22And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. 23Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24When Noah awoke from his wine(A) and knew what his youngest son had done to him,
According to one understanding, we see here the first mention of homosexuality. Here Ham “saw [or uncovered] the nakedness of his Father,” and was then cursed by his Father when “Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done to him.” To uncover nakedness is a Hebrew idiom meaning to have “sexual relations (see Leviticus chapters 18-20). In Call of the Torah, Rabbi Elie Munk cites Hebrew scholars who also interpret Ham’s violation as “an act of pederasty” (p. 220). Thus Ham becomes “Canaan,” for whom the land of Canaan is named.
One school of Jewish tradition holds that the “last straw” of human wickedness which precipitated God’s action of bringing flood upon the earth, was the advent of “homosexual marriage (ibid.), implying that Ham had been corrupted by homosexual sin in the pre-flood society, and carried the vice like a virus into the new world. Significantly, it was Ham’s near descendants who founded and populated the Canaanite cites of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Redeeming the Rainbow
Dr. Scott Lively
