\n<\/p>\n
God\u2019s command to exterminate the Canaanites<\/a> (along with everything else that breathes) remains one of the more gruesome stories in the Bible (see Deuteronomy 20:16-20).<\/p>\n This story presents readers with a real\u2014not imagined\u2014moral and theological dilemma, but my point isn\u2019t to get into all that here. [You can read more\u00a0here<\/a> and also in\u00a0The Bible Tells Me So<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>where I take a whole chapter laying out\u00a0<\/em>the issues.]\n<\/p>\n Here I just want to say that this command wasn\u2019t an afterthought. As the Israelites tell the story, the Canaanites were doomed from the start for something that happened nearly at the beginning of human history\u2014Noah and the great Flood.<\/p>\n This flood killed every living creature; only Noah and his family were saved in a big boat, along with enough animals (1) to repopulate the earth later and (2) to sacrifice to appease\u00a0God.<\/p>\n After the waters subsided and everyone de-arked, Noah planted the first vineyard, made wine, and got drunk. Like a state college freshman, he collapsed naked inside his tent in a drunken coma.<\/p>\n His youngest son, Ham, went into the tent, saw him his father lying there naked, and went out to tell his brothers, Shem and Japheth. Rather than gawking, the two brothers walked backwards into the tent and covered their father with a garment.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to know exactly what\u2019s going on here, but, apparently, the two brothers handled the situation correctly whereas Ham didn\u2019t. So, when Noah woke up, he did what any normal father would do with when faced with the same dilemma\u2014he cursed Ham\u2019s descendants forever.<\/p>\n It strikes me that the very first words out of Noah\u2019s mouth after he woke up weren\u2019t, \u201cWhat a night! What was<\/em> I thinking!? I\u2019ll never do that again!\u201d<\/p>\n Not even, \u201cHam! Get in here! How dare you look upon my nakedness?!\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, he said,<\/p>\n \u201cCursed be Canaan<\/em>; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Not, \u201cCursed be Ham,\u201d or \u201cCursed be Ham and all his descendants,\u201d but \u201cCursed be the line of one<\/em> of Ham\u2019s sons\u2014Canaan.\u201d<\/p>\n Ham has four sons, yet only Canaan\u00a0and his<\/em> entire bloodline<\/em> are doomed\u2014which seems a bit extreme, given the fact that he himself hadn\u2019t done anything.<\/p>\n Plus, two of Noah\u2019s other sons are Cush and Mizraim, the ancestors of the Egyptians who held the Israelites in slavery. So how about cursing their bloodlines?<\/p>\n But no. Only this\u00a0one son of Ham has his descendants consigned to a perpetual subhuman legacy of enslavement to the descendants of his brothers\u2014namely the descendants of Shem, from which come the Israelites.<\/p>\n If we read this in another ancient book, we\u2019d call it propaganda\u2014a story to justify<\/em>, not\u00a0explain, hatred of the Canaanites. At least that\u2019s what it looks like.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s later sworn enemies, the Canaanites, are set up as failures from the beginning, and no treatment\u2014not even extermination\u2014is too harsh for these people whose ancestor\u2019s father saw his father drunk and naked.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t going to end well for the Canaanites.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThree guesses who Ham\u2019s descendants are (and the first two don\u2019t count): the Canaanites.<\/h2>\n
It looks like whoever wrote this story has a bone to pick with the Canaanites.<\/h2>\n