Genesis 9:18-29
Noah and His Sons
18 Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. 19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.
20 And Noah began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard. 21 Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. 23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.
24 So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him. 25 Then he said:
“Cursed be Canaan;
A servant of servants
He shall be to his brethren.”
26 And he said:
“Blessed be the LORD,
The God of Shem,
And may Canaan be his servant.
27 May God enlarge Japheth,
And may he dwell in the tents of Shem;
And may Canaan be his servant.”
28 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. 29 So all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years; and he died.
Just after departing the ark of deliverance from God’s judgment on the sin of the world through the flood, Noah began farming the ground as Cain had done in following Adam’s curse (Genesis 3:17, 18-19, 4:2-3). However, when he cultivated grapes and fermented wine from them, he became so drunk that he passed out naked on his bed. His son Ham the father of Canaan came in and did not avert his eyes from his father’s exposure but just went to tell his two brothers what he just saw as if unashamed and forgotten how Adam and Eve were naked in Eden’s Garden until sin exposed the eyes of their corrupted hearts (Genesis 3:6-7, 10-11) to confuse good and evil as one and the same. When Noah awoke, he remembered enough to know what Ham the younger had done and how his other sons, Shem and Japheth, had covered the nakedness of him as God did with the sacrificed animals (Genesis 3:21) to cover the sin of Adam and Eve by covering their bodies from view. Because Ham had not considered these things, God cursed him and his children who formed the nation of Canaan. He used Noah to pronounce the consequences of servitude to their brother’s children and descendants for all time to follow. As for the others, Shem was identified as having God as his as a blessing and Canaan his servants, while Japheth was blessed to be fruitful and multiply while dwelling with his brother Shem’s descendants with Canaan as his slaves as well. With this slip back into sin’s curse, the children lived on while Noah died at nine hundred and fifty years old, a full three hundred and fifty years after the deluge had wiped the slate of mankind clean to begin again. Unfortunately, the inherited sin (Romans 5:12, 15, 17, 18-19) was passed on as if the spiritual descendants of Adam by Cain lived on through the flood to once again contaminate the souls made in God’s image and delivered through the first judgment of destruction on the world. The corruption of sin always resurfaces no matter the deliverance from it, yet the hope we have is forgiveness in the second Adam once and for all to deal with sin’s staying power and penalty. He gives us strength to resist sin and daily put it to death (Romans 8:13-15) in our souls and will wipe it clean by fire in the final judgment (1 Corinthians 3:13, 1 Peter 1:7, 2 Peter 3:6-7) on the world with a hope of vanquishing sin’s presence forever in the resurrection of the just with sinless and incorruptible bodies uncorrupted by sin’s presence and power over us. This judgment on the world will not leave sin in us as after the flood because we will be made new in the untarnished image of Christ, unlike our present corrupt image through the first Adam. The second Adam (Romans 5:14-15), Jesus Christ, will give us this inheritance of sinlessness in the new earth cleansed by fire with the tempter and source of sin removed from our presence, the dragon and serpent of old (Revelation 12:9, 20:10) as it is written and promised. Though the corruption of sin has resurfaced after the flood, it will be removed in the world to come so we can worship in the very presence of God (Revelation 21:22-24, 22:3-4), untarnished and holy in the original image in which He created us to walk with Him (Genesis 3:8) in His presence as in the beginning of creation.
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