What Are the Implications of Noah's Curse?

WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF NOAH’S CURSE? Written by John Piper. The curse that Noah spoke over some of the descendants of his son Ham in Genesis 9:25 is irrelevant in deciding how the dark-skinned people are to be viewed and treated. Over the centuries, some people have tried to prove that the black race is destined by God to be subservient to other races because of Noah’s words over his son Ham, who was the father of the African peoples.1 Let’s look at the actual text of Scripture, and then I will give three reasons why it does not prescribe how the peoples of Africa are to be viewed and treated. Recall that Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The key text is Genesis 9:21–25 (nasb): And [Noah] drank of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. So he said, “Cursed be [or will be] Canaan; a servant of servants He shall be to his brothers.” Now notice three things. 1) Noah’s Curse Falls upon Ham’s Son Canaan First, Noah takes this occasion of the sin of his son Ham, and uses it to make a prediction about the posterity of Ham’s youngest son, Canaan. Gordon Wenham asks, “Why should Noah have cursed Canaan, Ham’s son, and not Ham himself?” He answers, “The question has baffled commentators for centuries, and there is no obvious answer.”2 But Bruce Waltke seems to me to put the pieces together for a probable explanation. Why Canaan rather than Ham? Since the curses and blessings on the three sons have their descendants in view, it is not strange that the curse falls on Ham’s son rather than on Ham himself (9:18–22), especially since God has already blessed this righteous survivor of the Flood (9:1). As the youngest son wrongs his father, so the curse will fall on his youngest son, who presumably inherits his moral decadence (see Lev. 18:3; Deut. 9:3).3 SHALL THE SONS BE PUNISHED FOR THE FATHER’S SINS? Those last words are important: “. who presumably inherits his moral decadence.” The reason they are important is that there are passages of Scripture that warn against punishing the son for the sins of the father. For example, “The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son” (Ezek. 18:20, cf. Jer. 31:30; 2 Kings 14:6). But, on the other hand, there are passages that say, “The Lord . [visits] the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Ex. 34:6–7). The reasons these two passages are not a contradiction is that when God visits the sins of the fathers on a following generation, it happens because that generation becomes sinful like their fathers. They are real sinners. That’s why God says in Exodus 20:5, “I the Lord . [visit] the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.” We are not told how the fathers’ sins become the children’s sins. But what we are told is that when the father’s sins are visited on the children, it is because the children are really sinful. That is the form in which the fathers’ sins are visited. Therefore, all judgment is really deserved by the person who is punished. Moreover, the spread of condemnation from one generation to the next can be broken. Leviticus 26:40–42 reminds us, “If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers . if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob.” This is because of the precious words of Exodus 34:6–7, which are made possible finally because of the death of Christ, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.” When Waltke says that Ham’s son Canaan inherits his father’s moral decadence, he points to the fact that any punishments that will come upon Canaan for Ham’s sin will be really deserved. There are mysteries in how sin moves from one generation to the next, but what we know from Scripture is that those who are punished by God deserve the pun- ishment because of their own sin. Thus the Jewish scholar Umberto Cassuto says of the descendants of Ham’s son Canaan, “The Canaanites were to suffer the curse and the bondage not because of the sins of Ham, but because they themselves acted like Ham, because of their own transgressions, which resembled those attributed to Ham in this allegory.”4 Cassuto, I think, goes too far in saying “not because of the sins of Ham.” But he is right to say, “but because they themselves acted like Ham.” Mysterious as it is, both are true. CANAAN WAS NOT THE FATHER OF AFRICA So in sum, Ham had four sons, according to Genesis 10:6 (nasb): “The sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim and Put and Canaan.” Broadly speaking, Cush was probably the ancestor of the peoples of Ethiopia; Mizraim was the ancestor of the Egyptians; and Put was the ancestor of the peoples of northern Africa, the Libyans. But Canaan is the one son of the four who is not the ancestor of African peoples. According to Genesis 10:15–18 (nasb), the descendants of Canaan were inhabitants of the land that took his name. “And Canaan became the father of Sidon, his first-born, and Heth and the Jebusite and the Amorite and the Girgashite and the Hivite and the Arkite and the Sinite and the Arvadite and the Zemarite and the Hamathite.” All those peoples were the inhabitants of Canaan and its vicinity, not Africa. Thus the prediction of Noah came true when the Canaanite nations were driven out or subjugated by the Israelites because of their wickedness (Deut. 9:4–5). AN UNWARRANTED SUPPOSITION Nevertheless, a stream of interpretation continues to find in this text an explanation and even warrant for the slavery of Africans in history. For example, C. F. Keil stretches the curse on Canaan to cover all of Ham’s heirs like this: Although this curse was expressly pronounced upon Canaan alone, the fact that Ham had no share in Noah’s blessing, either for himself or his other sons [Gen. 9:26–27], was a sufficient proof that his whole family was included by implication in the curse, even if it was to fall chiefly upon Canaan. And history confirms the supposition. The Canaanites were partly exterminated, and partly subjected to the lowest form of slavery, by the Israelites, who belonged to the family of Shem. The remainder of the Hamitic tribes either shared the same fate, or still sigh, like the negroes, for example, and other African tribes, beneath the yoke of the most crushing slavery.5 From what we have seen, this “supposition” of Keil is not warranted. The text focuses our attention on Canaan, not on the other sons of Ham, and the history of Israel in the conquest of the Promised Land (the land of Canaan) shows how relevant this focus was. 2) Noah’s Curse Is Not about Individuals Second, the predicted curse of Noah does not dictate how God’s people should treat individual Canaanites—or any other group. For example, five chapters later, in Genesis 14:18, Abraham, the descendant of Seth, meets a native Canaanite named Melchizedek, who was a righteous man and “priest of God Most High” and who blessed Abraham. Abraham gave him a tenth of his spoils. So not even the fact that God ordains to bring judgment on evil nations dictates for us how we are to treat individuals in those nations. Our treatment of others is based not on what God’s sovereign providence designs but on what God’s moral law commands and what the gospel of Jesus implies. For example, even though God’s providence designed that Jesus be betrayed, that does not give a warrant to anyone to betray him: “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed!” (Matt. 26:24). So God may destine a group of people, like the Canaanites, to experience idolatry and judgment, but that does not warrant anyone to commit idolatry or entice anyone to idolatry. The fact that the Canaanites were appointed for subjugation does not justify any man to subjugate them. Whether that is permitted or commanded will depend on other factors. Divine providence does not define human duty.6 3) God Plans Redemption for All Nations In Genesis 12, God sets in motion a great plan of redemption for all the nations to rescue them from this and every other curse of sin and judgment.

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