Awaken Day 2: Poor Noah Got Drunk

Yesterday we talked about the first covers. Today we are going to look at our first wake up story and our main passage of Scripture for this topic, Genesis 9: 18-28, Awaken Day 2: Poor Noah Got Drunk.

The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) These were the three sons of Noah, and from them came the people who were scattered over the earth.

Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father’s nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father’s nakedness.

When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, he said,

“Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers.”

He also said,

“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem!
May Canaan be the slave of Shem.
May God extend the territory of Japheth;
may Japheth live in the tents of Shem,
and may Canaan be his slave.”

After the flood Noah lived 350 years.

This is a very complex story in Scripture and originally it was passed down orally. Some scholars believe that some details were left out of the story when written down. When we approach this story, we are approaching it believing that the Bible words are inspired and that all the details we need are there, but we are going to do some digging. Let’s just see the basics first.

Introducing Noah

Noah, his wife, and his three sons and their wives were in the ark together.  When they exited the ark, they were the only 8 left alive, and they had to repopulate the earth.  Noah’s sons were Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  Ham’s son was Canaan.

Noah liked to work the earth, so he planted a vineyard.  After it was cultivated and harvested, he used the fruit to make some wine.  One night he drank too much and became drunk.  (His over indulgence of God’s blessings produced sin.)  He passed out, naked, in his tent.  Ham accidentally saw his father in this condition.  Then he went out to his brothers and told them about it.  Shem and Japheth took it upon themselves to cover their father up with a garment, and they backed into the tent and kept their face covered so as not to see their father.

Inevitably, Noah woke up and found a blanket or piece of clothing on himself.  Knowing that he was indeed naked when he fell asleep, he must have wondered how the garment got there, and when he questioned his sons, somebody told him what had happened.

So he cursed Ham’s son, Canaan, enslaving him to Shem and Japheth, while he blessed them.

Poor Noah – he’d just been the only man found righteous and had been invited to build an ark, take his sons, his wife and their wives, and was about to repopulate the earth. Perhaps, he was going to sit back and relax after all that hard work building the ark. In all reality some time had passed since he and his sons and the wives had left the ark, enough time for old Noah to have a grandson, actually many grandsons. Enough time to plant a vineyard and make wine from its harvest.

Tomorrow we are going to take a deeper look and see what this has to do with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Have you ever woken up to find yourself in an unexpected state? How did you feel? What did you do about it?

What are your initial thoughts about this story?