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When I used to go to "church", I stopped numbering the times when a pastor would explain what the awful "sin" was that Ham committed in Genesis 9:21-22. I've heard everything from a preaching of the perils of getting drunk like Noah did, or Ham going in and castrating his father, and even Ham committing sodomy with the "drunken Noah"....etc.

How on earth would this cause Canaan (Ham's son) to be cursed? I've even heard that Noah was ordered not to curse Ham, so he had to pass the curse onto Ham's son. Where is that in the bible?

It's very difficult to find an article on the internet (as my second witness) that explains it clearly and concisely without adding in rhetoric which distorts truth. What I copy and post, I sincerely believe to be true. When it is not, I will tell what parts of which I am skeptical...I don't find any here. Now you will know exactly what Ham did...and why Canaan was cursed by it.

This is a piece from an article written by Pastor Bob Enyart of the Denver Bible Church:

"Why did Noah curse his grandson Canaan? This boy’s father, Ham, saw Noah’s nakedness, and as a result, Noah cursed Canaan, who became the patriarch of Israel’s enemies, the Canaanites. The story seems capricious on the surface, in contrast to so much reasonable history in Genesis. Let’s take another look at what happened.

"Origin of the Caanites: The various tribes of Canaanites are listed in Gen. 10:15-18, including the Sidonians, Jebusites, Amorites, Girga****es, and Hivites. The Canaanites settled in familiar areas including Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of Gaza (Gen. 10:19). The hostility with their namesakes (and mixed descendants) continued right up until Christ for example when He resisted ministering to “a woman of Canaan” (Mat. 15:22). But why did Canaan and therefore his descendants become cursed? Reading the account in Genesis 9, many suppose that after Noah became drunk, Ham saw his father naked, and as a result, Noah cursed Ham’s son Canaan. I submit that is not at all what happened. For that story, at least on its surface, would be an especially arbitrary and capricious origin for Canaan, Israel’s great nemesis. Here is what actually happened:

"The Story is About Canaan: The story is about Canaan more than about Noah. As shown below, seeing the nakedness of a man is a common Hebrew expression for having sex with his wife (Lev. 20:11). Canaan lived a cursed life because he was conceived by incest. Noah’s kids, Japheth, Shem, and Ham lived for about a century in the wicked pre-flood world. The statement that “Ham was the father of Canaan” (Gen. 9:1 begins this passage, which then quickly repeats “Ham, the father of Canaan” (Gen. 9:22), as though the author wants his readers not to miss the relationship. The story ends with three mentions of Canaan including “Cursed be Canaan” (Gen. 9:25). The first chapters of the Bible quickly cover 1,600 years of sinful human history. Yet, there is no mention of intoxication until after the flood, until Noah planted a vineyard and became drunk. While Noah was inebriated, one of his sons, Ham, committed incest with Noah’s wife. Taking advantage of his father’s drunkenness, Ham, who had lived before the flood in a sexually perverse society, had intercourse with his own mother, impregnating her and thereby fathering Canaan. So because Noah’s own wife bore Canaan, the story twice clarified for its ancient audience that “Ham was the father of Canaan,” not Noah, as the earliest Canaanites may have misrepresented their heritage!

"Incest is a Curse: Of Israel’s nearby enemies, not all were Canaanites. For example, the Moabites and Ammonites were the product of other parent/child relations. Again involving drunkenness, Abraham’s nephew Lot impregnated his daughters who gave birth to the Moabites and Ammonites (Gen. 19:36-3 . Any child conceived in this way, regardless of mutational considerations, enters life set up to fail. Canaan had his grandmother for a mother, his grandfather for an uncle, his mother for a great aunt, his father for a cousin, and, worst of all, his brother for a father (half-brother, that is). Early humans reproduced with siblings and first cousins without harm because genetic deterioration had not become a significant factor. But mutation severity likely grew quickly after the Flood, moving God in the Mosaic Law to prohibit relations between close relatives (Lev. 18, 20). But even prior to the Flood, a parent/child relation would have produced a twisted family.

"Known Euphemisms are Unambiguous: As all authors and peoples do, Moses and the Jews used figures of speech. Some of the Bible’s figures of speech are euphemisms that promote modesty. For example, instead of saying that Adam had sexual intercourse with Eve, the Bible more politely says that “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived” (Gen. 4:1). And Moses writes, “the man who lies with” rather than using the modern and more crude phrase, “has sex with.” The reader who misses these common figures of speech will misunderstand the plain meaning of various passages. Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. And God through Moses used the same decency when describing other physical relations. For example, when prohibiting incest in the Mosaic Law, rather than saying, a man shall not have intercourse with his mother, Moses wrote that he shall not “uncover his father’s nakedness.”

" ‘The man who lies with his father’s wife has uncovered his father’s nakedness…’ Lev. 20:11

"When Moses also wrote that Ham saw his father’s nakedness, that was a respectful (and appreciated) way of reporting that he copulated with his mother. See how frequently Moses and the Scriptures use this Hebrew figure of speech:

" ‘If a man lies with his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness. … ‘If a man takes his brother's wife… He has uncovered his brother's nakedness.’ Lev. 20:20-21

"Committing incest with any female “near of kin” can be described as 'uncovering his nakedness' (Lev. 18:6), referring to the appropriate male relative, including the nakedness of your father (with your mother, Lev. 18:7), or your sister, granddaughter, stepsister, aunt, daughter-in-law and sister-in-law (Lev. 18:9-15). Of course, this can also be described in more literal terms as uncovering the woman’s nakedness, but it can also be referred to, idiomatically, as referring to the husband’s, father’s, brother's, uncle’s, or son’s nakedness. Her nakedness can equal his nakedness because as Paul writes, your body is “not your own” (1 Cor. 6:19), and from this perspective, your mother’s body belongs to your father. Thus:

" ‘The nakedness of your father’s wife you shall not uncover; it is your father’s nakedness’ Lev. 18:8

"Again, “It is your father’s nakedness!”

"Ezekiel used this figure of speech in this Hebrew parallelism:

" 'In you [O Israel] men uncover their fathers’ nakedness; in you they violate women…' Ezek. 22:10

"And Habakkuk condemns not the sin of homosexuality but of getting your neighbor drunk in order to seduce his wife, when he warns:

" 'Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to your bottle, even to make him drunk, that you may look on his nakedness!' Hab. 2:15;

"Habakkuk warns against looking upon a neighbor’s nakedness, which is just the slightest alternate form of uncovering his nakedness. (See also Leviticus 18:10, 14, 17-18; First Samuel 20:30 and Ezekiel 22:10-11.)

"So, understanding this common Hebrew figure of speech enables the reader to comprehend Moses’ 3,500-year-old account of why Noah cursed Canaan:

" …Ham was the father of Canaan [which is the actual topic of this story]… And Noah began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard. Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent [his own drunkenness left his wife vulnerable and exposed to Ham’s wickedness]. And Ham, the father of Canaan [repeated to emphasize the point of the story, and to correct any possible ancient misconception about the real identify of Canaan's father], saw the nakedness of his father [that is, he had sex with Noah’s wife, Ham’s own mother], and told his two brothers outside [as wicked people often brag of their sin, and as misery loves company, perhaps even inviting them to do likewise]. But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father [refusing to take part in what was apparently a rape, and literally giving her a covering, probably with an animal skin, and in hopes of beginning the healing process for her and their family]. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness [i.e., their mother’s nude body]. So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him [Ham had violated Noah's wife, which he found out from her and his other sons]. Then he said [after he learned of the pregnancy]: “Cursed be Canaan [whose father was Ham]…" Gen. 9:18, 20-25"

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I hope this brings more clarity to the story. Next time your pastor tells you that Canaan's curse was caused by drunkeness (and it partly was), or castration, or sodomy....you will know the truth.

Arlene