This is the second article in a three part series. You can read the first article here.

Lowliest Servant: Ham as Revolutionary

Introduction

Along with Jeptha’s rash vow, Elisha’s boy-gorging she-bears, and the baby-bashing crescendo of Psalm 137, few passages promise to wreck your morning coffee and quiet time like the sin of Ham–though perhaps more should wreck it than we realize. The story of Ham is unique not so much for its shock factor but its sheer complexity and obscurity. Indeed, this passage requires much carefulness and even more literary imagination–that is, the ability to recall and synthesize other biblical themes, plots, and symbols. Whereas, in the previous essay, the point was roundly negative–namely, race was not the point of the story; we will now here positively establish the second point that was introduced in article 1: though there was no curse on Ham, Ham committed a sin that brought about a curse on his son Canaan. 

Context Determines Content

In the previous installment, we noted that portraying the sin of Ham and the blessing of Shem and Japheth as racial is highly dubious at best and even outright fallacious at worst. Beyond those arguments, we must now consider the simple fact that when we approach the stories of the Noahic epoch, we are working within a specific redemptive-historical context. 

There are two aspects to the Noahic context–one macro, one micro. The macro-context of the Noahic epoch is the wilderness wanderings of Israel. Though this may sound anachronistic at first, consider when and by whom this story is being written. Jesus tells us that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. When did he write it? Our options are very limited. It is unlikely that he was writing during his forty years of Egyptian education nor his forty years of Midianite sojourning. He certainly could have, but he would have had no reason to. Moreover, he dies outside of the promised land. So, Occam's Razor tells us to go with the simplest explanation: Genesis was written at the same time that Moses was commanded to write the other books of the Torah to form the historical background of Israel’s new liturgical-national arrangement (Deut. 31:9-29). 

But why does it matter? It matters because, if we are going to understand what is actually going on in this passage and draw legitimate and helpful insights from it, we must remember that context determines content. 

Canaan Rising

With the errors refuted and the context established, we may now note what is actually happening in this passage. Before the Hamite transgression, we see mankind over and over in scenes of violent grasps for power, each ending in a tallionic judgment. For example, Adam wishes to be the arbiter of judgment by taking forbidden produce, thus he is made subject to a curse mediated by the thorny fruit; Cain desires to be the gate-keeper of Eden instead of his brother’s keeper, thus he is made a wanderer; Nimrods wants the power of political-liturgical unity in Babel, but he brings political-liturgical confusion across the earth. This tallionic pattern is important to note since one of the most widespread interpretations of Ham’s sin is that it involves some sort of paternal molestation, formed based on a misreading of “saw his father’s nakedness” as a case of “lay[ing] bare the nakedness” of a family member, which was prohibited on pain of expulsion in Leviticus 18.[1] Beyond the point that these verses are not linguistically related, if this were a case of familial incest, the punishment would not fit the crime. As Noah was taught by Yahweh to punish blood-shedding with bloodletting, Noah would not have cursed Canaan with subjugation in return for some sort of copulation; the divine standard of talionic justice would be broken. Instead, we must remember that in this scene we are explicitly told about the occasion of the transgression: a garment removed and a garment restored. In Genesis and beyond, garments or mantles are symbols of royal authority.[2] Like his ancestors and progeny, what Ham, a distorted image bearer, wants primarily is not pleasure but power. Furthermore, the fact that the response of the brothers is to re-robe their father is a symbolic act that shows their unwillingness to conspire with their brother against the authority of their father.[3] Ham’s sin is, thus, revolutionary. Seeking domination–absolute, autonomous liberation–by revolution, he finds subjugation. 

This further explains why the curse falls on Canaan, his son. Isn’t this unjust? Doesn’t it violate Ezekiel 18:20? Again, keep in mind the context; what is going on here is either a prospective or reactive curse on a rising civilization to keep them from replicating the ways of Ham, just as the civilization of Enoch replicated Cain’s murderous ways (Gen. 4:17ff). Just as the soon-coming institution of circumcision was to be a stifling of the fleshly virility of Abraham’s impatience (Gen. 16-17), the subjugation is meant to be a stifling of the either blatant or burgeoning tyranny of Ham’s youngest son. 

For all through Scripture, the sinful bent of non-eldest sons is to usurp their older siblings. Think of the troublemakers in covenant history: Ham, Noah’s middle son (Gen. 9:18); Canaan and Nimrod, the youngest of their clans (Gen. 10:6-9); and loathsome Amalek, a bastard offspring of Esau’s firstborn (Gen. 36:10-12). The non-eldest and especially the youngest sons must always push down the impatient unbelief that God would never let them suffer under the hands of supposedly inept and implacable prodigals and is, instead, calling the younger to rise up and overthrow the elder.[4] This pattern is even seen in Israel. When the youngest son Benjamin is declared, by patriarchal pronouncement of Jacob, to be “a ravenous wolf . . . devouring the prey . . . dividing the spoil” (Gen. 49:27), the prophecy is fulfilled later when a Levite (the tribe of priests) brings a Judean prostitute (the tribe of kings) into their territory and, after murdering her, the entire tribe of Benjamin “came together out of the cities to Gibeah to go out to battle against the people of Israel” (Judges 20:14).[5] 

Thus, the curse on Canaan by the sin of Ham is God’s plan to circumvent the sinful pattern of the younger brother until the final Younger Brother of humanity could undo this pattern not by law but by grace, by self-sacrifice rather than self-assertion (Gal. 3:19ff). 

Conclusion 

Situated in the proper redemptive-historical context, the sin of Ham plainly shows itself to be revolutionary rather than either racial or sexual in nature. This passage, thus, has much more contemporary application than we first expect. It means, at least, that legitimate authority may never be usurped no matter how liberal, drunken, or foolish it may seem at a given moment.[6] God works His righteousness in the world through our patiently bearing with the corrupt and contemptible powers by miraculously delivering us from them. Consider the narratives of the exodus, David’s refusal to kill the tyrant Saul when he had two chances to do so, or the crucifixion of the Son of God Himself. It means, likewise, that those who are most susceptible to this revolutionary tendency are those of little esteem. Therefore, in a negative-world culture, in which the Church is afflicted with both inept, unqualified rulers and held in little esteem by those rulers, the Body of Christ must be on guard against falling for the revolutionary tactics of Ham and embrace the biblical pattern of faithful suffering, which always leads to a public, glorious vindication. 

[1]Moreover, recall that in chapter 19 Abraham’s two daughters commit incest with their father, and Scripture makes that sin explicit: “They made their father drink wine . . . Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father” (Gen. 19:30-38). Moses would have no reason to be so cryptic in one scene but so blunt in another only a page-turn apart. Further, the sin of Lev. 20:17 is not in seeing but in taking the nakedness seen.

[2]Think of the symbolic force of Joseph’s triple robbing, the story of Ahijah’s object lesson about the divided kingdom of Jeroboam (1 Kings 11), or Jesus’ mock-robe during his trial.  

[3]Literally, they uphold the authority of their head (Noah), represented by the garment, upon their shoulders (Gen. 9:24). 

[4]We may also speculate, though not without warrant, that this was the entire motivation to call Abram away from Haran. As the middle son–a new Ham!–of Terah, Abram’s temptation to the tyranny of the younger brother through ruling the city named for his eldest brother is circumvented by his faith in Yahweh’s Word.

[5]Even on a meta-historical scale, the nation of Israel is the youngest brother of humanity in terms of civilization. Indeed, when Israel settles in Canaan permanently, all other nations of the world already have ancient roots. The Noahic covenant is in force over four hundred years before the Abrahamic covenant, eight hundred years before the Mosaic, and twelve hundred years before the Davidic. This explains why Levi (through Abraham) pays tithes to the Noahic priest-king Melchizedek (Heb. 7:9), why Moses learns how to govern his nations of priests from Jethro the Midianite priest (cf. Ex. 3; 18), why David and Solomon must employ the nations who have more material blessing than they do in order to build the temples (1 Kings 5-7; 2 Chron. 2; Ezra 1ff). Israel is called to complete rather than replace the Noahic blessing over all of humanity. Yet Israel, youngest of humanity in terms of covenant and civilization, seeks constantly to usurp the Gentiles, whom they were called to serve, by the most insidious means possible–namely, pretending that God, the Father of All (Acts 17:26), only loved them and repeatedly asking him to judge them on their behalf (1 Maccabees 5:7; 3 Maccabees 5:13; Rom. 1:28-2:3). Thus, in the mysterious providence of God, Israel becomes the ultimate Hamite usurper.  

[6]Civil disobedience, which is legitimate for God’s or conscience's sake (Acts 5:29), is not in view here–only what we would consider “violent revolution.” The former accepts the unjust consequences of state-sanctioned punishment while the latter bucks it.

Gage Crowder teaches literature and Bible at Providence Classical School in Huntsville, Alabama. In addition to his studies at Birmingham Theological Seminary, he is a contributing member of the Huntsville Literary Association and the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. His poetry and prose can be found in the The Legend, Poem Magazine, the Birmingham Arts Journal, Panoply and elsewhere.