Month: January 2025

Week 1  Genesis 10

I was still thinking about the Curse on Ham. It seemed like a serious malediction: cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers. Bottom-of-the-Barrel Ham.
I still wasn’t sure why exactly Ham was cursed. But in chapter 10 I got to thinking about how the curse played-out.
In that chapter there’s a list of the families of Noah’s three sons: Japheth. Ham. Shem.
I looked at what was said about Ham and about his son Canaan:
Canaan was the father of Sidon his firstborn, and of the Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites.
Some of the names rang a definite bell for me – the Hittites Jebusites Amorites Girgashites & Hivites – I remember that they’re the names of tribes that inhabited the land of Canaan. They’re mentioned frequently from Genesis to Joshua.
There’s a cross-reference in the margin and it takes me to something the Lord said to Abraham: to your descendants I give this land…the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.
Only the Hittites Jebusites Amorites & Girgashites show up on both lists. But it looks pretty clear that they – Ham’s family – are going to eventually lose their land to Shem’s family – the sons of Abraham.
I’m still not sure why exactly Ham was cursed. But I see now how the curse was going to unfold – Ham’s land would be lost to Shem’s clan.

Note: quotes from Genesis 9:25 10:15-18 15:18-21 (NIV)

Week 1  Genesis 9

Sometime after the flood Noah got drunk and lay down naked in his tent. One of his sons saw him and went and told his brothers. For that he (Ham) was cursed.
I think there’s a bible-reader’s caution here related to stories like this that don’t give complete information. The problem is that with an incomplete story readers are tempted to start playing The Bible-Reader’s Guessing Game.
Q: Why Ham was Cursed?
A: I don’t know (but I’m willing to guess).
I checked several other bible versions of Genesis 9:22. They all said that a) Ham saw Noah naked and that b) he told his brothers. That’s it. Nothing else. Something’s missing. So I start thinking: should I guess?
I don’t know how many guesses have been made about Ham’s curse. Likely several. If I’m going to guess I should likely
a) find out all the answers that have been floated
b) evaluate them
c) decide which one makes the best sense
d) choose that one.
So now I’d have my answer. Or more correctly I’d have a guess-answer since the fact is that I still don’t know what Ham did (only what I just made up).
A guess-answer is likely harmless enough. It probably only gets to be a problem when I decide my guess-answer is an actual answer.
So I think a simple but useful bible-reader’s principle is to remember that a guess stays a guess.

Note: the story is in Genesis 9:20-27

Week 1  Genesis 4

Last fall I read through the NT and got a lot of detailed information about managing the Dark Side of my life. But even here in early-Genesis there’s a helpful clue about dealing with my instinct for badness.
After Cain had killed his brother the Lord told him: if you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.
[I’m concerned enough about getting an accurate read that I cross-check this verse in a dozen other versions of the bible. They use slightly different language but (fortunately) say pretty much the same thing.]
Anyway the key phrase for me was the one about ‘sin desiring to have me’ and the advice about me ‘having to rule over it’ (quite a few versions use ‘rule over it’ but others say ‘master it’ or ‘take dominion over it’ or ‘conquer it’).
The big (practical) question is: how do I do that? How do I ‘master sin’? How do I ‘take dominion over it’? Detailed advice to Cain is thin-on-the-ground but the Lord gives one applicable & doable recommendation: ‘do well’ (some versions say ‘do right’).
Q: how can Cain master sin?
A: by doing well.
There’s no doubt more to Mastering Sin than that. But Doing Well sounds like an excellent starting-point.

Note: quote from Genesis 4:7 (NIV) (plus Amplified & International-Standard-Bible & Living-Bible)

Week 1  Genesis 1-3

I started reading Genesis today and recalled a conversation with a guy about the days-of-creation (I realized pretty quickly that the guy figured the days-of-creation were literal 24-hour days – so I changed topics).
There’s no doubt the Creation Days in Genesis could be 24-hour days. The problem – and the question for me – is: are they indisputably 24-hours?
I decided to count up how many times the word ‘day’ was used in Genesis 1-3. I found it 17 times (‘days’ was used 3 times). I double-checked my count in my word book (‘day’: 17 times and ‘days’: 3 times).
then i looked them over. In Genesis 1 it seems a lot like ‘days’ are 24-hours long. But then in chapter 2 it says: this is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven. So ‘day’ here means something other than a 24-hour day – more like six days. A 144-hour ‘day’.
I flipped over to the dictionary in the back of the word book to see what the word ‘day’ meant. There were about 75 different ways the word ‘day’ was used in the bible (a lot looked like 24-hour days. But there were quite a few exceptions too).
Meaning my Happy New Year’s Day began with a question – not an answer.

Note: quote from Genesis 2:4 (NASB). Word book: NASB Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.