After the flood, God blessed Noah and his sons and told them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth. Even though Noah’s wife and his sons’ wives are not mentioned explicitly, we are assuming that they are also participants in this blessing, since it takes two to multiply. God told the survivors that the fear of man would be on every animal, fish and birds and they were all to be food for them in addition to the plants. 

God warns them not to eat animals with the lifeblood in them. Also He requires a reckoning from any person or animal that sheds the blood of a man because man, that is humans, are made in his image. 

God then established a covenant with the animals and people that he would never again destroy the earth with a flood. He made the rainbow in the sky as a sign to remind them of his promise. Then Noah and his sons dispersed from the Earth. Ham fathered Canaan. 

Noah planted a vineyard, got drunk and fell asleep naked in his tent. Ham found him and told his brothers. The brothers took a coat and walked in backwards to cover him. 

When Noah woke up and learned what happened, he cursed his youngest son and said Canaan would serve the other two sons. He blessed the God of Shem that Canaan would serve him, and said God would enlarge Japheth to dwell in the tents of Shem and have Canaan serve them. Noah lived another 350 years and died at the age of 950. 

There has been some intense interpretations of this section. Some have said because Ham means sunburnt (literally: hot, dark) that means he was black, so now all Black people are servants of White people, as a justification for race-based slavery. Others have said that Ham looking at his naked Dad is gay and therefore all gay people are also cursed. 

Remember these are Noah’s curses, not God’s. One should also be reluctant to use a wildly extrapolated version of scripture to justify mistreatment of large groups of people today. Especially since the scriptures just reiterated that all men, that is humans, are made in the image of God. Respect should be the order of the day for fellow image bearers, not racism, sexism or homophobia. 

Always farm responsibly