UBF Daily Bread

NOAH'S SONS

Passage: Genesis 9:18~29

Key verse: 23

The Sons of Noah

¹⁸The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth.^(A) (Ham was the father of Canaan.)^(B) ¹⁹These were the three sons of Noah,^(C) and from them came the people who were scattered over the whole earth.^(D)

²⁰Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded^[a] to plant a vineyard. ²¹When he drank some of its wine,^(E) he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. ²²Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked^(F) and told his two brothers outside. ²³But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father’s naked body. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father naked.

²⁴When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, ²⁵he said,

“Cursed^(G) be Canaan!^(H)
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers.^(I)”

²⁶He also said,

“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Shem!^(J)
    May Canaan be the slave^(K) of Shem.
²⁷May God extend Japheth’s^[b] territory;^(L)
    may Japheth live in the tents of Shem,^(M)
    and may Canaan be the slave of Japheth.”

²⁸After the flood Noah lived 350 years. ²⁹Noah lived a total of 950 years, and then he died.^(N)

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Footnotes

Genesis 9:20 Or soil, was the first
Genesis 9:27 Japheth sounds like the Hebrew for extend.

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Source: BibleGateway

1. Noah became drunk (18-21)

Noah was blessed by God to start a new history with the rainbow covenant. He planted a vineyard. He became accidentally drunk from the wine. He lay uncovered inside his tent. When God blesses, we need to be more careful. When God blessed David with many victories, his heart was complacent and was tempted to commit adultery. But Jesus never gave Satan any chance to tempt him by going to pray always after big successes and events (John 8:1). In the same way, we must pray continually (1 The 5:17), for our enemy Satan is like a prowling lion to devour anyone. (1 Pet 5:8)

2 Noah's curse (22-29).

The behavior of Ham, the father of Canaan, is sharply contrasted with that of Shem and Japheth toward their father's fault and mistake. Ham saw Noah's nakedness and reported it to his brothers. But Shem and Japheth walked backward not to see Noah's mistake and covered his naked body with a garment. Noah's curse to Ham's descendants shows us two things; the historical legitimacy of conquering Canaan by Israel; and we must cover the faults and mistakes of our leaders or fathers rather than point them out with contempt.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for covering our sins and shames with the blood of Jesus. Help us not to expose our leaders' faults with contempt but rather cover them with Jesus' love.

One Word: Love covers all our sins!