What happened in Noah’s tent?
What happened in Noah’s tent?
How would you react if you found out a family member walked in on you and saw you naked while you were passed out drunk?
I imagine I would be embarrassed and would make a mental note to hold back on the beers next time.
Most characters on a sitcom would probably conclude that to restore balance to the relationship, they’d need to see their family member drunk and naked.
Apparently, Noah’s (yes, the same guy who built the ark) reaction is to curse his family member’s son, and all of his descendants.
Genesis 9 contains one of the most interesting stories I think you can find in the Old Testament. Regardless of whether you read this story as historical or legendary, it doesn’t feel like all the pieces in this story add up. The punishment does not seem to fit the crime. For many readers, we’re left wondering: what exactly happened in Noah’s tent?
Reading 1
The first possibility is that what’s written in the text is really all there is to it. Noah gets drunk on home-brewed wine, falls asleep naked in his tent, and Ham (Noah’s son) goes in, sees Noah naked, and tells his brothers, who walk in backwards and place a blanket over their father. When Noah learns what Ham did, he curses - not his son Ham, but Ham’s son and Noah’s grandson - Canaan to be a slave to the descendants of his uncles.
It’s definitely possible that this is the full story, and for many modern readers, that’s the default reading of the text. But if that’s the case, it feels like Noah’s reaction is both unnecessarily harsh and misdirected. A lifetime of slavery for his grandson because his son caught a glimpse of his penis? Come on. But there are other interpretations of the text which choose to read between the lines a little bit more.
Reading 2
One ancient rabbinic reading of the text is that when Ham entered Noah’s tent, he didn’t just see his father naked - he sexually assaulted him. This certainly escalates the seriousness of Ham’s crime and makes Noah’s furious response a bit more warranted. However, it still feels misdirected. Why curse Canaan instead of Ham?
Reading 3
Another ancient rabbinic reading is that Ham actually castrated his father while he was drunk and unconscious. Yikes. Again, if this is the case, Noah’s anger is now warranted, and there’s a stronger reason for cursing Canaan rather than Ham. Canaan was Ham’s fourth son, and by castrating his father, Ham robbed Noah of his own fourth son. However, it feels to me like this reads heavily between the lines. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of euphemism indicating that this is the case.
Reading 4
A more modern reading of the story compares a verse in this story with a passage in Leviticus.
“And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.” Genesis 9:22
“You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife; it is the nakedness of your father.” Leviticus 18:8
Leviticus uses the same phrase found in Genesis as a euphemism to mean having sexual intercourse with your own mother. So, this reading concludes the Ham raped not his father but his mother while Noah lay drunk and unconscious. Again, this would make Noah’s anger more warranted, and could explain the curse on Canaan - if Canaan was born to Ham by his own mother.
What do you think? Do you buy any of these interpretations? Or do you think something else happened entirely?
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I definitely lean to the interpretation of incest. One thing I've learned from listening to theologians is that the language of the Bible is extremely deliberate, as well as highly self-referential. The fact that the phrase "the nakedness of his father" is used makes it almost certain that the reader is expected to take note of its appearance elsewhere in the Torah, and use that context to interpret the Genesis passage. Canaan is very likely a child of incest, just like other rivals of the Israelites are depicted as children of incest through Lot and his daughters.