The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed by Brenda Rivera of Orlando, Florida from the tape, GC 1301-S, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 21."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. ©1982. All Rights Reserved.

Question

In Genesis 9, where it talks about Shem, Ham, and Japheth when they go in and Ham looks at Noah, and he’s naked and everything, and he goes out and tells his brothers, why was it a sin and why was he cursed? Why were Canaan’s children cursed just because of that?

Answer

There’s nothing specific there to tell us why. The implication is that he did something in there that was perverse, that was not right, sinful. That’s all we really need to know, the details of which God didn’t choose to tell us. He looked upon his father’s nakedness. It may have been lustful, it may have been a leering, it may have been a mocking of his father, it may have been several other things that we really don’t need to go into, but we don’t know specifically. But the indication of the text, by virtue of God’s response in cursing him, is that whatever he did was in fact very sinful. And it sets in motion, as all of Genesis does, the fact that God will bless righteousness and God will punish wickedness. And out of that of course God curse Ham and we know that those who descended from him became the servile peoples and then Japheth was enlarged. Most biblical anthropologists...I know Oliver Buswell III says, that he feels that that became the colonizing people that ultimately colonized Europe, they enlarged, they are the colonizers, and Shem became the Semitic people through Abraham’s loins, the Arabs, and the Jews. So it became at that point the division of God’s plan for the populating of the world, but it is clear that no matter what the sin was, that it definitely was a sin and God punished him for it.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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