Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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Observe, Though Noah was a great man and a good man, an old man and a rich man, a man greatly favoured by heaven and honoured on earth, yet he would not live an idle life, nor think the husbandman's calling below him. Note, Though God by his providence may take us off from our callings for a time, yet when the occasion is over we ought with humility and industry to apply ourselves to them again, and, in the calling wherein we are called, faithfully to abide with God, 1Co 7:24.
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father,
and told his two brethren without.
Ham's impudence and impiety: He saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren, Ge 9:22. To see it accidentally and involuntarily would not have been a crime; but,
1. He pleased himself with the sight, as the Edomites looked up on the day of their brother (Ob 1:12), pleased, and insulting. Perhaps Ham had sometimes been himself drunk, and reproved for it by his good father, whom he was therefore pleased to see thus overcome. Note, It is common for those who walk in false ways themselves to rejoice at the false steps which they sometimes see others make. But charity rejoices not in iniquity, nor can true penitents that are sorry for their own sins rejoice in the sins of others.
2. He told his two brethren without (in the street, as the word is), in a scornful deriding manner, that his father might seem vile unto them. It is very wrong,
(1.) To make a jest of sin (Pr 14:9), and to be puffed up with that for which we should rather mourn, 1Co 5:2. And,
(2.) To publish the faults of any, especially of parents, whom it is our duty to honour. Noah was not only a good man, but had been a good father to him; and this was a most base disingenuous requital to him for his tenderness. Ham is here called the father of Canaan, which intimates that he who was