The Sin of Noah (Genesis 9:18-29)

If you’ve read through the Genesis account of the Great Flood before, you probably stopped where we did yesterday. After all, it’s good to stop on a high note, isn’t it? Yes, God destroyed the earth, but He saved Noah, his family, and representatives of every animal kind. And now God has promised Noah that He will never again flood the earth, and He has put His rainbow in the sky as a sign of the promise. If this were a fairy tale, we would expect to then read the words: “and they lived happily ever after. The End.”

But this isn’t a fairy tale. The Book of Genesis is a book of history, with real people who lived real lives. While many of the great patriarchs had admirable qualities that we can emulate, they were far from perfect: they were sinners, just like everyone else. Noah had an amazing legacy of faith, but he too was a sinner; he too would fail to finish the race. He may have started off strong, but he would stumble drunkenly across the finish line.

Please read Genesis 9:18-25.

We will focus on the Sin of Ham tomorrow. Today, I’d like us to focus on Noah. Remember, Noah was a righteous and blameless man who walked with God (6:9). He was a man of faith (Hebrews 11:7), who did exactly what God commanded him to do (6:22; 7:5). Had his biography ended here, he would have an amazing legacy!

Yet, of the three hundred and fifty years that Noah lived after the Flood, the only event of his life that is forever recorded in Scripture is that of his sin: his drunkenness and nakedness. Let’s look a little closer at his sin, shall we?

We can’t be certain how long after Noah left the ark that this event took place. All we know is that it was long enough for him to have a grandchild, for Canaan had been born. Up until this point in his life, Noah had an amazing legacy. He had done everything right, been blameless in his generation, and obedient to God… but the race isn’t over yet.

Then, we see that Noah “began to be a man of the soil,” just like his dear old dad (5:28-29). We can assume that he adopted some of the other practices of his dad, like making and drinking wine. Which brings us to his sin: it is not a sin to make wine; it is not even a sin to drink wine (despite what some teetotalers might say), but it is mostly definitely a sin to get drunk with wine (Ephesians 5:18). And this is exactly what Noah did. But, as is the case with most drunkards, his sin did not end with his drunkenness—that is merely where it started. After Noah got drunk, he “lay uncovered in his tent.”

As Warren Wiersbe notes in his commentary, “At least Noah was in his own tent when this happened and not out in public. But when you consider who he was (a preacher of righteousness) and what he had done (saved his household from death), his sin becomes even more repulsive.” Wiersbe, 48.

You may think to yourself that laying naked in your own bed is not that big of a deal. But the Hebrew term used here is only used in scripture for “shameful exposure or shameful punishment, exposed and defenseless.”

Noah, a man of honor, left himself open to disgrace. A man who had served the Lord so faithfully for over 600 years, now fell prey to alcohol and was shamefully exposed for his sin.

This does not excuse what his son did, and tomorrow we will look closer at the sin of Ham. But Noah could have controlled himself. Noah could have practiced self-discipline. Maybe, had Noah never given in to alcohol and shameful exposure, his son never would have been tempted to sin the way that he did. We’ll never know. But we do know that our sin always has an effect on our children. Noah’s certainly did.

The only words of Noah that are recorded in Scripture are when he curses his grandson. That is the legacy that he leaves. This is directly attributable to Noah’s own shortcomings. Had Noah never given in to alcohol, perhaps his son would not have committed his sin, and perhaps his grandson would not be cursed. Perhaps, Noah’s legacy would be as purely the savior of the human and animal race. As it is, this great man fell prey to temptation, and his great legacy is marred by this account that will forever be recorded in the pages of Scripture: Noah was a righteous, blameless man who walked with God… and he was a drunkard who cursed his own grandchild.

Let this serve as an example to us to finish the race strong, with perseverance. Let’s leave a legacy as Christ followers from the beginning of our conversion, until the end.