Why did Noah get drunk after the flood?

Noah's departure from God was not what Nebuchadnezzar's has been; but it was as real, if not so manifest. We have in him the beginning, — the root, and not the full ripe fruit. A root is not manifest; but it is what the other springs from. Noah's failure is easily read as the unguarded enjoyment of blessings away from the restraining presence of Him whose gifts they are. But this is the very secret of a departure the limit of which is then only with God and not with man. The soul has lost its anchorage, and cannot choose but drift. Noah is drunk, loses his garment, and is naked. In many points it is the Eden-scene repeated. This nakedness is matter of contempt to those who are themselves wholly away from God, and who use it to their own worse shame and ruin. From this family of Ham comes, later, Nimrod, "the rebel;" and the beginning of his kingdom is Babel.

Few there are who have been so greatly honoured as Noah. Like his great-grandfather, it is recorded of him that he walked with God. He, by faith, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house. His grandfather's name and presence must have been a daily reminder of the judgment that was daily drawing nearer. We can well believe that those last five years between the death of his father and grandfather, years in which the ark was nearing completion, must also have been years of very earnest testifying, by that ancient "preacher of righteousness". And then came that death which opened the way for the flood. And then the flood itself, with the utter destruction of friends, acquaintances, and all the world they knew. Noah's three sons and their wives passed through these solemn and terrible years. Those years should have left an imprint of solemnity on all that little family. But what is almost the first spectacle on which we gaze after freedom from the long confinement of the ark? We see Noah drunk in his tent, uncovered, and his son Ham mocking him. And one of those three favoured sons, delivered through the waters of the flood, now falls under a curse which lasts to the present day.

Who was to blame? Why did the son of such an honoured servant of God as Noah, fall under such a terrible condemnation? What he had seen and heard since childhood in his father's house and especially the last few years should have hindered him following such a wicked course. But, truly, who was to blame? How often must it have been forced home to Noah's conscience, "Had I not been guilty of that self-indulgence which made me drunk, then I would not have behaved in that shameful manner that subjected my son to the temptation that caused his ruin." Bitter, bitter regrets must often have filled Noah's heart, but they were vain regrets, and the bitter fruit of that day's self-indulgence lasts to the present moment. And Ham's second son Mizraim evidently went further than his father in the paths of wickedness, for an old writer says of him, "Mizraim was the inventor of those wicked arts named astrology and magic, and was the same person whom the Greeks named Zoroaster."

1895 353 In these verses we see the fall of him to whom primarily government was committed by God. Noah failed to govern himself by his abuse of God's creature, and gave occasion to such sin in his family as brought in a special curse there; instead of making good comfort "for our work and for the toil of our hands." It is the sad and familiar story of the first man; directly he is put to the proof, he breaks down. Nor does the evil terminate with himself. The vilest can see it and despise the guilty, where love would cover a multitude of sins. How deep the ruin where the shame of the father drew out only the contempt of son and grandson! But God is not mocked; and His moral government fails no more than His grace, which answers every failure of man by some better thing in His goodness and wisdom, while He judges impenitent wickedness as it deserves.

"And Noah began as husbandman (a man of the ground); and he planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took the garment and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward and covered their father's nakedness; and their faces [were] backward, and their father's nakedness they saw not. And Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done unto him" (vers. 20-25).

It is not merely the fall of a righteous man, and its wholesome warning for all time; for scripture does not withhold the profit from any. But there stands the humbling fact. God reveals the truth without respect of persons. Man was no sooner put to the proof, in the new trial to which he was subjected, than he is seen breaking down in the very point which he was responsible to maintain intact before God and his own fellows. Government over life and death was entrusted by God to his keeping; and he to whom the trust was first made was beyond comparison the most suited by piety and by experience. Yet the next fact recorded of him is that, doubtless through self-indulgence and unwatchfulness, he not only sinned himself, but brought God's ordinance of government into flagrant dishonour. And the sin and dishonour wrought not godly sorrow but contempt in his own household. His younger son Ham was as insensible to God's glory as to what was due to his father, even in such calamitous circumstances; he only manifested the wickedness of his own heart by the unfeeling mockery he put on Noah, and the ready desire to spread his father's shame and ensnare his two brothers. Their reverence was as plain as Ham's impiety, who forgot to whom he owed his life as well as his preservation from the deluge.

We may say then, that after the flood mankind was given under Noah a fresh start; But, as under Adam so again, failure and sin rapidly supervened. We have had abundant testimony to the fact that Noah was a godly man who found grace in the sight of the Lord, and he lived for no less than 350 years after the flood, as we are told at the end of our chapter, yet the one and only thing on record concerning him in all those years is that he planted a vineyard made wine, was trapped into self-indulgence, and became unconscious in drunkenness. The man most responsible now to control others lost control of himself. The age of patriarchal government broke down at the outset, even in the hands of a godly man.

This sad episode became the occasion of revealing the character of Ham, and apparently also of Canaan the son of Ham. Shem and Japheth acted with due respect to Noah, both as their father and as the ruler in the new conditions, whereas it was absent with Ham. Disrespect of authority, whether parental or governmental, since both were originally instituted of God, is a very grave sin. It leads ultimately to the setting aside of the authority of God, who instituted it. It is only as we give these considerations due weight in our minds, that we see how justified was the solemn curse pronounced by Noah, when he knew what had happened.

In verse 22 Ham is mentioned, and Canaan only appears as his son. When we come, in verses 25-27, to the curse that came from Noah's lips, we find it fell upon Canaan without any mention of Ham. This, we think, indicates two things. First, that Noah's sad lapse occurred some time after the flood; sufficient years having elapsed for Canaan to have been born and come into activity. Second, that he was associated with his father in the matter, and on him rather than his father the weight of the curse fell.

We must also bear in mind that in uttering it Noah spoke as a prophet, and the subsequent history of Canaan and his descendants fully justified his solemn words. The next chapter gives us the sons of Canaan, and from them came the nations that inhabited lands to the east of the Mediterranean and just north of Egypt, so that it became known as the land of Canaan. Centuries later these nations had become so abominable in their gross sinfulness that God issued an edict of extermination against them, and sent Israel in to inhabit their land. Only Israel's failure saved them from being completely wiped out.

Noah's occupation of farming was of course commendable, but anything may be abused and cause trouble. The man who was given the dignity of authority in government allowed himself an excess of wine and became drunk, and in this state was unclothed in his tent. This illustrates the weakness of human government from its very beginning. Why is human government doomed to fail? Because those in authority fail to exercise self-government. If one does not properly rule himself, how can he be trusted to rule others?

This weakness also leads to another evil, as we see in Ham, the son of Noah. He showed serious disrespect for his father. Instead of covering Him when he saw him uncovered, he went and told his two brothers (v. 22). This is the evil of despising government, which has become most prevalent in the day in which we live (Jude 8). Though governments often fail sadly, this gives us no right to reject or disobey proper authority (Rom. 13:1-7).

Notwithstanding all this high favour and special experience, as soon as Noah was left to the devices of his own will, under the influence of Satan he became a slave to lust. Noah followed in the way of Cain and turned his attention to the ground. As a consequence grievous failure ensued, and so it is in Christian experience. As soon as we follow Cain's way and become occupied with the earth, Satan traps us in one of his snares. Although Noah lived 350 years after he began to be an husbandman, his name is never mentioned again. He was alive throughout the whole of that Godless period which culminated in the erection of the Tower of Babel, yet his presence had no restraining influence on his descendants. They quickly caused the cleansed earth to exhibit the features which had played such a prominent part in Cain's world, and there is no record of his remonstrance. Men did not take knowledge of him that he had been with the Lord. Satan had gained the victory over "the preacher of righteousness." With what living power this episode comes home to every Christian, the oldest as well as the youngest. We do well to be watchful. "Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." (1 Cor. 10:12). Spiritual progress is no occasion for self-glorification; but that God should be glorified for His matchless grace and mercy. A Christian who has been forty years with the highest privileges and under the most favourable conditions for expansion of soul Godward is not immune from failure and is liable to fall into the snares of the enemy, even as righteous Noah did after 600 years with God.

Man fails with government as well as without it — not the governed only, but the governor. Noah, that is, man, is made manifest as utterly incapable of wielding the sword in righteousness before God; for he who governs must first know how to rule himself. But Noah got drunk. And so another point is brought out; man must have a ruler, and it is seen that he cannot be his own master. To demonstrate this is part of God's purpose, to show the absolute necessity for the advent of the Man of His right hand to rule the earth. For "man, being in honour, abides not." But when God's Man comes, "with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the nicked; and righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins." (Isa. 11:4-5.)

But there is another side of the world Abraham had to walk in. The very goodness of God brought Noah under the power of present things; he planted a vineyard and became drunk. If a man cannot govern himself, he certainly cannot govern his fellow man, and he was dishonoured by his own son.

Another very important principle introduced was the second referred to — government in the hand of man. Covenant was sure, for God is faithful when He binds Himself. Government was entrusted to the hands of men. Alas! this new trial soon has the same result as before. The government confided to Noah loses immediately its honour. The earth, under mercy, relieved (as Lamech had announced) by agricultural care, becomes in its fruits a snare to Noah, who becomes intoxicated, and his own son dishonours him; on whose race consequently the curse falls. This is given in view of the people opposed to Israel, the centre of God's earthly government, and of the relationship of God with that family.

In spite of what he had been in the old world, poor Noah in the new world got drunk, and Ham took advantage of it to expose the shame of his father. Man in the new world had not changed, the sin derived from Adam was still in his nature, and the new conditions of the cleansed earth had not altered his sinful nature. The wilful Nimrod and the tower builders of Babel evinced that man was still the same, and God confounded the speech of men to restrain them in their unlawful ambitions.