Understanding Genesis 9-10: Blessing, Covenant, and a Drunken Old Man

Genesis 9 is a fun chapter. Yes, the actual flood story in Genesis 6-8 tends to get the most attention, but at least as far as I’m concerned, Genesis 9 has two real gems in it for consideration. One involves clear literary parallels to the original creation story in Genesis 1-2. After seeing the flood itself as God’s taking things back to the original waters of chaos (as seen in Genesis 1:2), you should be able to see Genesis 9:1-17 essentially as God’s starting over by re-creating everything. Noah essentially is “Adam 2.0” if you will. The second gem is Genesis 9:18-28—I mean who doesn’t like a good story about getting drunk, passing out naked, and then having a family member humiliate you? What’s that all about, anyway?

Genesis 9:1-17: Re-Creation, Re-Covenant, Re-Blessing
Let’s start with the first part of Genesis 9. After the flood in chapters 6-8, we find what can be considered the “re-blessing” of mankind in 9:1-17. Just as God blesses, commissions, and warns Adam and Eve in Genesis 1-2, so does He bless, commission, and warn Noah. Notice the parallels between what we find here in 9:1-7 and Genesis 1-2. Just consider the following:

• God blesses both Adam and Noah, and commands them to be fruitful and multiply
• God gives Adam all the green plants to eat from, and gives Noah not only the green plants, but also the animals to eat from. This is a key difference, though: even though God is starting over, things are not totally like they were before. There is the added element of “fear and dread” among the animals, as well as the provision to eat the flesh of animals.
• God gives a prohibition to Noah, just as He had done with Adam and Eve. The “do not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” is replaced with, “do not eat flesh with its blood in it.” In both cases, failure to obey this command will result in death.
• Finally, there is the reiteration that human beings are made in God’s image.

All that is actually in Genesis 9:1-7 alone! The fact that Genesis 9:1-7 is laid out with so many clear allusions and repetitions of Genesis 1-2 should make it obvious that we are to see that what God did with Adam, He is now doing with Noah. Indeed, God is starting over with Noah. In addition, when we proceed to Genesis 9:8-17, we find a series of three sections of statements in which certain words are repeated, over and over and over again. For it is in this section that we find God establishing His covenant with not only Noah, but indeed with all humanity and all creation. Read the three sections of 9:8-11, 9:12-15, and 9:16-17 for yourself and take note of these recurring words and themes:

Yes, it gets a bit redundant, but the point is clear: God establishes His COVENANT with Noah, his OFFSPRING, and ALL FLESH; and He promises never again to destroy the earth with a FLOOD. Incidentally, I want to emphasize the importance of the word “offspring.” If you remember, back in Genesis 3:15, God tells the serpent that He will put enmity (i.e. God just declared war on the serpent) between the woman and the serpent, between the woman’s offspring and the serpent’s offspring.

This is a major theme that runs throughout, not just Genesis 1-11, not just the Old Testament, but throughout the entire Bible itself. It is the “thesis statement,” if you will, of the entire Biblical story—God vows to work through humanity to eventually defeat sin, evil, and death itself. Indeed, in Genesis 4, with the story of Cain and Abel, we find this “war” between the two offspring will, in fact, be fought within humanity itself—Cain and his descendants are seen (metaphorically, of course) as the serpent’s offspring, whereas Seth (who takes the place of Abel) and his descendants are seen as the woman’s offspring. And now here, with God’s covenant with Noah, that concept of “offspring” is a key component in God’s promises.

Genesis 9:18-28: Noah’s Drunkenness
And that leads us straight into the spicy tale of wine, drunkenness, and nudity…

As things turn out, Noah, the “Adam 2.0” of God’s restarting of creation, runs into problems, just like Adam did. In 9:18-28 we find this strange story of Noah planting a vineyard, getting drunk on the wine he makes, then passing out naked in his tent. We’re told that Ham “looked upon his father’s nakedness” and went out and told his brothers about it. His brothers, Shem and Japheth, go into the tent backwards and cover Noah’s nakedness. When Noah wakes up and realizes what Ham had done to him, he proceeds to curse Ham and bless Shem and Japheth. This certainly is an odd story, but what’s the point? It’s important to first see a few connections with the earlier Adam and Eve story.

The first thing to note is the connection between Noah’s nakedness and the nakedness of Adam and Eve. Despite the fact that God wiped out humanity with the flood and started over with Noah and his family, Noah’s actions and nakedness show us that sin was still in the world. And just as the nakedness of Adam and Eve revealed their vulnerability, so too is Noah vulnerable as well—naked and passed out. I also can’t but notice this as well: Adam and Eve were given the fruit of the garden to eat, and after they sin the ground became cursed. With Noah, he gets drunk by drinking the “fruit of the vine” that comes from the very ground that has been cursed.

The second thing to note is how the actions of Noah’s sons reflect the actions of both the serpent and God. Just as the serpent essentially exposed the nakedness of Adam and Eve, Ham (whom we are told no less than FIVE TIMES is the “father of Canaan”) does something similar with Noah. What’s more, when we are told that Ham looked upon his father’s nakedness, we shouldn’t interpret that to mean something like he casually walked into Noah’s tent, accidently saw Noah was naked, and then went out to joke about it with his brothers. The connotation is that Ham actually did something to Noah. After all, when Noah walks up, he discovers what Ham had done to him—the implication was that Ham in some way molested Noah or did something that was understood to be sexually shameful. By contrast, Shem and Japheth went in and covered the nakedness of Noah, just as God covered the naked of Adam and Eve. This is why, once Noah wakes up, he ends up cursing Ham and blessing Shem and Japheth.

The Genealogies in Genesis 10
Now, I imagine you are thinking, “Okay, but what’s the point of this story?” In order to answer that, we have to consider a third thing—a matter of history, and yes it has to do with Canaan. We learn in Genesis 10 that the descendants of Ham included the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and the Philistines, and even the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. These were the countries and peoples who were the enemies of Israel. Most notably were the Canaanites.

Simply put, all the bad people and bad nations throughout the Old Testament are from the line of Ham. What does that tell us? If we go back to Genesis 3, we remember that God promised that there would be “enmity” (i.e. war) between the woman and the serpent, and between her offspring and the serpent’s offspring. We then saw the first signs of this in Genesis 4, with the story of Cain and Abel. Because Cain gave in to that sinful urge, he and his family line lined up on the side of the serpent’s offspring, whereas Seth, who took the place of Abel, produced another family line, one that lined up on the side of the woman’s offspring.

So when we come to Genesis 9-10, we find that despite the flood, that enmity and war between the woman’s offspring and the serpent’s offspring is still raging, within the very family of Noah. Ham’s actions show him to be one of the serpent’s offspring, and thus his genealogy is filled with the nations that war against the nation of Israel throughout the Old Testament, and thus prove themselves to be the serpent’s offspring. We also must remember that during the Exodus, the Hebrews left Egypt and went into Canaan. Furthermore, as we will learn later on, God told the Hebrews to go into Canaan and completely wipe out the Canaanites because the Canaanites were a wicked and perverted people.

The conquest of Canaan under Joshua was, in a way, seen God’s just dealing with the Canaanites. Historical records show that the Canaanite culture was among the most wicked and perverted cultures in the ancient Near East. Given that historical background, this story in Genesis 9 shows that the wickedness and perversion of the Canaanites could be traced back all the way to their ancestor, Ham. So basically, the point of Genesis 9:18-28 is to associate the Canaanites with Ham, and thereby offering the justification for the wiping out of the Canaanite culture.

By contrast, we find (in Genesis 11:10-32) that the descendants of Shem are depicted as being in line with the woman’s offspring, and within that genealogy, we find a reference to the Hebrews themselves. Therefore, when Noah curses Ham and declares that Canaan (i.e. Ham) will be a slave to Shem (i.e. the Hebrews), the Hebrews during the Exodus would have understood. They were about to go into Canaan and take over. Noah’s declaration in Genesis 9 was about to be fulfilled. Think of it this way: if you were an Israelite who was being told to go into Canaan, conquer it, and wipe out the Canaanites, a natural question would be, “Why do we need to wipe out that culture?” The answer is given in Genesis 9:18-28: “They are evil and perverted and cursed—they deserve God’s judgment.”