The curse of Canaan and the Tower of Babel (Genesis 9-11)

Episode 3a: The Curse of Canaan and the Tower of Babel

(Genesis 9-11)

God's post flood instructions

9 ¹ God blessed Noah and his sons and said,

Have lots of children. ² All the animals will be afraid of you. Do whatever you'd like with them.

³ Eat any living thing that moves, along with all the plants. ⁴ But don't eat blood.

⁶ Whoever kills a man must be killed by a man, because men are made in God's image.

The rainbow

⁸ God said to Noah and his sons,

^9-10 I am making a promise to you, your descendants, and all of the beasts of the earth.

¹¹ I promise to never again kill every living thing in a flood.

^12-13 And here's a token of my promise: I will set a rainbow in the clouds.

¹⁵ When I see it, it will remind me of my promise not to destroy all living things in a flood.

Noah, the drunk and naked

^18-19 The whole earth was populated from Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

²⁰ Noah planted the first vineyard.

²¹ He made wine, got drunk, and lay naked in his tent.

The curse of Canaan

²² Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father Noah naked, and told his brothers about it.

²³ Ham's brothers, Shem and Japheth, took a garment and covered their naked father, walking backwards and not looking at his nakedness.

²⁴ When Noah sobered up, he knew what his younger son had done to him. ²⁵ And he said,

Cursed is Canaan. He will be a slave of slaves to his brothers.

^28-29 Noah lived 350 years after the flood, and he died when he was 950 years old.

The descendants of Japheth, Ham, and Shem

10 1-32

The Tower of Babel

11 ¹ Before the Tower of Babel was constructed, all humans spoke the same language. ² At this time, everyone on earth traveled to the plain of Shinar and lived there. ³ They said to each other,

⁴ Let's get some brick and slime and build a tower that reaches to heaven. We need to make ourselves famous, so we aren't scattered all over the face of the earth.

⁵ God came down to see the tower that the people had built. ⁶ And he said,

These people are unified and have one language. If they can build a tower, they can do anything.

⁷ Let's go down and confuse their speech so they can't understand each other.

^8-9 So God confounded the language of the people who were building the tower and scattered them over the face of the earth.

The genealogy from Shem to Abraham

²⁶ When Terah was seventy years old, he became the father of Abraham, Nahor, and Haran.

Terah's familiy

^27-28 Haran, Lot's father, died before his father in Ur of Babylonia.

^29-30 Abraham's wife, Sarah, was barren.

^31-32 Terah, Abraham, Sarah, and Lot left Ur and traveled to Haran, where Terah died when he was 205 years old.

A few more words about this episode

Noah, the drunk and naked (9:20)

Noah was a just and perfect preacher of righteousness according to Genesis 6:9, 7:1, and 2 Peter 2:5, yet here we see him drunk and naked, cursing his grandson (Canaan) and all of his grandson's descendants with slavery because his son (Ham) saw him naked.

The curse of Canaan (9:22-27)

Noah (and presumably God) cursed his grandson Canaan - and all of Canaan's descendants with slavery. And since blacks were thought to have descended from Ham, this curse was used to justify slavery and racism.

Curses of Cain and Ham and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The story about Noah's drunkenness and the curse of Canaan was obviously made up to justify the mistreatment and God-assisted slaughter of the Canaanites by the Israelites.

DWB: The Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites

DWB: Barak and God massacre the Canaanites

The descendants of Japheth, Ham, and Shem (10:1-24)

I'm leaving out this genealogy, since it the usual series of begats. But there are a few things I'd like to point out about it.

Canaan, who was cursed by his grandfather Noah, was the fourth son of Ham. (10:6)

Nimrod, who was "a mighty hunter before the Lord," was the son of Ham's first son, Cush. He was also the king of Babel - the tower of which will be covered in the next episode. (10:8-10)

And, according to this chapter, many languages existed before the Tower of Babel. (10:5, 20, 31)

Were there languages before Babel?

When Terah was seventy years old, he became the father of Abraham, Nahor, and Haran. (11:26)

Like Noah who waited 500 years to have a family and then had three sons in one year, Abraham's father Terah waited seventy years and then had three sons in one year.

Abraham's wife, Sarah, was barren. (11:30)

Sarah was the first of many barren women in the Bible.

You might be wondering how long it was between Noah and Abraham. It turns out that the genealogy that we skipped in Genesis 11:10-26 has the answer!

Here's what it says:

Shem was 100 years old when his son Arphaxad was born. This was, according to v.10, two years after the flood.
[There's a slight discrepancy here, since Shem was born with Noah was 500 years old (5:32) and the flood happened when Noah was 600 years old (7:6). But maybe when you figure in gestation periods, it'd all work out.]
Araphaxad was 35 years old when Salah was born (v.12)
Salah was 30 years old when Eber was born. (v.14)
Eber was 34 years old when Pelag was born (v.16)
Pelag was 30 years old when Reu was born (v.18)
Reu was 32 years old when Serug was born (v.20)
Serug was 30 years old when Nahor was born (v.22)
Nahor was 29 years old Terah when was born (v.24)
Terah was 70 years old when Abram [Abraham] was born (v.26)

So counting them all up, we find that Abraham was born 292 years after the flood.