Dale Partridge - Genesis 9_18-28： Race, Nations, and the Curse of Ham

00:00:00.000 Well, this is Genesis chapter 9. Now, we started Genesis eight months ago, and so we've been

00:00:11.800 making our way through this glorious book of the Bible. Now, today's text is important because

00:00:18.540 it tells us about the origins of the nations, the origins of the nations. Now, Noah was,

00:00:26.260 in a functional sense, a second Adam. He was a second Adam in that he was a head of humanity,

00:00:33.340 him and his sons, and they were presented as covenant heads of humanity. If you look

00:00:37.480 to chapter 9, verses 19, it says, these three were the sons of Noah, and from these people,

00:00:46.100 from these, the people of the whole earth were dispersed. Now, we also know that God viewed

00:00:52.320 Noah and his sons as covenant heads of humanity because he used that same language that he used

00:00:57.300 with Adam, which was be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And so in the same way that

00:01:04.440 we understand Adam, and it's, well, I should say this, in the same way that it's important for us

00:01:10.420 to understand Adam because it tells us foundational truths about ourselves, it's important for us to

00:01:17.280 understand Noah and his sons because it tells us fundamental truths about the world and how the

00:01:23.080 world was put together, how the nations have functioned. Now, like all of scripture, Noah's

00:01:30.180 story is fiercely challenged and rejected in the world. Okay, a simple Google search pulled up an

00:01:37.140 AI response this week for me, and it said, quote, the concept of dividing the entire global population

00:01:43.760 into the lineages of Noah's three sons, Japheth, Shem, and Ham, is considered a mythological and

00:01:51.680 obsolete framework, end quote. So what we're about to study today and over the next few sermons

00:01:59.200 is under attack, and it's under attack because it explains reality. It explains reality, but more

00:02:06.400 than that, it explains order and station. Order and station. Now, if there's anything this generation

00:02:14.240 hates more, I can't think of something that this generation hates more than order and station.

00:02:19.500 We hate, as a culture, order and station. We are a people of equality, right? That is the banner

00:02:27.840 of today's generation. Not because we're so virtuous and we just care so much about everybody's

00:02:34.320 equality. No, it's actually because we are so sinful. We are so sinful. And yes, we are all

00:02:40.440 equal before God, all made in the image of God, all fallen in Adam, all in need of Christ the

00:02:46.380 Savior. All of us are equal in that dimension. But God did not create a world of functional equality.

00:02:54.060 There is not a world of functional equality. He created a world of distinctions. He created a

00:03:00.960 world of leadership and submission. He created a world of giftedness and ordinary and superior

00:03:06.820 and inferior and sick and well and honorable and dishonorable and wealthy and poor and blessed and

00:03:13.920 cursed. Every single one of us have felt that reality in our own life. We compare ourselves

00:03:20.720 to one another. We look up and we look down. We have pride and we have humility. We hate all of

00:03:27.900 these distinctions because we are filled with pride. That is why the world hates these

00:03:32.920 distinctions. It is because of pride. We are unwilling to humbly accept our God-given order

00:03:38.520 and station and the God-given order and station of others. We don't want to accept that order.

00:03:47.700 The inferior resents having to submit, while the superior refuses to lead with virtue.

00:03:53.600 we covet the place of others yet we despise those who occupy those places

00:04:01.080 we divide the world into oppressors and oppressed and what does it do it creates a world of chaos

00:04:09.660 it creates a world of frustration and resentment it creates a world of conflict among people

00:04:18.820 first corinthians 14 33 says that god is not a god of confusion but a god of order and peace

00:04:26.700 and i believe it's our responsibility as christians to bring order to the world

00:04:31.940 there is nobody else that is going to bring order to the world you know this right 0.99

00:04:35.940 the lesbians are not going to bring order to the world okay the homosexuals and the 1.00

00:04:40.500 transgenderism the muslims the uh the liberals they're not going to bring order and peace into 1.00

00:04:46.880 the world they are bringing chaos and disorder and conflict into the world and our job is to 1.00

00:04:54.960 understand order and we need to understand order in every dimension of our life whether that is in

00:05:01.420 marriage and family whether that is in the church whether that's in civil government whether that's

00:05:06.940 our relationship to animals whether that is the order of the nations the order of geography the

00:05:14.900 order of how the world works. Now, we pursue order because what? Order brings peace. Order

00:05:24.760 brings peace. If you want to walk into a household that doesn't understand the biblical order for man

00:05:30.180 and woman, you will find not peace. You will find conflict. If you want to walk into a church that

00:05:37.460 doesn't understand authority and submission, you will find a place of conflict and chaos. You will

00:05:44.300 not find a place of peace. And when it comes to the nations, especially with today's mass

00:05:51.400 immigration and the chaos of governments falling and rising and pushing against and revolts and

00:05:57.900 resistance and revolution, there is very little peace. I think of the statements of the beauty

00:06:07.580 pageants. I want world peace. Well, we want world peace, but we don't want to understand the order

00:06:13.500 that would bring about that peace. There is little peace because there is little order.

00:06:20.800 If you want order, we must understand the scriptures for God's design for the nations.

00:06:28.420 In fact, I would argue that the church cannot properly fulfill God's commandment in the Great

00:06:34.060 Commission to disciple the nations if we don't understand what a nation is. That is very important.

00:06:41.320 And sadly, we know we live in a time that fundamental questions like what is a nation or what is an American or what is a woman cannot be answered.

00:06:51.480 Well, we know that they can be answered. 0.95

00:06:56.980 We just don't want the answers that they provide.

00:07:01.060 Two days ago, the news claimed that a Dutch man was arrested for planting a bomb in the Netherlands capital.

00:07:09.360 the man was an immigrant from egypt but the media what they do is they want to have a chaotic

00:07:18.660 understanding of nationhood of peoplehood and so they call this man a dutch man we know that

00:07:25.820 there was people in minnesota that were stealing money in the somali daycares they would say

00:07:32.480 a Minnesota woman got caught stealing money. Again, the chaos of national order is not because

00:07:40.380 there is no clear answer in scripture, but because we fear the Bible's answer will offend

00:07:47.440 the cultural sensitivities of the people around us. That is the vast majority of why we refuse

00:07:54.380 to speak the truth on whether it's gender, whether it's family, whether it's masculinity or femininity,

00:08:01.540 whether it's order in the household, order in the world, is because we fear that it will offend

00:08:07.000 the sensibilities and sensitivities of the culture around us. We fear man more than we fear God,

00:08:13.100 and as a result, we get chaos and not order. And for that reason, most people, especially Christians, 0.99

00:08:20.080 do not dare to say the truth out loud. Now, we are going to cover nationhood more extensively 0.98

00:08:26.760 in the table of nations in genesis chapter 10 which will be the third sermon in this small

00:08:32.180 series on nationhood that i am doing i'm calling it god's design for nations but for now what we

00:08:38.220 need to know is that all people are equally made in the image of god all people are born of adam

00:08:43.940 they're fallen they're in need of christ okay all people are equal in that capacity now according

00:08:51.280 to scripture, we are mankind. Okay? Mankind. Now, this is important because today, many people,

00:08:58.040 especially Christians, have heard this phrase, and they say this phrase, there is one race,

00:09:03.440 the human race. Okay? You may have heard this. There's one race, the human race. However,

00:09:10.820 the Bible never uses the term, the human race. That is, the phrase, the human race, is a modern

00:09:16.600 term that is used to downplay the ethnic and racial distinctions that god has providentially

00:09:22.460 created the other problem is that all of christian history testifies against that phrase all of

00:09:32.920 christian history prior to say 1940 testifies that there are three races there are three races

00:09:40.660 according to scripture and we encounter this humanity we have mankind and adam and we encounter

00:09:48.740 the first major subdivision of mankind here in this section of scripture right after the flood

00:09:55.560 the three races are made up of shem ham and japheth shem ham and japheth okay shem is actually

00:10:04.000 the middle child and he produced the shemites or as we know them today as the semites

00:10:09.140 and is listed first in these genealogies because of the preeminence and the fact that the Messiah

00:10:16.580 comes from the Shemite line. Ham is the youngest, and we can see that in verse 24. It says that he's

00:10:23.840 the youngest, and he produced the Hamites, which we will talk about in a minute, and then Japheth,

00:10:30.480 who is the eldest, which you can see in Genesis chapter 10, 21, and he produced the Japhethites.

00:10:37.420 okay so we have three lines now in the same way the israelites were a family right we know that

00:10:44.880 they're a family okay the israelites were a family and they descended from one man jacob

00:10:52.860 and essentially isaac and essentially abraham but they're one family descending from one man

00:11:00.320 okay in the same way we are going to see three macro families descending from these three men

00:11:09.800 and from Shem comes the Jews the Israelites and the Arabs and the other Middle Eastern peoples

00:11:17.520 today still to this day they are called Semites or Shemites because they come from Shem now from

00:11:25.920 ham comes the african peoples especially those from sub-saharan africa and some of the peoples

00:11:32.260 from india now from japheth comes the europeans rooted in the greeks the romans the celts the

00:11:40.640 germans the slavs as well as some northern asian territories and even some hispanics okay

00:11:47.580 now you need to know that very few people struggle being associated with the names

00:11:55.240 Shem or Japheth no one really struggles with that Middle Eastern people still are proudly

00:12:00.880 identified as Semitic today Europeans have virtually no resistance to the term Japhethite

00:12:06.160 but when it comes to specifically to the Hamitic people the Hamites generally the African population

00:12:15.860 this term is considered discriminatory because they claim it was used to justify historical

00:12:24.200 inequality. Wikipedia even says, quote, Hamites is the name formerly used for some African peoples

00:12:33.560 in the context of a now outdated model of dividing humanity into different races.

00:12:39.340 This was developed originally by Europeans in support of colonialism. The term was originally

00:12:44.820 borrowed from the book of genesis in which it refers to the descendants of ham son of noah end

00:12:50.980 quote now because of our modern departure from this historical conclusion of this passage

00:12:57.780 which was held by again origen john chrysostom augustine aquinas luther calvin matthew henry

00:13:08.280 john gill okay jonathan edwards but because of the political correctness of our day

00:13:17.240 i conducted all of my research using commentaries and maps and resources

00:13:23.840 prior to the year 1900 i had to find what was the historical position on this passage of scripture

00:13:30.300 not what is the modern you know political correct liberalized version that many churches

00:13:38.020 and scholars have come with today. Whenever we have done something one way for 1,900 years

00:13:47.140 or longer, and then all of a sudden in the 1960s, we changed our interpretation, I go,

00:13:54.900 I don't buy it. I don't buy it. And that happens with so many things, by the way.

00:14:01.100 So I wanted to know what the historic church and how the historic church interpreted this

00:14:06.840 passage of scripture and so as you will see the conclusion of this passage of what i'm calling

00:14:13.160 again god's designs for nations hinges on the interpretation of genesis chapter 9 18 through 28

00:14:21.180 and so we are going to well i'll say this because noah prophetic and this is why this is why it all

00:14:28.180 hinges on this noah as you will see if you read your have your bibles open noah prophetically

00:14:35.660 pronounces a few blessings and a curse upon these three macro families of humanity he gives a

00:14:44.740 prophetic blessing upon these three sons to get blessings one gets a curse and in these words

00:14:55.920 are clearly prophesied distinctions and stations one race will be greatly enlarged 0.89

00:15:02.600 one will carry the messiah one will be placed in a position of subordination

00:15:09.380 okay now deuteronomy 18 21 through 22 gives us the biblical test of a true prophecy

00:15:17.560 it says when a prophet speaks in the name of the lord

00:15:21.220 if his words do not come to pass then it is not of the lord

00:15:26.380 but if his words do come to pass

00:15:32.260 and i believe scripture and world history overwhelmingly testifies that it does

00:15:39.900 we must submit to these words whether we like them or not now it all begins with this scandalous

00:15:50.860 passage in Genesis 9, 18 through 28. So, verse 18. The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark

00:16:03.500 were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, 0.58

00:16:13.320 and from these the peoples of the whole earth were dispersed. Noah began to be a man of the

00:16:20.600 soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his

00:16:26.920 tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers

00:16:34.360 outside. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness.

00:16:40.860 When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said,

00:16:47.640 cursed be Canaan a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers he also said blessed be the

00:16:58.440 Lord the God of Shem and let Canaan be his servant may God enlarge Japheth and let him dwell in the

00:17:08.500 tents of Shem and let Canaan be his servant all right first I want you to notice that God does 0.58

00:17:16.560 not hide the failures of his people. Scripture often records dark moments, and today is a very

00:17:25.100 dark moment. We see Scripture recording Abraham's polygamy. We see Scripture recording the deceit

00:17:35.440 of Jacob, the murder of Moses, the adultery of David, and here, the drunkenness of Noah.

00:17:43.340 that god does not sanitize his saints now second this is the first mention of alcohol in the entire

00:17:52.200 bible and it is mentioned in the use of abuse and as we will see had noah not been drunk

00:18:00.660 the tragedy of this entire passage would likely have not unfolded and in fact i would argue in

00:18:08.500 The same way that Eve, her one sin and ultimately Adam's, brought collapse against all humanity because Adam represented all humanity.

00:18:19.680 Now, Noah's drunkenness and Ham's sin had a similar tragic covenantal effect that affected all that were down from him. 0.82

00:18:29.960 and what this teaches is that in a covenantal framework upstream patriarchal sin 0.57

00:18:39.180 has a massive downstream consequence upstream patriarchal sin has a massive downstream

00:18:48.700 consequence we can see that with adam we can see that here with noah and with ham you can also see

00:18:56.900 it with Christ and the opposite. Upstream

00:19:00.660 patriarchal righteousness has massive downstream

00:19:04.540 consequences.

00:19:09.340 Now I want to focus our attention on verses

00:19:12.380 21 and 22. The central

00:19:16.540 question of the text is this. What is meant

00:19:20.580 when it says that Ham saw

00:19:24.480 the nakedness of his father saw the nakedness of his father now you might be wondering like

00:19:31.140 why is this so difficult to understand dale this is like it seems like it's pretty clear he wasn't

00:19:35.560 dressed well you might not know that this is one of the most debated and discussed passages of

00:19:43.120 scripture in the entire bible ham just saw his father naked right no no it is much darker than

00:19:54.080 that. The reason this passage generates so much discussion is because of the severity of the

00:20:00.420 consequences given in verses 24 and 25. Look at verses 24 and 25. When Noah awoke from his wine

00:20:07.680 and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, cursed be Canaan,

00:20:15.520 A servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.

00:20:22.820 So it leaves us with three questions.

00:20:25.500 Three questions.

00:20:27.320 First, what exactly did Ham do to Noah?

00:20:33.260 We want to know the answer to that question, right?

00:20:35.240 What exactly did Ham do to Noah?

00:20:37.940 Second, why curse Canaan for Ham's sin?

00:20:42.980 third is the curse on canaan actually a curse on ham

00:20:50.060 all right today my hope is that i'm going to be able to answer these three questions

00:20:55.340 and in my next sermon i'm going to address three additional questions

00:20:59.380 which i will reveal at the end of this sermon so let's begin with the first question what exactly

00:21:06.600 did ham do to noah now we are asking this question because of three reasons

00:21:12.960 three reasons number one a drunken man lacks awareness of what he's doing

00:21:20.400 let alone the awareness of someone that has seen him naked okay so the fact that noah awoke

00:21:29.020 and realized that something had been done to him strongly suggests that more occurred

00:21:36.540 than a mere glance of accidental nudity okay number two the severity of noah's prophetic curse

00:21:45.320 on canaan and ham's line seems to imply a far more serious crime than simply seeing your father

00:21:56.240 uncovered and the weight of this kind of prophetic covenantal judgment i think it suggests

00:22:02.320 a deeper violation against noah three scripture never explicitly condemns a child or a relative

00:22:14.640 for accidentally or innocently seeing another person naked the bible nowhere treats nudity

00:22:23.240 as a criminal offense okay because of these reasons scholars have generally arrived at

00:22:30.820 three interpretations, and I'm going to present them to you for your consideration. The first

00:22:36.620 is the view of voyeurism, voyeurism view, which claims that Ham saw his father undressed

00:22:44.220 and he mocked him, maybe gossiped about him to his brothers. That's the voyeurism view.

00:22:51.700 Now, this is the majority modern view, but it's the minority historical view, okay? And the reason

00:23:00.380 i think it's so popular today is because it is the least intellectually complex conclusion

00:23:06.860 and i don't believe that we can think the way that previous generations could think

00:23:11.580 it seems to me similar to those that arrive at arminianism it sounds right at first glance

00:23:20.060 but once you start thinking systematically you realize that it's not and if this view is true

00:23:26.980 it is the only passage in the entire Bible where someone is condemned for visually seeing someone

00:23:33.820 uncovered. Its weaknesses are this. Its weaknesses are its inability to, one, explain the strong

00:23:42.480 language being used, two, to explain the severity of the curse, and three, to explain why Canaan

00:23:51.680 was targeted by Noah.

00:23:54.060 So it has a lot of weaknesses.

00:23:57.180 The second view is the sodomy view, 0.97

00:24:00.960 which claims Ham had sexual relations with his father. 0.91

00:24:07.600 Now, this view and the third view

00:24:10.380 both see the phrase,

00:24:14.040 the nakedness of his father,

00:24:15.660 as a Hebrew idiom for sexual activity.

00:24:21.680 several reformed theologians including luther held this position the strength of this view is

00:24:29.120 that it explains the severity of the curse and the strong language it gives context to noah's verse

00:24:36.400 noah's words in verse 24 that says noah knew what his youngest son had done to him

00:24:42.480 gives you some sharper context there it gives rational rational explanation for how

00:24:51.440 a drunken man would have known something had been done

00:24:55.740 because he would have physically felt the aftermath

00:24:59.520 of the sexual violation. So it answers that question, too.

00:25:04.700 Its weakness is that it doesn't explain

00:25:07.160 why the curse was still given to Canaan

00:25:11.580 and not Ham.

00:25:15.280 The third view

00:25:16.460 The third view is the maternal incest view, the maternal incest view, which claims that Ham had sexual relations with Noah's wife, his mother.

00:25:33.640 This view is held by E.W. Bullinger, Dr. Michael Heiser, Peter Leihart, James Jordan, Roman Catholic scholars Scott Hahn and John Bergsma.

00:25:46.460 I want to go back to this phrase, the nakedness of his father, the nakedness of his father. 0.75

00:25:53.060 And as I said, this is a Hebrew idiom for sexual activity.

00:25:59.480 The term uncovering nakedness, it's a euphemism throughout the entire Old Testament 0.77

00:26:06.040 for sexual intercourse, especially incest or relations with someone biologically forbidden,

00:26:12.700 like a mother, a sister, etc. 0.69

00:26:16.460 I'm going to read you four passages of scripture.

00:26:20.400 Leviticus 18, 7 through 8.

00:26:24.540 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother.

00:26:33.540 She is your mother.

00:26:35.320 You shall not uncover her nakedness. 0.97

00:26:37.340 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife. 0.83

00:26:41.140 It is your father's nakedness. 0.86

00:26:44.120 Leviticus 20, verse 11. 0.79

00:26:46.460 If a man lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness.

00:26:55.560 Deuteronomy 22.30 0.52

00:26:57.280 A man shall not take his father's wife so that he does not uncover his father's nakedness.

00:27:07.700 Deuteronomy 27.20 0.71

00:27:09.600 cursed is anyone who lies with his father's wife why because he has uncovered his father's nakedness

00:27:23.040 now at first glance i struggled with this because in our passage it says ham saw the nakedness of

00:27:32.320 his father, not uncovered the nakedness of his father. So I thought, all right, I'm going to be

00:27:39.680 a, I'm going to be an exegete here. It's not the same word, right? But then I found Leviticus 20

00:27:46.060 verse 17, which directly links seeing and uncovering as a synonym. It says,

00:27:55.480 if a man takes his sister a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother and sees

00:28:03.580 her nakedness it is a disgrace and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their 0.50

00:28:10.140 people he has uncovered his sister's nakedness and he shall bear the iniquity so there you go 0.99

00:28:18.220 it connected seen as being the same as uncovering

00:28:21.500 but there's more verses and i'm not going to read them because the sermon's already long but

00:28:26.620 ezekiel 16 36 through 37 also links seeing and uh uncovering together as well as ezekiel 22 verse 10

00:28:35.680 ultimately what these passages show is that violating your mother

00:28:41.480 is violating your father okay seeing your father's nakedness is sleeping with your mother

00:28:50.040 that's the hebrew idiom that is being used here now why well because under god's law a wife is

00:28:58.640 one with her husband right one with her husband so when you violate her you violate him

00:29:04.900 you cannot violate her without violating him you cannot see her without seeing him

00:29:12.520 now you might be thinking uh if this was more than voyeurism then why does verse 23 of shem

00:29:21.280 and japheth say their faces were turned backward and they did not see their father's nakedness

00:29:28.280 and you might make that oh it sounds like it's a visual crime

00:29:31.860 um to that i would argue that if the phrase is idiomatic on the front end

00:29:39.440 then we have to interpret the phrase as being idiomatic on the back end and so when the text

00:29:45.440 says that Shem and Japheth did not see their father's nakedness it means that they refused

00:29:49.460 to participate in the same sexual crime that Ham did now the reason I believe

00:29:56.740 this view is the most coherent has the most explanatory power 0.55

00:30:01.680 is fourfold number one the bible has more direct words for homosexuality

00:30:10.020 has a specific word for sodomy

00:30:12.400 and if the sodomy view were the true view i think moses would have used the word for

00:30:19.620 sodomy that he used all throughout the torah so that's one view or one point number two

00:30:25.020 uh the idea that ham would attempt to curse noah's line by producing illegitimate seed

00:30:37.900 is perfectly consistent with the entire narrative of genesis and the old testament

00:30:42.500 okay in fact we see this pattern over and over and over again cain his rebellion the nephilim

00:30:49.940 abraham's sexual sin with hagar producing ishmael the rivalry between jacob and esau

00:30:56.220 there is a consistent pattern that there is seeds battling all throughout genesis the godly seed

00:31:05.320 and the demonic seed over and over again and so this war between the illegitimate and legitimate

00:31:13.480 seeds it runs throughout the entire old testament so the idea of ham committing a sexual sin

00:31:19.540 with his mother to produce an illegitimate offspring, I think it fits squarely within

00:31:24.920 the systematic reading of the Old Testament. Number three, the Bible sees sleeping with a

00:31:32.660 king's wife as a form of dominance. Okay, this is what Absalom did to his father David. 0.68

00:31:41.800 Absalom publicly slept with his father's concubines on the roof of the palace as a

00:31:47.480 deliberate way to humiliate David and to demonstrate his dominance as taking over the

00:31:53.540 kingship. Okay, this is a way to disgrace the previous king and establish your own dynasty

00:32:01.140 in royal succession. That's how the old world thought about these things. And number four,

00:32:08.020 and most importantly, the maternal incest view is the only view that offers a coherent answer

00:32:15.980 for the curse on Canaan.

00:32:19.980 Okay?

00:32:21.360 Which leads us to the next question.

00:32:24.320 Why did Noah curse Canaan for Ham's sin?

00:32:37.100 Canaan wasn't cursed because of what he did. 0.63

00:32:42.040 Canaan was cursed because of who he was. 0.88

00:32:45.980 Canaan was the incest child of an illegitimate seed of Ham. 0.92

00:32:53.060 That is why Canaan was cursed. 0.92

00:32:56.800 But this leaves us with another question.

00:32:59.640 If Canaan is cursed, what about the consequences for Ham?

00:33:06.860 Like, why punish just Canaan and leave Ham with nothing?

00:33:12.580 now in the ancient world

00:33:16.660 a son was not viewed as an independent individual in the way that we think today

00:33:23.660 we are saturated in individualism and you need to get out of it when you read the bible

00:33:30.960 a son was the extension and public representative of his father

00:33:36.840 his name his honor his shame uh his future were all bound up in his father's identity

00:33:45.160 who is your father very important phrase in the bible

00:33:49.140 and this is why the names in scripture often carried their father's names you guys know

00:33:56.380 simon bar jonah right literally means simon son of jonah when saul when saul saw david fighting

00:34:04.920 against Goliath. He didn't ask, who is that young man? No, in 1 Samuel 17, 55, he asked,

00:34:14.760 whose son is this youth? Who is that man's father?

00:34:22.860 Saul wanted to know the father because the son represented the father.

00:34:28.260 it starts to make sense a little bit with the trinity here right the son represents the father

00:34:35.540 okay the glory that david won against goliath reflected directly back on jesse the father

00:34:46.640 now under god's order to bless so this is very important okay pay attention here under god's

00:34:55.640 order. To bless or curse a son was to bless or curse the father. To bless or curse the son

00:35:06.380 was to bless or curse the father. They are one. So this is the key to understanding why Noah

00:35:16.720 cursed Canaan and not Ham directly. Think about this with me for a second. If Noah had pronounced

00:35:24.560 the curse on ham think about this if noah had pronounced the curse on ham the shame of ham's

00:35:32.340 sin would have fallen on who himself because he is the father of ham okay

00:35:41.300 so noah placing the curse on ham's son canaan the shame and judgment would now fall back on ham

00:35:54.560 Okay, this is, again, getting our minds wrapped into the old world.

00:35:59.320 In fact, if you look back at verse 18, go to verse 18 in chapter 9.

00:36:06.460 Moses inserts this point with a parenthetical remark.

00:36:10.120 He says, Ham was the father of Canaan.

00:36:14.840 Now, just think about this for a second.

00:36:17.080 To Moses' original audience, he's writing this 900 years after the events that he's talking about.

00:36:24.560 This is a loaded statement, okay?

00:36:27.800 Everyone knew exactly who the Canaanites were. 0.85

00:36:32.580 They were the sworn enemies of Israel. 1.00

00:36:37.040 The wicked inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. 1.00

00:36:40.960 Okay, the people whose gross immorality would justify their destruction by Joshua. 0.99

00:36:47.300 So, when Moses wrote Ham was the father of Canaan,

00:36:52.040 he was essentially saying to the readers ham is the father of our enemies

00:36:57.480 that's basically what he's saying there ham it was ham who was the father of our enemies

00:37:05.500 so the curse on canaan was ultimately a curse on ham the curse on canaan was ultimately a curse on

00:37:15.360 ham it was perfect covenantal justice the fruit was cursed because the root was corrupt the fruit

00:37:24.380 was cursed because the root was corrupt now you see we have to again we have to kill off this

00:37:30.060 tendency toward individualism because in a covenantal framework there is no disconnecting

00:37:37.060 the curse of Canaan from Ham.

00:37:40.440 It just doesn't work.

00:37:43.800 So in this particular event,

00:37:45.420 the direct expression of Ham's curse was Canaan. 0.61

00:37:48.260 The effect was on Canaan. 0.91

00:37:51.760 But it was only on Canaan 0.95

00:37:53.280 because of the already existing evil of Ham. 0.51

00:37:58.300 Of Ham.

00:38:00.340 In other words, 0.95

00:38:01.280 while the curse was particularized in Canaan, 0.84

00:38:05.280 it didn't stop with him. 0.89

00:38:07.060 Canaan was simply the first and most visible manifestation of this curse on Ham 0.57

00:38:12.800 that would flow through Ham's entire line.

00:38:18.600 So if Ham, one of the three covenant heads of humanity, is cursed,

00:38:27.840 then his descendants to some degree, which I will get into the second and third sermons, 0.88

00:38:33.640 carry the remnant of that curse.

00:38:37.060 and scripture and world history testify to that and bear that out.

00:38:46.460 Now, the great antagonists of God's people repeatedly come from Ham's line.

00:38:51.940 If you just do a survey, I'm going to do a very small survey,

00:38:55.460 but if you just do a quick survey of all of the enemies of God's people, 0.97

00:38:59.600 they come from Ham. 0.79

00:39:01.960 Babel was the first organized rebellion against God, 0.89

00:39:05.940 and it was founded by nimrod he was a son of cush son of cush that's ham's other son 0.99

00:39:13.260 sodom and gomorrah cities of gross sexual immorality right they descended from canaan 0.92

00:39:19.740 egypt okay egypt israel's great oppressor and enslaver for 400 years they came from misraim 0.71

00:39:28.700 another one of ham's sons the philistines the amalekites the puts put is also ham's other son

00:39:40.160 okay the pattern is clear throughout scripture the major enemies of god's covenant people

00:39:47.520 consistently arise from the line of ham so the curse of canaan was not an isolated event

00:39:56.780 it was not an isolated event it was the first and most visible expression of a much broader curse

00:40:03.860 of ham's line now in my next sermon what i'm going to do is i'm going to look at the prophecy

00:40:10.000 on canaan right a servant of servants you shall be to japheth and shem right

00:40:16.220 and i'm going to answer the question does the servitude only apply to canaan

00:40:23.940 or does it prophetically extend to all the nations that descended from ham that's the next big

00:40:31.520 question that needs to be answered and together we're going to discover why giants of the faith

00:40:37.180 augustine chrysostom thomas aquinas luther calvin john gill john gill was the the he held the pulpit

00:40:49.020 before Charles Spurgeon, okay, Matthew, Henry, many of the Puritans, they all held this position

00:40:56.420 that this curse extended not just to Canaan, but to the Hamitic peoples, and that essentially 0.61

00:41:06.580 Japheth and Shem would reign and rule and have leadership over and influence over 0.94

00:41:18.100 the Hamitic peoples, even to this day. So in three weeks, when I return from travel, 0.99

00:41:25.720 because next week we're going to be at our outside service, and then

00:41:28.660 I'll be out of town for a Sunday. So on the day that I return, we're going to examine both

00:41:37.300 scripture, and we're also going to examine world history. And we're going to see if Noah's prophecy

00:41:47.140 has come true. And by God's grace, it will shape how Christians are to think about nationality, 0.92

00:41:58.080 internationality, the world, and order practically, morally, politically, lovingly, and Christianly,

00:42:09.380 so that we can understand how to bring order in a Christian way back to the world.

00:42:17.840 Amen? 0.65

00:42:18.860 Amen.

00:42:19.420 Let's pray.

00:42:20.640 Father, we thank you, Lord, that you have given us wisdom from the scriptures.

00:42:26.320 Lord, we ask that you would help us to be humble.

00:42:28.740 Lord, that we would look with open eyes, that we would see the testimony of your saints,

00:42:34.420 the testimony of history, and the testimony of scripture.

00:42:36.640 Lord that you would give us

00:42:38.720 a desire to know the truth

00:42:41.480 Lord that we might

00:42:43.320 speak the truth in love

00:42:44.900 and that we might rule according to your

00:42:47.680 son Christ. We ask all these

00:42:49.740 things in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Dale Partridge - June 02, 2026

Genesis 9_18-28： Race, Nations, and the Curse of Ham

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