Chapter nine concludes the story of Noah. God gives Noah the same commandment as he gives Adam in chapter 1 and 2. There is one difference here though. In the original commandment, God told Adam that he could eat from any seed-bearing plant with the exception of the two trees in the middle of the garden. This time, however, God tells Noah that he can eat meat! Thanks be to God for meat! God also gives the reason why he values life so much: we are created in his image. And so God sets up a punishment for those who murder image-bearers. God then makes a covenant, or an agreement, with Noah explaining that he would never destroy the whole earth by flood again. As a sign God puts up a bow. This could refer to two things: one is a rainbow obviously. Another is that this word is the same word as the weapon bow, as in a bow and arrow. So God what is saying that anytime you see my rainbow, you know that I have put up my weapon against humanity. In the next section, Noah is drunk and has a weird exchange with his sons. In the end, Noah curses his grandson Canaan, whose descendants would be the occupants of the Promised Land when Israel came out of Egypt.
God, thank you for your grace for sending a sign of your love for us. Help us to walk in that grace.
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The account of a drunken and naked Noah cursing Ham or more precisely Ham's son Canaan is indeed weird to us. It could be that the curse comes about with Ham's being so disrespectful to his father. But there could be something else going on as well. In other places in the Scripture nakedness refers to sexual activity. Could have Ham violated his father? Also, according to many OT Scholars (Gunkel & Basset) a father's nakedness can also refer to a man's wife or daughter. It might have been that while Noah was in a drunken state Ham did the unthinkable with his mother or sister. I don't know what all happened in this strange passage, but I have a hunch there is more there than just a drunken Noah cursing Ham's son.
Two things were interesting to me: (1) why would God need a reminder to not destroy the earth by water again, and (2) the descendants of Shem are the Jews (Semitic coming from the word "Shem").
I was comforted by the fact that, "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease".
Unlike Shem and Japheth, Ham did not show respect to his father and paid the consequences. Let this be a lesson to us as mankind -- we are to respect our mother and father.
Also, as is typical of Biblical accounts, this event is an objective account of Noah's getting drunk -- no judgment of his actions. As drunkeness is addressed in many future passages, however, I've got to believe, that this was not pleasing to God. Even those that "walk with God" are not perfect and sometimes stumble, but God's grace is there to forgive and redeem us.
It has fascinated me about several things about his chapter.
1. Noah immediately started planting a vineyard. Wine was good at disinfecting the water that they drank. Although the drinking of wine was not prohibited, it was the over indulging of wine that was to be guarded against.
2. With Noah being the last of the lineage of Shem, it has been proposed that he married a woman who was not part of the lineage of Shem.
3. I concur that according to scholars, that during Noah's drunken state or some other time, Ham slept with his mother, possibly producing an offspring.
If Noah has shown some restraint and moderation in his wine, things could have been different.
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