Scripture Daily

Context No. 493 of 4322 · Genesis

Context · Reflection

Genesis 9:18-29: in context

18The sons of Noah who went out from the ship were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham is the father of Canaan. 19These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. 20Noah began to be a farmer, and planted a vineyard. 21He drank of the wine and got drunk. He was uncovered within his tent. 22Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. 23Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it on both their shoulders, went in backwards, and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were backwards, and they didn’t see their father’s nakedness. 24Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done to him. 25He said, “Canaan is cursed. He will be a servant of servants to his brothers.” 26He said, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem. Let Canaan be his servant. 27May God enlarge Japheth. Let him dwell in the tents of Shem. Let Canaan be his servant.” 28Noah lived three hundred fifty years after the flood. 29All the days of Noah were nine hundred fifty years, and then he died.

This is a strange and uncomfortable episode right after the flood. Noah, the righteous man God had just carried through the waters, plants a vineyard, makes wine, drinks too much of it, and lies uncovered and drunk inside his tent. The great hero of the flood is discovered in a moment of genuine failure and shame. And what the story turns on is not the drunkenness itself but how his three sons respond to finding their father like that. Ham, it says, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Shem and Japheth, by contrast, took a garment, laid it across both their shoulders, and walked in backward so they would not see him, and covered their father, their faces turned away.

Look at the difference, because it is the whole point. All three sons discover the same shameful failure. Ham looks, and then goes and talks about it, broadcasting his father's disgrace to the others. Shem and Japheth refuse even to look; they cover the shame without gazing on it, protecting their father's dignity at the very moment he could not protect it himself. One son exposes a failure; two cover it. And the story clearly honors the covering. It is the picture behind the later saying that love covers a multitude of sins, not by pretending the failure did not happen, but by refusing to make a spectacle of another person's lowest moment.

That sets a sharp question in front of me, because I discover people's failures all the time, a weakness, a mistake, an embarrassing lapse. My instinct is often Ham's: to look, and then to tell, to pass along the interesting, shameful detail to someone outside. Shem and Japheth show the other way, the harder and more loving way, of covering what I have seen and turning my face from it. When I come upon someone's failure or shame, am I the son who looks and tells, or the son who covers it and looks away?

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