31/03/19 Genesis 9:18-29 “Noah’s drinking settles the
dust somewhat!”
Genesis
9:18 – And the sons of
Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham [is]
the father of Canaan.
This appears to merely restate facts already
known: Noah had 3 sons who left the ark at the end of the flood. And yet, while
Japheth and Shem had sons, only Ham is noted here as having a son, who is named
as Canaan (“lowland”). This is clearly setting the scene for the offense
against Noah later on, and Noah’s subsequent cursing of Canaan (and Ham, either
directly or indirectly, being the father of Canaan). Canaan’s name means either
“lowland”, or low as opposed to high or lofty. This could refer to low coastal
lands but is more likely to refer to Canaan’s lowly position in the family as a
result of the cursing.
Genesis
9:19 – These [are] the
three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.
All mankind as we know it today has
descended from these 3 sons of Noah. Even in Noah’s day they must have
multiplied well and spread out across the known world of their day (which would
have been mostly in the Tigris-Euphrates area of the middle east. It wouldn’t
be until after the building of the tower of Babel that the population of this
area would then genuinely spread across the whole world.
Genesis
9:20 – And Noah began [to
be] an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
husbandman – formed from ‘iysh (man)
and ‘adamah
(land, in particular, tilled land)
And Noah was a man who tilled the land,
prepared the ground and planted a vineyard.
Genesis
9:21 – And he drank of
the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
After planting his vineyard and tending the
grapes, he reaps his crop and makes grape-juice drink which then becomes
fermented. Of course, alcohol is a natural consequence here. To produce alcohol
you need sugars, water and yeast and some warmth to cause the yeast to grow
(called rising when used in bread mixtures). Grape juice has fructose (fruit
sugar), water (its juice) and yeast (which is usually found on the skin of the
grape). Therefore, while freshly-squeezed grape juice is not alcoholic, just
leave it in a warm position for some time and bubbles will start to form in the
liquid; the fermentation is beginning. So in order for fresh grape juice to not
go alcoholic, you need to remove one of the requirements for fermentation; you
keep it cold (refrigerate it), or wash the fruit thoroughly before juicing it
(this reduces the yeast content) or not leave it for too long before drinking
it. If you juice grapes they will naturally ferment unless you do something to
prevent this.
Did Noah realise that fermentation would
occur, or was it something that happened to him unawares? Possibly Noah (if
naïve) may not have realised the full effect of fermentation of grape juice,
but the text does allow the possibility of Noah knowing enough to try it out
this time. After all, it’s unlikely that he wouldn’t have ever seen this sort
of thing before the flood. Noah was, however, perfect in his generation
(Genesis 6:9), so is not portrayed as someone who would knowingly commit
anything shameful. That is, he was above reproach.
was uncovered – made naked (to
his shame); revealed himself (possibly through personal guilt)
Clearly, though, Noah was somewhat
indiscreet in his behaviour because of his intoxication. Even the best of men
can fall.
Genesis
9:22 – And Ham, the
father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren
without.
Once again we are
told that Ham is the father of Canaan without any reason given for this remark.
We are left to assume that probably Canaan had something to do with some
offense against Noah, yet are not told what it might be. Was it as simple as
Canaan seeing Noah naked and gossiping of it to the others? Or to his father,
Ham? Or was it really Ham who committed this offense? (Then why make it clear
that Canaan was his son?) It is suggested that Canaan did more than just notice
Noah’s nakedness, maybe spending much time staring at him, or even, as some
suggest, he interfered with Noah sexually. (Some tradition supports this.)
Some even say that Canaan (or Ham or both of
them) actually castrated Noah or by some magic charm rendered Noah impotent,
and others suggest that he interfered with Noah’s wife (although this is not
likely given that she is not mentioned in this episode). But this is all
conjecture, for the real issue is that an offense was committed.
However, whatever the offense, it was most
likely committed by Canaan, son of Ham, either with or without Ham. That Ham
was involved somewhere is suggested by the curse being laid upon Ham as a
result of what Canaan has probably done.
Ham certainly knew about it, having observed
Noah’s nakedness, before informing Shem and Japheth outside Noah’s tent.
When we research Ham’s descendants,
especially those of Canaan, we see that much of the opposition to God’s people
comes from Ham’s line of the family – Egypt (Mizraim),
Nimrod, Assyria, Nineveh, Babylon, Philistines,
Canaan, Tyre, Sidon, Sodom, Gomorrah, the Jebusites (of original Jerusalem). As
noted a while ago, satan has tried to destroy the
curse pronounced against him regarding the descendant of woman who would crush
his head, that is, Christ. So much of real history is taken up with the battle
by satan to have this curse revoked through the destruction of the genealogical
line through which Christ would come. Here that line is through Shem, so it is
logical to suppose that satan would try to control another line (Ham’s line) to
oppose and hopefully destroy Shem’s line somewhere. This conflict occurs many
times in the Old Testament, and many of Ham’s descendants are involved.
Genesis
9:23 – And Shem and
Japheth took a garment, and laid [it] upon both their shoulders, and
went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces [were]
backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
Whatever offense Canaan (and Ham) have
committed against Noah, the Bible does make it clear that there was a proper
way to do things, and that was what Shem and Japheth did. Why is Shem mentioned
first when Japheth is clearly the elder? Possibly because Shem was the one who
made the decision to do the right thing about Noah’s nakedness. This is possibly
born out by Japheth later being a dweller in the
tents of Shem, and not the other way around.
They walked backwards each side of Noah
dragging a large garment (probably something like a sleeping robe) over him, to
cover his nakedness without them seeing it. The garment was held up to their
shoulders.
Genesis
9:24 – And Noah awoke
from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
knew – yada – that word that calvinists like
MacArthur love to demonstrate as equating somehow with God’s foreknowledge in
the New Testament. MacArthur says When the Bible speaks of God's
foreknowledge, it refers to God's establishment of a love relationship with
that person. The word "know," (yada in the Old Testament) in both
the Old and New Testament, refers to much more than mere cognitive knowledge of
a person. Such passages as Hosea 13:4-5; Amos 3:2 (KJV); and Romans 11:2
clearly indicate this. (“Considering election, not politics”) This is that
same word yada; it merely means what
it says: to know; to have knowledge of; to be known. In neither the Old Testament
(nor the New Testament equivalent) does it mean any more than knowledge of some
kind, including sexual.
yada – to know; perceive;
find out; discern; distinguish; recognise; acknowledge; consider; have
knowledge; be wise.
The men of Sodom wanted to yada the angels in Lot’s house.
Genesis 19:4-5 – 4But before they lay down, the men of the city, [even] the men of
Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every
quarter: 5And they
called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where [are] the men which came in to
thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know (yada) them.
The men of Benjamin wanted to yada the visitor with his concubine.
Judges 19:22, 25 – 22[Now] as they
were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of
Belial, beset the house round about, [and] beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying,
Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know (yada) him.
25But the
men would not hearken to him: so the man took his
concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew (yada) her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day
began to spring, they let her go.
yada cannot mean foreknowledge (a knowledge
beforehand). That
word is prognosis which is still used
today by doctors in the same way as Hippocrates used it around 400BC.
The equivalent New Testament word for the Old Testament
yada is ginosko
– to
learn to know; come to know; get a knowledge of; perceive feel; understand;
become acquainted with; Jewish idiom for sexual intercourse.
ginosko is used as such in Matthew 1:25 – And knew (ginosko) her not
till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.
“foreknowledge” is the Greek word prognosis (noun as in 1 Peter 1:2) or proginosko in its
verb form (Eg “foreknew” in Romans 8:29).
And after a while Noah sobered up enough
from his drunkenness to realise what his younger son had done to him. Was this
actually his younger son? Probably yes, because even if Canaan had committed a
serious offense to Noah, it is certain that Ham at least knew about it at some
stage and should have done something to prevent it, or at least stop it. But it
probably really refers to Canaan who was the progeny of the younger son and so
it is quite acceptable to speak of Canaan as the younger son. In similar fashion,
the Jews declared Abraham to be their father when he was a great many
generations earlier than that.
Likewise note in the following where the
“son” is really the “grandson”.
Genesis 29:5 – And he said unto them, Know ye Laban
the son of Nahor? And they said, We
know [him].
Laban is the
brother of Rebekah (Genesis 24:29) who is the daughter of Bethuel
who is son of Nahor and Milcah
(Genesis 24:15). Similar relationship language is used in 2 Samuel 19:24 and 1
Chronicles 1:17.
Noah knew what had been done but we are not
told what it was; that is, it is likely that whatever was done was not to be
mentioned here. This strongly suggests something “unmentionable” in this
biblical record.
Genesis
9:25 – And he said, Cursed [be] Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be
unto his brethren.
a servant of
servants – the lowest level of servanthood, in reality a slave of slaves.
That is, Canaan (and his descendants,
clearly) shall be a lowly slave to Shem and Japheth and their descendants. This
was sometimes used to somehow justify slavery of Africans (allegedly
descendants of Ham) to British people (allegedly descendants of Japheth), but
there’s a difference between God causing events to happen and man forcing the
issue. Just because God prophesied that Babylon should enslave the Jews does
not mean that the Babylonians were above reproach!
Genesis
9:26-27 – 26And he said, Blessed
[be] the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. 27God
shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan
shall be his servant.
and Canaan shall
be his servant – That is, Canaan shall be the servant of both Shem and Japheth. It is
said that “his” is a collective noun, a singular form used to denote more than
one, but the meaning is clear without that: that Canaan (and his descendants)
will be the lowest of servants to both his brothers (and their descendants). Thus
“and Canaan shall be their servant” or “be servant unto them”.
Shem’s God will be blessed (the idea is to
kneel before him) but this may also include a reference to the greatest of his
descendants, Christ the Messiah. It is likely that in praising the God of Shem,
Shem himself is to be blessed, for it would be inconsistent to curse Canaan and
enlarge Japheth without also blessing Shem. It would also specifically refer to
God being their God and Israel being His people.
enlarge – to make
spacious, make open. In this context it could refer to the rule or authority of
Japheth and his descendants, or to the increase of their property and
possessions, possibly throughout the world.
Japheth dwelling in the tents of Shem is
unlikely to refer to Japheth taking over Shem’s dwelling places, but rather
that they (and their descendants) would generally dwell together in peace, or
that Japheth’s descendants would dwell with and partake of the blessings of
Shem’s descendants. The latter may be consistent with the Gentiles taking over
as God’s people (via the Church) with that being handed back to Israel when the
times of the Gentiles is fulfilled (Romans 11:25; see Romans 11 in general for
the full story here).
Genesis
9:28 – 28And Noah lived after the flood three
hundred and fifty years. 29And all the days of Noah were nine
hundred and fifty years: and he died.
Noah was
the last person to live to such ages as only seen in pre-flood times. Shem
outlived Noah but only by 148 years, and it may be assumed that both Japheth
and Ham could have lived similar ages, but certainly not anywhere near Noah’s
age. It is said by some that after the flood the canopy of heaven was altered
such that the sun’s damaging UV rays were more intense and direct, less
diffused by the canopy of water that used to exist in the upper atmosphere. But
this is only conjecture; it doesn’t change the basic fact that from now on,
mankind will live far shorter lives post-flood than pre-flood ages.
Some say
the earth tilted on its axis during the flood and therefore the seasons are
more pronounced. It’s irrelevant, however, to our discussion here.
Abraham was
58 years old when Noah died, so it is possible that some of what Abraham knew
about the one true God came from Noah. Society then had a largely oral
tradition; therefore information must have been passed
on from one to another. If that information were passed from Noah through a
number of people before reaching Abraham, then it is possible for errors to
creep in, but not likely if the transferring of that information were directly
from one to the other.
On another
note, in recent days our church website has been attacked fairly consistently
for a number of days now. Every attacking IP that’s checked was listed as
abusive, with just about all being serious repeat offenders. This means that
our website has attracted a significant amount of attention from those who
think it’s OK to be violently aggressive against anyone that offends you in any
way. Such people do not consider it a problem to hit out at their opponents, in
much the same way that we have road rage and house invasions etc. They will
generally only attack in what they feel are superior numbers and greater
firepower than their opposition; that is, they do not believe in fighting
fairly but consider that the most important requirement is greater numbers and
more weaponry (fire power). Such people never attack if they think they
themselves might get hurt; they are chickens in every sense of the word. They
also run and hide before they can be discovered; this demonstrates their fear
of retaliation. Like cowards they fight from cover because they fear the
consequences if they become known to their opposition.
There’s
nothing of any real value on our website, unless you consider biblical teaching
to be a saleable commodity. But they still consider it necessary to hit out. So
why? Like road rage low-life, they hit out because they have been personally
offended somehow. No-one has actually done anything to them except perhaps hurt
their feelings, yet this can be a huge issue for those with low self-esteem.
And like bullies who hit out to boost their own self-esteem, these people find
strength in their ability to hurt others. The more that others get hurt, the
more these people feel “empowered” by their bullying. Such people are generally
incapable of standing their ground intellectually, so in their incompetence
they hit out physically. As the saying goes, violence is the last refuge of the
incompetent.
But what
people would feel so threatened by our website, yet feel so incapable of
debating the issue up front and out in the open? You only have to look at who
is challenged by our website statements, for the only logical answer here is
that those attacking the website are people who (a) feel threatened by our
information and (b) feel powerless to hit back openly. (Or else these people
are irrational, incapable of rational thinking, people that we would term
“insane”; many road rage attacks are seemingly by such people!)
Now who
could these people be, I wonder? Who have we opposed that might have found it
too difficult to defend their views rationally? Because whoever has been
attacking our website will be associated in some way with such people. Could
it, perhaps, be calvinists who don’t approve of what we say about their beloved
beliefs? But calvinists are such nice, easy to get along with people, aren’t
they? So biblical, too, and, of course, the epitome of graciousness, for their
God is the God of grace, isn’t he? Calvinists are so loving, so caring, so kind,
that they would feel ashamed to be seen as trouble-makers, wouldn’t they?
Within the
SBC of USA, the battle lines are being drawn over calvinism’s
aggression.
However, there is now a
"New Calvinism" movement, "committed to advancing in the
churches an exclusively Calvinistic understanding of salvation, characterized
by an aggressive insistence on the 'Doctrines of Grace' ('TULIP'), and to the
goal of making Calvinism the central Southern Baptist position on God's plan of
salvation."
Even SBC
calvinists see the new calvinist aggression as excessive.
Every generation of Southern Baptists has the duty to articulate
the truths of its faith with particular attention to the issues that are
impacting contemporary mission and ministry. The precipitating issue for this
statement is the rise of a movement called “New Calvinism” among Southern
Baptists. This movement is committed to advancing in the churches an
exclusively Calvinistic understanding of salvation, characterized by an aggressive
insistence on the “Doctrines of Grace” (“TULIP”), and to the goal of making
Calvinism the central Southern Baptist position on God’s plan of salvation.
I, yes even as a Calvinist, firmly stand with these men in opposing this “New Calvinism”. …. I am especially opposed to those that “are characterized by an aggressive insistence on the ‘Doctrines of Grace’ (TULIP). I’m opposed to that because aggressive insistence goes against “teaching with gentleness and respect”. Furthermore, I do not support an aggressive insistence that others be Calvinists because it denies the very sovereignty and power of God that it claims to uphold. (https://sbcvoices.com/why-im-opposed-to-new-calvinism/)
Another comment in a forum: Calvinists I have met …. seem to be very pushy, arrogant and aggressive about what they believe and can't seem to let it go until people believe them. They try really hard to convince people. It was worse in bible college, but that's another story. They just don't come off as people at ease or at peace with God, like something is bugging them or something like that. I just don't understand why anyone would want to believe in something that causes you to have to defend that point of view so aggressively.
https://www.christianforums.com/threads/five-misconceptions-about-calvinism.8018475/page-2
And from a calvinist soon after on that forum: As a Calvinist, I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, there are many Calvinists that do exactly what you are describing.
Or from The
Gospel Coalition (new calvinist)
Let’s
be honest and say a lot of Calvinists won’t admit this difficulty, and it
comes out in the condescending, aggressive, abrasive, and unhelpful way they
approach theological engagement with people who disagree. You know the
kind. You can find them in Bible studies, blog comment sections, insular
Reformed churches that nobody visits; the archetypical newbie who presents
masterfully botched iterations of Reformed doctrines, as if they were the most
obvious truths of God that only a perversely obstinate fool could miss; the
crusty expert who adds in just enough condescension and sneering to belie all
his talk of grace.
This
was my final reason for being put off from Calvinism: really arrogant, thickheaded, (often young) know-it-all, sneering
Calvinists. Who wants to be planted in soil that yields such fruit? In the long
run that isn’t the best reason to reject a doctrine, as it’s just another
version of the common atheist objection: “But if Christianity were true, then
Christians should be great, but all the Christians I know are jerks so it must
be false” (see C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity). Still,
there’s something to it given Christ’s own declaration that people are known by
their fruits.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/sneering-calvinists/
It is
fairly safe to assume that calvinists (especially of the new calvinist breed)
are condescending, abrasive, unhelpful, aggressive, arrogant, thickheaded, know-it-all sneering calvinists. Even they
admit this. What happens, then, when they get into a situation where they
cannot freely hammer back their answers because they don’t have the freedom to
bully others? Do they then try to destroy their opponents merely because they
cannot defeat them any other way? Would these people crash a website simply
because it was the only way to shut it up? Clearly
they would!
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