5.2 Curse

5.2 Curse

Curse – definition: a prayer or invocation [calling upon] for harm or injury to come upon someone: imprecation [to invoke evil on]: evil or misfortune that comes as if in response to imprecation or as retribution [receiving of reward or punishment]: a cause of great harm or misfortune: torment [extreme pain or anguish of body or mind]: to use profanely [abusively] insolent [insulting] language against: blaspheme [address with irreverence]: to call upon divine or supernatural power to send injury: to execrate [detest utterly] in fervent and often profane terms: to bring great evil upon: afflict [to cause persistent suffering or anguish  ]: swear ‹cursing loudly›. Merriam-Webster Dictionary

 American Standard Version

 Genesis 9:20 - 27.

Comment: In this story, Noah began to be a farmer and planted a vineyard. He drank too much wine and got drunk. He took off all his clothes in his tent.

 Then Ham, the father of Canaan (Palestine), went into his father’s tent to speak to him about something and saw the nakedness of his father. So, he goes back and tells his two brothers outside that his father was lying dead drunk and naked in his tent.

 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nudity of their father. And their faces were backward, and they saw none of their father's nakedness.

 Genesis 9:24. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done unto him.

25. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

26. And he said, Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant.

27. God enlarge Japheth, And let him dwell in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant.

 Comment: In the last verse, Jehovah falls in with Noah’s curse of Ham and the blessings of his other two sons and allowed the Canaanites to be the servants of their brothers.

 Is any of this fair? On the part of Noah and his God, Jehovah, nothing is done about Noah’s drunken spree.

 Is this why the Israelis are so cruel today to Palestine/Canaan/Ham? If this is so, what does it mean?

 If Ham (Canaan) knew that his father was dead drunk and lying naked, would he have gone into his father’s tent?

 How did Noah know what had happened with Ham? Someone(s) must have told him. Why did they do this? Wouldn’t everything have been quite right if there had been no squealing on the unfortunate Ham? Or is this, like the writers about Jehovah and the Israelites, just a human’s means of saying why all those things that went wrong with the earth and humans in the past are why things are as they are today?

 So, is this why people from the third world or who are not Semites are generally suffering or finding life hard? Is it right to harm descendants of the fourth and fifth generation, to be punished for something their great, great, great-grandfather had done? What about people like the Palestinians today? Do they have to pay for all these highly inhumane ways of the Israelis, because Jehovah said so? For a curse pronounced ten thousand years ago?

 What about Noah’s drunkenness? Or is that an excuse for doing foolish things?

 Genesis 12: 1. Now Jehovah said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee:

2. and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing;

3. and I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

 Comment: Here, Jehovah curses everyone who curses Abram. Why would anyone in the strange land curse him? Here, Jehovah is clumsily taking on the job of the wise Law of Karma. Does a real God curse? Look at what the prestigious dictionary of Merriam-Webster says about the curse.

  As we have said repeatedly, we are not telling or teaching anybody. We just ask questions. You must do the searching for the answers yourself.