And he said, Cursed be Canaan; Let him be a bondman of bondmen to his brethren.
Noah's words here are a curse, not a blessing, and they fall on a grandson rather than on the son who wronged him. Two questions press at once: why does Canaan bear what Ham did, and what does it mean to be a servant of servants?
This chapter began with God placing human government in Noah's hands. It ends with a sentence that fits the sin.
The end of this chapter shows that the man who first held human government could not govern himself. It is the old familiar story — man tried and found wanting, as always... The sin began with utter disrespect to a father... A man who despises the one he is bound to honour must come to shame and disgrace. He must be not just a servant but "a servant of servants." The highest pride always has the deepest fall.
The curse skips the offender and lands on his son. One writer sees restraint in that, not injustice.
When God governs the world, He does not confine Himself to the one person or generation involved in the offence... It was mercy not to punish Ham in all his descendants, but in Canaan. God is sovereign in judgment as in mercy, and altogether righteous. Canaan may well have played a part with Ham in the heartless insult and dishonour done to Noah... It was mercy not to draw everyone into God's avenging of the wrong, but to keep it within the smallest bounds.
Later history supports this reading. Not every line of Ham ended in servitude.
It may seem strange that Noah did not curse Ham himself, since it was Ham who failed to respect his father. But no doubt it was God who, in His government, led Noah... to visit Ham's conduct on his son. God had already blessed Ham along with Noah and had made a covenant with him — how then could He lead Noah to curse him?... Besides, we do not find that all Ham's sons became the servants of Shem; the curse fell upon Canaan only. It was Nimrod, Ham's descendant, who founded the great kingdoms of the East, and we never read of those kingdoms paying tribute to Israel as Canaan did.
Noah was not just venting anger at a family insult.
We must also remember that Noah spoke these words as a prophet. The later history of Canaan and his descendants fully justified his solemn words. The next chapter gives us the sons of Canaan. From them came the nations that lived east of the Mediterranean and just north of Egypt. That is how the region became known as the land of Canaan. Centuries later these nations were so vile in their gross sin that God ordered their destruction.
Israel's conquest did not exhaust the sentence.
No doubt an evident curse... fell on Canaan when fire out of heaven destroyed the guilty cities of the Plain for their enormous wickedness... Yet Scripture is plain that neither the curse nor the blessing is complete until Israel returns to the land under Messiah and the new covenant. Israel will be rooted there and blessed as long as the earth endures. "And in that day there shall be no more a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts."
That last line is quoted from an older translation, not the ESV.
Some have used this verse to defend slavery.
This is no doubt prophecy. Even so, it does not give anyone the right to make slaves of others. God authorises no one to put Canaan's descendants under servitude. But Ham did not submit to authority as he should have. So his descendants would learn by experience what obedience to authority means... Canaan's line is not the only one under a curse. All mankind is under one: failing to keep on obeying everything the law commands (Galatians 3:10). Therefore, let us not think we are better than Ham.
Centuries later a woman of this line came to Jesus for help.
She was not only a Gentile but from a race under a special curse. So she drops a claim of kinship that the most wretched person in Israel could make, but that was worthless for her. She bowed and said, "Lord, help me."... The truth fully burst on her, and she submitted to it. Her faith, already real, threw off its hindrance and became great. She gives up all claim, for she had none. She confesses sovereign grace, and receives the blessing at once.
- Dishonour. The curse traces back to contempt for a father. The man who despised the one he was bound to honour takes the lowest place of all: servant of servants.
- Restraint. The blow falls on one branch, not on all of Ham's line. Commentators read that narrowing as mercy.
- Prophecy. Noah spoke as a prophet. Canaan's descendants filled their land with the corruption that later brought God's judgment on them.
- Warning. The verse gives no one the right to enslave anyone. All mankind stands under a curse for failing the law, so no reader stands above Ham.
- Grace. A woman from the cursed line claimed nothing, confessed grace, and went away blessed. Grace had the last word.
And he said, Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem, And let Canaan be his bondman.
After the flood Noah speaks a prophecy over his three sons: a curse on Canaan, a blessing tied to Shem's God, and room to spread for Japheth. The middle line is worded strangely — the blessing is not spoken over Shem at all, but over the Lord who is called his God.
The verse comes at the end of a chapter where authority on earth was first placed in human hands, and where that authority collapsed almost at once.
The moral point at the end of chapter 9 is this: Noah abuses the blessing given to him, and so destroys all his fitness to govern. Noah gets drunk: this is not exercising authority. Then comes the wickedness of Ham; and then "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant."
Noah does not say "blessed be Shem." He blesses God — and the distinction is deliberate.
But Shem was blessed, or rather, the Lord God of Shem was blessed (v. 26). Of course we know that Israel came from Shem.
Throughout Genesis 9 God is called simply "God" as He restarts the world. The covenant name returns at exactly this point.
Then God begins the world again, so to speak (Genesis 9). But the moment relationship is in question (v. 26), we have Jehovah the God of Shem.
The next verse uses only the general name for God when it speaks of Japheth. One writer sees that change as a signal of two different favours.
The reader may note how fitting it is that Genesis 9:26 says "Jehovah the God of Shem," while Genesis 9:27 says only "God" for Japheth. There the meaning is enlargement in providence, not the promised blessing of a special relationship with Himself.
The name itself carries the point of the prophecy, and later Scripture picks it up.
Shem, meaning "name," becomes the family in which Jehovah, the Name, is to be revealed. Jehovah is the God of Shem. Soon we will see a son of Shem, Abram. His descendants become the keepers of Jehovah's revelation… He does not call Himself "the God of Japheth" but "the God of Shem." This shows Shem's supremacy. It is a far-reaching prophecy.
The line was honoured in real names and a real covenant.
"Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant." Abraham, Isaac and Jacob came from Shem's line, and God was not ashamed to be called their God. He brought them into covenant relationship with Himself. He will yet fulfil for their children all the promises He made to the fathers.
Yet the prophecy is not finished. Commentators here point past Israel's history to a fuller day.
Noah's prophecy gave the blessing to Shem. More exactly, the word was "Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem." So it has been. So faith knows now. And so it will be completely fulfilled, when Christ makes the truth undeniable in glorious results to every eye. This is not God's design either by the gospel or in the church. God keeps it for the age to come.
Shem's share in covering his father's shame stands behind the words spoken over him, and the same principle runs the other way for Ham.
The wicked and scornful son reaped the fruit of his evil in his own offspring Canaan. God remembered the reverent modesty of Shem and Japheth in their descendants… Even where salvation may not be present, God puts honour on obedience and on respect paid where it is due.
- Cause. One son scorned his father; two showed reverence. God remembered both in their descendants.
- Gift. Noah blesses God, not Shem. Shem's gift is the covenant name attached to his family line.
- Name. "Shem" means "name." God revealed His own Name in Shem's family line. It reached Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and God was not ashamed to be called their God.
- Reach. The covenant name marks relationship. The general name, used of Japheth in the next verse, marks enlargement in providence. Two different favours, one verse apart.
- Result. Israel's history showed only part of this. Commentators here hold that the full fulfilment waits for the age to come, when Christ makes the truth plain to every eye.
Let God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, And let Canaan be his bondman.
Noah's last words over his sons end with a blessing on Japheth: room to spread, a place inside Shem's tents, and Canaan as his servant. Three questions follow: what "enlarge" gives him, who dwells in those tents, and why Noah calls God here simply God.
Japheth's blessing is measured. It promises room on the earth, and it stops short of what Noah said over Shem.
Noah prophesied about him. He is not brought into relationship with God here, as Shem is. The prophecy foretells enlargement on the earth, and this has clearly come true.
That enlargement did not stay inside its own borders.
All history, even in the past, shows God enlarging Japheth, the great coloniser of the earth. Here he stands in the sharpest contrast with Shem. Japheth was not only to spread as a nation, as Shem never did. He was also to dwell in Shem's tents. Europe and the north-east of the old world were not enough. Neither was the new world of America, Australia, and so on. He must also push into Shem's tents in the east. This earliest oracle said so, and so it has happened to the letter, beyond anything human foresight could have expected.
Verse 26 and verse 27 use different names for God. Older translations print "Jehovah" where the ESV has "the LORD," and "Elohim" where it has "God." One writer reads that change as deliberate, and uses it to settle an old dispute.
Notice how fitting it is that Genesis 9:26 says "Jehovah the God of Shem," while Genesis 9:27 says only "God" for Japheth. Japheth's verse means enlargement in providence, not the promised blessing of a special relationship with Him. This gives a reason from the text itself, on top of the grammatical one, against an idea many have taken up: that the verse means God dwelling in Shem's tents rather than Japheth. If the Spirit of God meant that through Noah, would He not have said Jehovah Elohim, rather than simply Elohim?
Commentators have differed over who dwells in the tents. One writer names Japheth, and adds who Canaan must serve:
In verse 27 the "he" is Japheth, who "shall dwell in the tents of Shem," and Canaan shall be Japheth's servant as well as Shem's.
The tents are more than territory. They hold the promises, and Japheth's family came in to share them.
Have they not also dwelt in the tents of Shem? Not as mere conquerors, but perhaps, among other ways, as sharers in the blessing pictured so well by Israel's "own olive tree." In time this is where the adoption would be, and the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises. And here were not the fathers only, but the Son, the Messiah, whose personal dignity goes far beyond anything Israel has yet owned — to their own deep loss so far.
The nations that entered did so while Israel stood outside.
All the European nations come from Japheth. They have spread out to the ends of the earth, and they have entered into the favour that belonged to Israel. Israel, for the time being, has been cut out of that favour because of unbelief, as Romans 11 shows.
Beyond nations, the two blessings describe two ways of living that were never meant to be separated.
In their two blessings, Shem and Japheth give us two tendencies that often get split apart and should not be. Shem's is the receptive, contemplative life, and its danger is to drift into the mystical. Japheth's is the energetic, practical life, which, when it stands alone, tends to cut itself off from faith… Japheth's blessing is enlargement and dwelling in the tents of Shem. The practical life finds its true home in faith alone, and true service is only worship flowing out among men.
The prophecy took two thousand years to show its first signs. No power since has stopped it.
Japheth would enlarge and dwell in the tents of Shem. Two thousand years passed before the first signs of it appeared. Then Alexander, from Europe (Japheth's home), invaded the countries of Asia… Diplomats may plot and politicians may argue about it. They can no more stop it than they can stop the sunset. Four thousand years ago an old man said it would be, and it must be.
- Word. Noah's blessing on Japheth is the earliest oracle of its kind, and history has followed it to the letter.
- Gift. Japheth gets enlargement in providence. He does not get the special relationship with God that Shem receives.
- Reach. That enlargement filled Europe, the Americas and beyond, then pressed back east into the very lands of Shem.
- Entry. Dwelling in Shem's tents means sharing Shem's blessing: the olive tree, the promises, the Messiah. Gentile nations came in while unbelief kept Israel out for a time.
- Balance. Japheth's practical energy needs Shem's faith. The active life finds its home in faith, and true service is worship flowing out to others.