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“And God bless Noah and his sons” (Gen. 9:1), so that they may grow and multiply, and so that their fear may be on all flesh, in the sea and on land. “Do not eat the flesh of the blood of the soul” (Gen. 9:4), - that is, do not eat an unslaughtered animal or meat until the blood containing the soul of the animal has flowed out of it. So, God leaves three covenants to Noah and his children: firstly, he commands not to eat the blood of animals, secondly, he promises a resurrection, in which the blood of all animals will be exacted, and thirdly, he says that every murderer must be put to death. “Your blood... I will take from the hand of every beast... and from the hand of man” (Gen. 9:5). God demands blood both here and in the next century. Here he demands, determining death for the murderer, therefore he commanded that even an ox that gores a man should be stoned (Ex. 21:28). He will also be exacted at the end, because on the day of resurrection the beasts will return the human flesh they devoured. “By the hand of a man I will take his brother” the soul of a man, as he determined the punishment for Cain for the blood of Abel. These words mean the same thing: “Shed blood to a man, in its place it will be shed among men.” With the words: “For in the image of God I created man” (Gen. 9:6), it is shown that man, like God, is invested with the power to live and kill. Having made a covenant with Noah and with all those who came out of the ark with him, God says: “all flesh shall not die by the water of the flood” (Gen. 9:11). And behold, “I set My arc in the cloud, and it will be for a sign of the covenant (everlasting) between God... and between all flesh that is on the earth” (Gen. 9:13, 17). After this, Moses writes how Noah planted grapes “and drank from the wine, and sat down, fell asleep and was naked in his house” (Gen. 9:21), how Ham saw “the nakedness of his father, and in the midst of the hay he told both his brothers” (Gen. 9:22). Noah's drunkenness occurred not because he drank a lot, but because he did not drink wine for a long time. He did not drink wine in the ark, because on the day of the destruction of all flesh he could not even think of bringing wine into the ark with him. So, Noah did not eat wine for a year while there was a flood; He did not plant grapes even in the year he left the ark, because he left on the twenty-seventh day of the month of Jor, at a time when there could not even be unripe grapes, and it was impossible to plant grapes. Therefore, no earlier than in the third year, Noah planted grapes with seeds from the dry berries he took into the ark, and before the third or fourth year he could not receive clusters from them. Therefore, the righteous man did not drink wine for six years. Such prolonged abstinence and the fact that it was the cause of intoxication is also evidenced by what was said that Ham went out and announced to the brothers in the midst of the haystack. How could there be Stognas if they had not built a city? And if they already had a city, then, without a doubt, it was built over many years. Thus, the construction of a city and a haystack in the city indicates that the elder, as we said, did not drink wine for many years, and this was the reason for his intoxication. The brothers of Ham knew about the purity of their father and that he, like Jacob later, was guarded by an Angel both in the waking state and in sleep; and therefore “covered his nakedness”, and, moreover, in such a way that with your eyes “you did not see the nakedness of your father” (Gen. 9:23). “But Noah became sober... and in his mind, his youngest son did for him” (Gen. 9:24). So, Noah both slept and was awake: he slept because he did not feel his nakedness, he was awake because he knew what his youngest son had done to him. And Noah cursed him. “And he said, Cursed... the youth of Canaan will be a servant to his brethren” (Gen. 9:25). What would Canaan be guilty of if he were still in the loins of his father, and it was not he who saw Noah’s nakedness, but his father? They say: Ham received a blessing with everyone who entered the ark, and then again a blessing was given to him with everyone who came out of the ark, and therefore God does not curse him in his own person, but in the person of his son, although the curse of the son should have caused grief to the father. Others, based on what is said in Scripture: “and in the mind of Noah, create for him his youngest son,” since it is known that Ham was not the youngest son, but the middle one, conclude that by “the youngest son” we mean Canaan, and that this young Canaan laughed at the nakedness of the old man; The boor went out with a laughing face and, in the middle of the haystack, announced it to his brothers. Therefore, one can think that although Canaan is not cursed with all justice, as he did this in childhood, it is not against justice, because he was not cursed for another. Moreover, Noah knew that if Canaan had not become worthy of a curse in his old age, then in his adolescence he would not have committed a deed worthy of a curse. Justice demanded that Ham be deprived of his blessing, and not subjected to a curse. For if he had been subjected to a curse for laughing with the youth, then although he would have been damned justly, all the descendants of Ham, who did not participate in the mockery, would then have been cursed along with the damned Ham. Therefore, Canaan is cursed because he laughed, and Ham is only deprived of blessing because he laughed with him who laughed. Pronouncing a curse on Ham in the person of his son, Noah blesses Shem and Japheth and says: “May God spread Japheth, and may He dwell in the villages of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant” (Gen. 9:27). The family of Japheth multiplied and became powerful in inheritance in the north and west. God Himself dwelt in the booth of Abraham, a descendant of Shem, and Canaan became the slave of Shem and Japheth, because in the days of Joshua, the descendants of Shem devastated the dwellings of the Canaanites, conquered and enslaved their princes. You might be interested in: