole time I'm reading this, well, you know, it took me a while to realize this. You read Shem, Ham, and Jay 5. And you assume, I think, that's the order of their birth. Right. And Ham is the youngest. This is where we learned that because it took me a while to figure that out. Right. Yeah. So it is interesting now, you know, again, it never says what order they end. They're just listed in a certain order. And now it's revealed to us that Ham is the youngest son, which to me was kind of a surprise the first time I realized that. So now I just assumed that that was the order they're in. But anyway, that's kind of a side note, but yeah. Yeah. And again, it's interesting, because our sumpture would be Shem, Ham, Jay 5. Well, that's the order of their birth, but, you know, just like we often refer to Cain and Abel, the order of their birth, right. But in this case, no, that's not the situation. Ham is the youngest. Now maybe that means he's a little bit more immature, but again, when I'm talking about teenagers here, we're talking about full-grown adults who are married already, which I think explains the second part of verse 24, when it says, and no one knew what his youngest son had done to him, somehow he found out. Right. Now, you know, maybe he wasn't fully asleep, you know, and he's, you know, he's experiencing this from drunken stupor, but whatever the case, he knows what has happened, and he knows how Ham has treated him. Right. Yes, exactly. So either way, however he knows, you know, maybe his older brothers told their dad, we don't know, right. But whatever it is, he knew. Yeah. And maybe their wives told me what was going on. Right. Exactly. So verse 25 says, and this is where I have, you know, additional questions. He says, cursed to be Canaan, this, a servant of servants, shall he be to his brother? So now it's not Ham that's cursed, but Canaan. Yes. And it doesn't really explain why. Well, what we find here in verses 25 through 27 is a prophecy. Okay. And it's in the form of a curse, but also of a blessing. And yes, you're right. It is curious as to why Noah says, or God says, cursed to be Canaan. Right. And let me just make this statement. Over the years, this prophecy, this passage has been misinterpreted and misunderstood. And I have heard it used to provide, suppose it, biblical evidence for racism and slavery. Yeah, I've heard that as well. Yeah. And the reason is, is because when you come to chapter 10, we find the dispersion of the people groups and we noticed that Ham and some of his descendants will end up in Africa. Right. And so they say, well, there you go. You've got the curse of Ham. But I believe it's extremely important to recognize that nowhere in this prophecy is Ham even mentioned. Correct. Not the curse of Ham. This is the curse on Canaan. Now why Canaan? Well, most scholars believe that in some way, he maybe shows the same attitude as his father did. Right. But again, we've got to keep in mind, this is a prophecy of what's going to happen. Not so much to the sons, but to their descendants years later. And as we work our way through this, we will see exactly how this was fulfilled. Yes. Right. God did bring it about just as he said. So there is no explanation or excuse here for slavery or racism of any kind. This is a prophecy upon nations, not upon people or even people groups for that matter. Right. And we're going to see the fulfillment of the thing. So yes, if we keep reading after this, 26 and 27, he also said, "Bless be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant." Now Shem are where the Jewish people descend from, which is where we get the phrase "semite." Right? Yes. God is blessing here, the descendants of Shem, and saying, "Let Canaan be a servant, may God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant." So there's several things you see here regarding the covenant that God's going to make with Abraham in the next few chapters coming up, where God's going to bless the descendants of Shem, specifically Abraham. And it's interesting, it says, "May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem." Right? So inviting Japheth to be in this covenant family, again, if you read the whole thing, it's a whole biblical story, if you read it in that light, you're seeing these things prophetically, like you said. And Canaan is going to submit to the descendants of Israel when they re-enter the Promised Land and take the land back. So again, like you said, if you look at it from that sense, there's no sense of racism, there's no sense of anything else going on here. This is the nations that are going to live in that region in the time of the Old Testament. And we get to picture here of victory and defeat. Exactly. Conquering. Yep. So, I don't know how much you want to go into this in this episode. How much time do we have? I've got us at about five more minutes for this one. All right. So, well, let me just comment on verse 25. He says, "Curse be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers." So interesting term there, a servant of servants. So we get the picture here that one of his brothers is going to become the servant to the other. And again, keep in mind, we're not talking about individuals, but people groups. Right. One of his brothers is going to become the servant to another. And then he will be the servant to that servant brother. I see. Yep. So, in a sense, he's going to be the lowest of slaves. So there will be a hierarchy here. And Canaan or those that will become known as the Canaanites will be on the low end of the totem pole, if you will. They're going to be at the bottom of the barrel servants to the other servants. And as I can tell you, and as you've already read, the order is going to be this. Jay 5th is going to be the superior. He is going to conquer Shem, and Shem is going to conquer Canaan. Okay. And that particular order is what we find. So Jay 5th will be the superior conquering Shem, and we'll get more into that in our next episode in more detail. And then Shem will be the master or the conqueror, if you will, of Canaan. And that's the what God predicts thousands of years ago. Right. Yeah. So, like you said, you know, we see lots of prophecy happening here. We met, and we're going to touch on this a little bit more in the next episode. For sure, when we get into what we call the table of nations is often what it's called, where we see all these nations that descend from Noah and his sons. But here to finish out chapter 9, it says, "After the flood, Noah lived 350 years. All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died." So this brings to an end the life of Noah and the story of Noah and what God did through him. Yes. So, at the end of chapter 9, we are kind of finished with Noah, but we're not finished with his sons and the descendants of his sons, his sons, which includes us and all the nations of the world. So, we do want to pay attention to this prophecy because I believe that it does have present day significance for what's going on today. Yeah. Absolutely. So, yes, we should pay attention, and we will see what God has to say to us in the next chapter. So, thank you, everyone, for joining us today, and we'll see you next time. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] (upbeat music)