Why did Nah curse Ham's son Canaan when Ham the one who found him passed out drunk naked?

Question

It doesn't make sense. Noah got drunk and passed out naked, and Ham finds him in the drunken state. When Noah wakes up, he cursed his own grandson because his son saw him naked?

Answer 1

You make it sound like Noah did something

to harm Canaan.



Instead

what happened

is that Noah punished Ham

by telling him the bad things that ***were going to happen*** to his son Canaan.



Noah merely foretold the future.

He did not make it come to pass.

Answer 2

I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but the meaning of the passage hinges on Ham seeing "the nakedness of his father", which apparently does not mean seeing Noah's naked body, but having sex with Noah's wife.



When it came to sex, sometimes the ancient Hebrew language had some nuances and idioms to work through.  For example, when Adam had sex with Eve, the literal word used was that he "knew" his wife (Gen 4:1).  And to differentiate the sexes, men were literally referred to as ones who "urinated against a wall" (1Sam 25:22).  Since a husband was the only man morally allowed to see the nakedness of his wife, he sort of possessed or owned her nakedness, so in that sense, seeing her naked was "seeing the husband's nakedness".  And "seeing" in that context was having with sex.



Therefore what happened was that Ham illicitly impregnated his own mother or step mother (Noah's wife*) who later gave birth to Ham, probably in some sort of attempt to take over Noah's Patriarchy.  And Noah, through divine revelation, cursed Ham.  The following vid goes into more details.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h84rRWfY4A8&ab_channel=JustScriptureMinistries



*Shem, Ham and Japeth may not have been the offspring of Noah's current wife at the time.  Their mother could have died, and he remarried.  If so, Ham having sex with her wouldn't have been seen as much as gross incest.  Such as situation is probably what Paul described in 1Cor 5:1 where the term "mother" isn't used, but rather "father's wife".

Answer 3

It certainly appears to not make sense and I had to look up about it, but in fact, it was no doubt, because the grandson did something very indecent to his grandad, which left him naked and why he was cursed.

Answer 4

Found a good answer here: https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200001832

"Sometime later he became involved in an incident that brought a curse on his son Canaan. Noah had become intoxicated with wine and had uncovered himself in his tent. Ham saw his father’s nakedness, and instead of showing the proper respect for Noah, the family head and the servant and prophet whom God had made an instrument in the preservation of the human race, Ham told his two brothers of his discovery. Shem and Japheth exhibited the proper respect by walking backwards with a mantle to cover Noah so that they would not bring reproach by looking on their father’s nakedness. Noah, on awakening, uttered a curse, not on Ham, but on Ham’s son Canaan. In the accompanying blessing of Shem, which included a blessing for Japheth, Ham was passed over and ignored; only Canaan was mentioned as cursed and was prophetically foretold to become a slave to Shem and Japheth.​—Ge 9:20-27."