"His Father's Nakedness"

[jmg]

My wife makes some sort of "cultural context" Bible post on facebook each week. Today's was a topic we looked at together a few years back that was pretty interesting. Anyway, thought you guys may find it interesting as well.

"Cultural Context Thursday
Remember when I said I would do these once a week? Ha ha! That was funny. Anyway, do you want to get SUPER WEIRD with me in the Bible today? If not, DEFINITELY keep scrolling. This is one is x-rated and will make you feel really uncomfortable, but then if you are like me, once you get past the discomfort you will feel relief at finally understanding a passage of scripture that never made any sense to you before.
We are going to discuss Genesis 9:18-24 where Noah’s son, Ham, “sees his father’s nakedness.”
One of the first things that helps us have some framework for this story is to understand that Genesis is told is cycles of parallel stories that are linked together to show you a specific pattern. I won’t go into all the details and links here, but this is what is most important for our topic today:
Noah’s story is one of DE-creation (the world goes back to the a place of only water (Genesis 1:2). God recreates the world as the dry land appears again and we find Noah on a mountain top garden (the vineyard that he planted) with God giving Him the same instructions that He gave Adam- be fruitful and multiply. Noah partakes of the fruit of that garden in an inappropriate way which not only leads to consequences for himself, but for his family as well. The pattern of sin and evil escalates in the next generation of both Adam (Cain) and Noah (Ham).
If you are anything like me just reading the surface of these verses feels very confusing. Why is Ham seeing his father naked such a big deal? I mean it’s kinda creepy and gross, but why does Noah react with such anger and why does Noah curse Ham’s son Canaan rather than cursing Ham, himself because of it?
Buckle Up. It’s about to get wild.
In my last post I talked about idioms in the Bible and how things get really confusing when we translate the words literally without at least footnotes telling us that this is an idiom and what the meaning of that idiom is. This passage is the epitome of confusion and misunderstanding due to Hebrew idioms.
To “see the nakedness of your father” is an idiom that literally means to sleep with your father’s wife aka your mother. Leviticus 18:7 in the NIV says, “Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; do not have relations with her.” Because the NIV has translated the idiom in Leviticus (they don’t translate the idiom in Genesis 9).
If you go to the ESV, Leviticus 18:7 says, “You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness.”
To “uncover nakedness” is an idiom for sexual relations and to “uncover the nakedness of your father” means to sleep with his wife whether it is your mother or not. Leviticus 18:8 clarifies that you cannot sleep with your father’s wife even if she is not your mother, just in case someone wanted a loop hole.
A man’s wife’s “nakedness” is also his nakedness since God’s command for married couples is to become one flesh.
As uncomfortable as it makes us feel, Ham takes advantage of his father being drunk and passed out and rapes his own mother. Since the the Fall, people have always had an immense capacity for evil and depravity- even when there was just a family of eight occupying the earth. Before the flood, Noah is the only one who is righteous. His sons are alive before the flood and not given that adjective. They are saved based on Noah’s righteousness alone <—this is a common pattern in the OT (Abraham and Lot is another example) that is supposed to build categories for people being saved because of the righteousness of Jesus. It is not supposed to lead us to believe that you can be saved because of your parent’s faith.
So why on earth would Ham do this? Especially when he already has a wife? Even though it was a horrible thing to do, it was common among men who were trying to usurp authority from another man. There are many other examples in the Bible and in other Ancient Near Eastern cultures. (Reuben sleeps with Bilhah, his father’s slave-wife (Gen. 35:22), Absalom sleeps with his father’s harem (2 Sam. 16:21-22) Adonijah attempts with sleep with David’s slave-wife Abishag (1 Kgs. 2:13-25).
Remember the evil that men commit is not a reflection on God or His character. The Bible is often DESCRIPTIVE not PRESCRIPTIVE (especially in the Old Testament). God is telling us the the story, He is not telling us to do exactly what these humans are doing. He wants to see His response to human evil and learn that He is good, loving, forgiving, and merciful.
*Side note here, while this is a terrible act perpetrated on women by men who seek more power and influence no matter what it costs someone else, it is actually a testament to the value and importance of women. And this could really be an entire post of its own, so I will try to be brief, but God created the woman to complete and fulfill the role of humanity. Adam (which means “human” by the way) could not complete the role God gave to Him to multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. So God created an “ezer” for Adam. Ezer is the Hebrew word we usually translate as “helper” but a much better English word can be used for its meaning- “ally.” I will try to do a separate post on the word “ezer” next week. God created an ally for the human to accomplish the mission God gave him.
In order for a man of the Ancient Neat East to have power or authority, he has to multiply and have offspring to carry on his name, and legacy. Taking that man’s ally and creating your own offspring that carry on YOUR name instead of his was the ultimate power move regardless of how horrific and disturbing. There is a deeper spiritual connection here too, that goes back to fallen spiritual beings trying to usurp humanity from their positions as rulers of the earth (Satan convinces Eve to ally with him against God and she is separated from her husband when they hide from each other, and the angels again usurp the rule of humans when they sleep with human women in Genesis 6 to create beings in their own image instead of God’s). The patterns of rebellion don’t just exist within God’s human creation, but in His spiritual creation as well. Again, this could be a whole separate post. Back to the main point, though- Ham creates a line of offspring through his mother by producing a son with her named Canaan. This is why Canaan is cursed by Noah and not Ham. Canaan will not occupy the role that Ham has sinned so grievously to procure for him. While it is not explicitly spelled out in the Bible, this way of writing is common in ancient Hebrew literature and Moses’ original audience would have immediately caught on that Canaan was the result of Ham’s sin.
The other big “why” we want to ask ourselves is why would Moses ever include this story in the Torah? Since he is hitting highlights of the first centuries of humanity, it seems like this is one he could leave out. But it is KEY to what is coming in the next portion of the journey of humanity as a whole and Israel in particular. God has plans for Israel to drive out the inhabitants of the land of …. CANAAN, so that they can inhabit the land God has promised them. Moses is giving you the prequel to the conquest narratives of Joshua. Let’s go back to those verses in Leviticus 18 that teach Israel all about sexual immorality. They begin with the Lord telling them that they should not act like the people of Egypt where they came from or the people in the land of CANAAN, where he is bringing them. Like Father, like an entire nation of offspring, I guess.
This is just one story, one example of what is pretty much the message of the whole Bible. When humans and spiritual beings rebel and decide they want to determine good and evil for themselves, we see violence, rape, murder, oppression, and injustice. Kingdoms built without God are kingdoms built on might makes right, power grabs at the expense of the vulnerable, and brutality as proof of authority. But the Kingdom of God according to Leviticus and Jesus is a kingdom built on humility, self-sacrifice, and loving your neighbor as yourself. Israel failed miserably at representing God’s Kingdom, so Jesus came to embody His Kingdom for the world to see. Then He passed the torch to us (all believers/the church) to continue to display a kingdom of love and self-sacrifice to the world. Lord help us to live on this earth as members of Your Kingdom. Help us to live on earth as it is in Heaven.
*If you want to dig deeper into this subject, two really good sources are the Bible Project's podcast on the Torah, and Michael S. Heiser's Naked Bible podcast. A transcript of the episode he does on this topic is linked here:
https://nakedbiblepodcast.com/.../09/NB ... ript-1.pdf "

[Del]

This makes a lot of good sense. Also sheds some more light on the story of Lot's daughters.

As Moses compiled the ancient stories of his people, they had just left Egypt -- where royal incest was solemnly glorified.

[Hugo Drax]

Talk about punching above your weight, brother...this isn't just awesome biblical scholarship, but it's extraordinarily well-written and easy to read.

Great stuff!

[jmg]

Talk about punching above your weight, brother...this isn't just awesome biblical scholarship, but it's extraordinarily well-written and easy to read.

Great stuff!

She really is an impressive woman that has a incredible love for God's Word. She's God's tangible gift of grace in my life.