Curse or Prophecy?

"And the sons of Noah that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread. And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. 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. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years; and he died." (Genesis 9:18-29)

We have here the first mention of Canaan, father of the Canaanites; a nation that will eventually be conquered by the Israelites under Joshua.

But biblical scholars are divided as to whether or not the thing that Noah pronounces upon Ham's son Canaan is truly a curse or merely a prophecy. The reason for this is that right after he "curses" Canaan, Noah goes on to prophesy about both Shem and Japheth. It could be just the timing of the passage that makes it seem to relate to the incident involving Ham, when in fact, perhaps it does not. And the reason scholars think this might be the case is because the curse is pronounced upon Canaan, whom we will see is the fourth son of Ham, versus being pronounced on Ham who is the one who did the deed.

The "deed" was Ham walking into his father's tent and finding him drunk, asleep, totally naked and uncovered. At first glance, this does not appear to be so grievous a sin; in fact, why would Ham be blamed if he just happened to walk into his father's tent and "stumbled" upon his father's nakedness? The problem, however, might be more serious than that.

It turns out that the word for "uncovered" in the Hebrew suggests a word that is active rather than passive; which might be indicating that Ham actually uncovered his father to see him in his nakedness; rather than that Noah was already uncovered when Ham walked in. The passage itself states that "Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him," indicating that there was an action on Ham's part. Was that action the actual uncovering of Noah, as the Hebrew word suggests, or was it the act of accidentally stumbling upon his father's nakedness, and then going to tell his brothers about it?

In either case, respect for his father appears to be greatly lacking on Ham's part and could have produced the curse. Yet, none of this explains why Ham's fourth son would receive the curse, rather than Ham himself. Thus, it appears to be more prophecy than curse; Noah prophesying that Canaan and his descendants would at some point in the future become cursed (by acts of their own doing).

But there is another part to this story that is important for us to learn from; and that lesson is that we are always to be prayerfully on our guard so that we do not stumble. For the first six hundred years of Noah's life, he is seen to be walking with God. Then, this incident occurs, and the last recorded event of Noah's life involves his being drunken and naked…not something a man of God would want to be remembered by. And then we are told that Noah lived for 950 years and died. End of story. A rather sad and inglorious end, wouldn't you say?

Here is one more final but interesting observation: when Noah died, another man by the name of Abraham, a figure who is soon to arrive on the biblical scene, was 58 years old. I mention this just to give you an idea of how these men's timelines overlap. It also helps us to see how so many biblical events were able to be passed verbally from one generation to another, until they arrived at a point in time where God inspired certain men to write them all down for our benefit.