The Bible doesn't say what prevents so many animals from reproducing and overpopulating the ark during its long voyage. According to later Jewish tradition, Noah simply prohibits the critters from having sex, and prohibits his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth from having sex with their wives. Tradition says also that Ham, the dog, and the cock-raven disobey Noah and have sex anyway. (See Graves and Patai's Hebrew Myths.)
Once back on dry land, Noah's sons and their wives begin the task of repopulating the earth. Meanwhile, Noah goes into farming. Planting a vineyard, he winds up getting shellacked on the wine and lies naked in his tent. His youngest son Ham, seeing Noah in this condition, informs brothers Shem and Japheth outside.
To avoid seeing their father's nakedness, Shem and Japheth enter the tent walking backwards and, keeping their faces turned away, cover Noah with a garment.
When Noah awakes and learns "what his youngest son had done to him," he utters a seemingly confused condemnation. "Cursed be Canaan," Noah says, "a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers." But what does this mean? It was Ham, not Ham's son Canaan, who was unfortunate enough to see Noah's nakedness, yet it's Canaan--progenitor of the inhabitants of the land that the Hebrews will later invade--who gets cursed.
The phrase "what his youngest son had done to him" implies something more than mere looking, though nothing else now remains in the text. Perhaps, as Steven L. McKenzie suggests, Ham's offense was disrespect, in failing to cover Noah's nakedness. (See GENITALS: "THEY KNEW THAT THEY WERE NAKED.") In legendary versions (see Graves and Patai), Ham or Canaan emasculates Noah, certainly stronger grounds for a curse. In any case, the wrong person in Genesis gets cursed, the obvious intent of the biblical scribes being to justify the Israelite conquest of Canaan (already history when this story is told), with the added implication that the Canaanites deserved it for their sexual perversions (see the list in Lev. 18:1-25).
A Dead Sea Scroll called the Genesis Florilegium at least offers an excuse for Noah's cursing of Canaan: Noah could not curse Ham because God had already blessed Noah's sons (Gen. 9:1). (A more Freudian excuse for the curse: Noah resented Canaan for having been conceived on the ark despite Noah's ban on sex.) But the injustice of cursing Ham's son seems acknowledged in the pseudepigraphical book of Jubilees (called also "The Little Genesis"): Ham, finding Noah's curse upon Canaan "disgusting," takes Canaan and his other sons and separates from his father. (Gen. 9:20-27; Jub. 7:13) (On to SHEM, FIRST OF THE SEMITES)
Julius Schnoor von Carolsfeld
Noah Curses Canaan
from Das Buch der Bücher in Bilden
