One read of Genesis 9 is that Ham did *something* to prevent Noah from having more children.
Here are the clues:
Noah had three sons, and could not have four.
Ham had four sons (Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan); Noah curses Canaan, who is the fourth one.
And there is one more clue.
A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters.
The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.)
The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.
The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur.
And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
Genesis 2:10-14 (NIV)
A quick glance at Genesis 2 lists four rivers. I broke down the verses by river, and you see a clearly descending order of detail, with the Pishon given a lot of page-space, and the Euphrates barely being described at all.
Ironically, we have no clue where the Pishon or the Gihon are. They don’t exist anymore. They’re never even mentioned outside these verses listed, or outside the Bible. But we know the Tigris and the Euphrates.
You might think the Genesis writers were like, “Oh, everybody knows the Tigris and Euphrates, so we don’t need to describe them much,” but that would mean you haven’t been paying attention. That’s not how how the writers organized the words.
There are allegories here.
Rabbi Fohrman wrote that the Genesis 2 account of rivers is a prophetic cutting-off of what should have been. God told Noah to be fruitful and multiply: to have a fourth river, but Ham’s action (whatever it may have been) made it impossible.
The river is named, but it goes nowhere, like a child you’ve named in the womb, or a child you dreams of having.
Noah’s action of cursing Ham, in this view, is retaliation: you cut me off, so I’m cutting you off in the same way; your fourth for my fourth. Your river for my river.
Maybe Noah even named this fourth planned son, but the plan goes nowhere.
So maybe Noah stopped trusting God at this point.
When Adam and Eve were told to be fruitful and multiply, the consequence of eating the fruit was death, which created the first “oh no! How will God fulfill his blessing of *be fruitful and multiply* if humanity dies?”
God’s solution: Adam names his wife Eve, which means LIFE. The antidote to death.
When Eve thought that Cain was God’s promise, only to have Cain kill Abel, this was the second “on no! How will God fulfill his blessing? There are no more sons!”
God’s solution: Seth is born. God appointed Seth as the conduit to bring His promises into humanity.
When God sees the whole world is corrupt and will wipe it all out in a flood, the reader experiences the third “oh no!”
God’s solution: He preserved Noah and his family, even though the sons were not “good” according to the story. They were corrupt like the world.
So Noah is accustomed to this. When God tells him directly to be fruitful and multiply (to replace his corrupt sons?), whatever Ham does creates the next “oh no!”
Rather than wait for God to provide a solution, Noah unleashes a curse into his own family line.
So what will God do now?
God’s solution: I will use Shem, broken or not, and I will bring the fulfillment of my promise through him. I will maintain the goodness of my Name through him.
And “Shem” means “name.”
The story of Scripture is about God fulfilling His promise, no matter what happens, whether it’s our own disobedience, or the disobedience of our children, or of the whole corrupt world.
God will not be stopped from fulfilling His promises.
