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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

"In His Nakedness"

After the flood which destroyed the people and creatures of earth, excluding those protected in the Ark, God blessed Noah and his family.  In chapter eight God begins the earth again with this promise:

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking of every clean animal and of every clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21 The Lord smelled the pleasing odor, and the Lord said to Himself:  "Never again will I doom the earth because of man, since the devisings of man's mind are evil from his youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done.
22 So long as the earth endures,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat,
Summer and winter,
Day and night
Shall not cease."

God told Noah and his sons, be fertile and increase, and fill the earth as He made the covenant (ch 9).  Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth (Ham being the father of Canaan). You would think with such a grand, new and glorious beginning, being the most blessed men on earth we wouldn't have messed things up so quickly but lo - Ham did.

Noah was the first to plant a vineyard, being a lover of the soil. Noah drank his own wine, and became drunk. In the privacy of his own tent he unclothed himself.  Ham (the father of Canaan) saw his father's nakedness.  Noah then cursed Ham and his people in Chapter 9 verse 24.
24  When Noah woke up from his wine and learned what his youngest son (Ham) had done to him,
25  he said,
"Cursed be Canaan; the lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers."

I wondered about the phrase "saw his nakedness" and why it would be such a horrible offense so I began to study of course.  The phrase meant then, that one of three things happened.
1. The first and least likely is the literal since of the words that his eyes saw his fathers body, breaking two norms, the ethic of bodily modesty and the breaking of the commitment required to honor and respect one's parents.
2.  The second most likely, was that it would have meant he had sexual relations with the man's wife (probably rape), a horrible insult to the man, which would also be incest in this family.
3.  The third and most likely is the act of a homosexual rape to the man himself which in this family would again, also be incest.
Studies show that Ham may have also castrated his father preventing the birth of a fourth son.  As we learn in Genesis 10 :6 Ham had four sons, the fourth son being named Canaan and there begins the real curse, believed to be repercussion for the fourth son that Noah was denied due to Ham's vile and perverse actions.

[I have more than once seen the homosexual community refer to these scripture making the claim that Noah was a homosexual. It is offensive to God and to me personally and I know that it is a lie.  Knowing now that the phrase referred to a rape, not consensual sex, no matter what the circumstance, clearly disproves any claim they may make.]

All three or any one being considered perverse by God and man but, considered typical of the Canaanite people.  And Ham was cursed as seen in his offspring.  The lands divided to Ham extended from Sidon as far as Gerar, near Gaza and as far as Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, near Lasha. (Now Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia, Gaza, and other countries)

I think at least the names Sodom, Gomorrah and Gaza  (Sunni Muslims - Islam) are familiar to all of us for their ungodly people and actions.

Homosexuality is ungodly, rape is ungodly, incest is ungodly and it took no longer than the first generation of the new world to commit all of these ungodly and perverse acts.

We just stepped off the boat and stepped in it!  My, my, why does God put up with us? Oh yes! He does love us, He must wouldn't you say!

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In the Tanakh (Old Testament) Genesis is the first of the five books (Genesis - Deuteronomy) of the Torah (Teaching section).

2 comments:

  1. Whatever Ham did, Noah understood it to be wrong. I can't imagine what would be so huge as to have a father speak that way to his child; but it was. I am sure that Ham knew when he did it that the action was wrong, too. There is no evidence of repentance nor contrition, either.

    Father, help me to be careful in my actions and words, especially with regard to my children. Please help me to be a minister of reconciliation in our family and our country.

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