There’s a story from the Bible that’s never sat right with me. The Bible tells of Noah and his three sons after the flood. As the story goes, Noah planted a vineyard after the flood waters receded. He then drank of the fruit of the vine, got drunk, and passed out naked.
Ham, finding his father naked, brought his brothers Shem and Japheth in, presumably to mock and make fun of their father.
This disrespect to Noah is undeniable. What Ham did in this story was wrong.
But did it warrant this?
(Genesis 9:24-27 my additions in parentheses):
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son (Ham) had done unto him.
25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan (Ham’s son, Noah’s grandson); a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
26 And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem (Noah’s other son); and Canaan shall be his servant.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth (Noah’s other son), and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
Was Ham’s sin so egregious that his son and their descendants deserved to be “servant of servants” to his brothers?
Ham did something wrong, but this seems extreme.
Bible scholars will say Ham violated the edict to honor his father. True. But all his descendants cursed for the rest of time? This is the part I’ve never understood. Seems too harsh a punishment for something that borders on immature and insensitive at worst.
Which leads to something I read from Hugh Nibley. I read this in a lecture Hugh Nibley gave and he was citing some information he read. (Reference to this story is also in the Book of Jasher).
“A very early Christian writing tells how Noah’s descendants waged bitter war among themselves after his death, to see who should possess his kingship; finally one of the blood of Ham prevailed, and from this the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians derive their priesthood and kingship. “From the race of Ham,” says the text, “came one through the magical (as opposed to the holy) succession named Nimrod, who was a giant against the Lord.”
First of all, note the vague “before the Lord” of the King James Version (Genesis 10:9) conceals the true meaning, rendered “against the Lord” by the Rabbinical and early Christian writers).”
Hugh Nibley continues (my emphasis bolded):
“Nimrod claimed his kingship on the ground of victory over his enemies. His priesthood, however, he claimed by virtue of possessing “the garment of Adam.” The legends of the Jews assure us that it was by virtue of owning this garment that Nimrod was able to claim power to rule over the whole earth, and that he sat in his tower while men came and worshiped him.”
Doesn’t this give Lord of the Rings vibes? A man in a tower making the peoples of the earth come to worship him. I had to say that, anyways…
Let’s recap quickly the genealogy of Nimrod:
Noah begot Ham. Ham had four sons – Canaan, Cush, Mizraim, and Phut. Nimrod was a son of Cush. Remember that Canaan is the one specifically mentioned in the curse of Noah in Genesis 9.
But let’s continue with Hugh Nibley (emphasis bolded again):
“The Apocryphal writers, Jewish and Christian, have a good deal to say about this garment. (“the garment of Adam” mentioned above). To quote one of them: “the garments of skin which God made for Adam and his wife, when they went out of the garden, were given . . . after the death of Adam . . . to Enoch”; hence they passed to Methuselah, and then to Noah, from whom Ham stole them as the people were leaving the ark. Ham’s grandson Nimrod obtained them from his father Cush. As for the legitimate inheritance of this clothing, a very old fragment recently discovered says that Michael (AKA Adam, the original owner of the garment) “disrobed Enoch of his earthly garments, and put on him his angelic clothing,” taking him into the presence of God.
This idea is interesting. When Enoch and his city were taken up to God (Genesis 5:24), he apparently received new “angelic” clothing. This clothing must have been Terrestrial while the garment of Adam given to him from God was Tellestial, as that was the world he was entering. This would mean the garment of Adam, which was handed down to Enoch, would have been held until…
“This garment of Enoch was supposed to be the very garment of skins that John the Baptist wore, called by the early Christians “the garment of Elias.” An Arabic “Life of John the Baptist” says that Gabriel (AKA Noah, which makes sense, it was stolen from him originally) brought it to John from heaven as “the garment of Elijah”. “It went back,” says John Chrysostom, “to the beginning of the world, to the times before which Adam required covering. Thus it was the symbol of repentance. . . .”
So let’s recap. The garment belonged to Adam and was handed down to Enoch until it was taken from him when he went to Heaven. It was then given to Noah who may have had it stolen by his son Ham. It was lost to time until the angel Gabriel (Noah) returned to give it to John the Baptist. The part I want to focus on, if you haven’t guessed, is Ham stealing the garment from his father Noah.
“Incidentally, the story of the stolen garment as told by the old rabbis, including the great Eleazer, calls for an entirely different rendering of the strange story in Genesis 9 from the version in our King James Bible. They seemed to think that the erwath of Genesis 9:22 did not mean “nakedness” at all, but should be given its primary root meaning of “skin covering.” Read thus, we are to understand that Ham took the garment of his father while he was sleeping and showed it to his brethren, Shem and Japheth, who took a pattern or copy of it (salmah) or else a woven garment like it (simlah) which they put upon their own shoulders, returning the skin garment to their father. Upon awaking, Noah recognized the priesthood of two sons but cursed the son who tried to rob him of his garment.”
Does Ham’s taking of the garment of his father, trying to strip him of it, remind you of anyone?
“Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor”.
Moses 4:1
-Satan
Now read Genesis 9:22-23 considering this rabbinical story:
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
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.
It seems plausible that what Ham did wasn’t simple mockery. It seems he might have stolen something from his father. Shem and Japheth, wanting to be like their father, try to replicate the garment Ham stole. But unlike Ham, they return it to Noah.
Of course there are some unanswered questions with this theory – how did Ham get it back and hand it down to his sons if it was returned to Noah? Why was it Caanan cursed and not Cush or Ham himself? Still, there is something here that seems to add to this story of why Ham and all his descendants were cursed.
Let’s continue to theorize..
If this garment that Ham stole was the original garment of Adam, and signified the power, priesthood, and patriarchy of Noah, doesn’t that make more sense why he would have cursed Ham and his descendants? Noah might have sensed what Heavenly Father sensed (knew) when Satan demanded his honor. Ham might have desired power over those around him. This adds some new potential context to Noah’s great-grandson Nimrod’s story:
“Nimrod claimed his kingship on the ground of victory over his enemies. His priesthood, however, he claimed by virtue of possessing “the garment of Adam.” The legends of the Jews assure us that it was by virtue of owning this garment that Nimrod was able to claim power to rule over the whole earth, and that he sat in his tower while men came and worshiped him.”
The parallels to Satan continue.
The rabbis (through Hugh Nibley) continue:
“By an extremely common type of substitution, the simlah of Genesis 9:23 could very easily stand for an original tsimlah, a copy, imitation, pattern, or by an equally common type of transposition for Salmah, a garment or mantle, as in Micah 2:8. Even as it stands simlah means only a woven garment and can hardly refer to the original skin article. This is, apparently, the source of the widespread legend that Ham stole the garment of Noah and claimed to possess the priesthood by virtue of his illegal insignia. Ham’s descendants, Cush and Nimrod–both Africans, though Nimrod in his wandering moved to Asia–made the same claim. It is interesting that according to certain ancient scriptures which the Latter-day Saints claim have been restored by revelation in our own age, Pharaoh (who represents the Afro-Asian line of Cush-Nimrod) was blessed as to the kingship but cursed as to the priesthood, and he offered Abraham the privilege of wearing his own royal insignia in hope that Abraham would return the compliment by allowing Pharaoh to wear his priestly ones” (Abraham 1:26-27).
I would suggest the possibility that Pharaoh wasn’t just trying to get Abraham to return the favor by letting him where his royal insignia. Maybe Pharaoh was trying to get Abraham to worship him in his counterfeit insignia of the priesthood. Abraham ultimately sought after the true priesthood, not the counterfeit.
It continues…
“According to a very old tradition, Pharaoh coveted the priesthood of Moses exactly as his ancestor Nimrod did that of Abraham, and it was said that the Pharaohs of Egypt dressed in a skin garment “to show that their origin was older than time itself. (Note, Abraham’s refusal to make the exchange was the real reason for his being expelled from Egypt, according to apocryphal writers.)
Whatever the details, the priests and kings of antiquity certainly wore such garments, and the skin garment was often imitated in woven materials (see footnote below), in fact, the skin garment was itself held to be a substitute for a still older garment made of the leaves of the ficus religiosus.”
Footnote (pertinent sentences to this discussion bolded):
In later times the Egyptian priest wore “no real leopard-skin but a close-fitting coat of fine linen in the form of a leopard-skin,” H.R. Hall, “The Bronze Statuette of Khonserdaisu in the British Museum,” JEA 16 (1930): 1, cf. T.J.C. Baly, “Notes on the Ritual of Opening the Mouth,” 178. The Syrian Christians said that the garment given to Adam was of cotton, the “skin” of the tree, Eisler, Iesous Basileus, 2;34; this doctrine, they say, was known only to Moses, “who called cotton ‘skin’ because among trees it takes the place of skin”‘ hence the idea that John the Baptist took his clothes from trees. The Jews retained traces of the older garment in their phylacteries and in the Sisith, the four strings that every Jew once had on the edge of his garment, Ferris J. Stephens, “The Ancient Significance of Sisith,” JBL 50 (1931):59-70. Compare the Irham of the Moslems in John L. Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia, 2 vols. (London: Colburn & Bently, 1831), 1:104-05; 163-64.
I provided this extra information from the mentioned footnote because I found it interesting and it added more context. But back to the point –
It seems there is more to this story in Genesis 9.
What actually happened with Ham and Noah?
Was Noah’s nakedness symbolic?
Was there a cloak or some sort of clothing that held significance that was stolen?
We currently don’t know the answers to these questions but I find the questions fascinating.
For now I hope anyone reading enjoyed where these thoughts took them, as I enjoyed the exercise. Possibly there’s more to know and understand about this story of Noah and his sons. There might be a great significance to the priesthood power that the ancients so desired, a significance we’re only scratching the surface of.
One day we’ll know the answers to these questions.
