Seder 160: Psalm 55---Lamenting Betrayal by a Friend

 In Psalm 55, an individual lament, David comes to God in anguish because of the opposition he has been facing (vv 1-4).  He confesses that we wishes he could escape to a peaceful place, away from the strife that surrounds him (vv 6-8).  

He prays that God would thwart the enemy and "divide their tongues," as he had done with the rebels at Babel; or that he would cause the earth to open up and swallow them, as he had done with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram (vv 9-15).  

He is confident that the faithful God who had carried out these mighty works would come to his aid and deal with the current rebels (vv 16-17, 22-23).  "Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you," David counsels in verse 22.  Peter repeats this advice in 1 Peter 5:7.  

David's trial is especially bitter because his chief opponent is an old friend, someone with whom he had worshiped and been in close fellowship.  Tradition identifies this former friend as Ahithophel, formerly a trusted counselor (1 Chron 27:33), who defected to David's son Absalom during Absalom's rebellion (2 Sam 15-17).  

Why did Ahithophel betray David?  Here is one proposal that is often suggested:  Ahithophel had a son named Eliam (2 Sam 23:34) who was one of David's mighty men, along with others that included Uriah the Hittite (v 39).  Eliam was also the name of Bathsheba's father (2 Sam 11:3).  If they were the same Eliam, then Ahithophel was Bathsheba's grandfather and might have wanted to avenge David's seizing of Bathsheba and murder of Uriah.   

The midrash on Psalm 55 applies Proverbs 10:9 to David and Athithophel:  "Whoever walks in his integrity walks securely, but he who makes his way crooked will be found out." In the reading of the sages, David is the one who walks uprightly, Ahithophel the one who makes his way crooked.  In the end, Ahithophel's bid for revenge was thwarted, and he hung himself (2 Sam 17:23).  

In Christian tradition Psalm 55 is seen as foreshadowing Judas' betrayal of Jesus.

Seder 8: Genesis 9-10---Ham and the Curse on Canaan

In Genesis 9 God stated his commitment to bless the whole earth, for all time, as symbolized by the sign of the rainbow.  He gave Noah and his family the task of repopulating the earth.  They carried out this task, as recorded in the table of nations in Gen 10.

The process of "replenishing the earth" was not an entirely smooth one, though.  Human sinfulness continued to be an impediment to human progress, and we see one example in Gen 9.

Genesis 9:18 reminds us of the names of Noah's sons:  "The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  (Ham was the father of Canaan.)"

Israelite readers would have taken note of the parenthetical mention of Canaan here.  The Israelites would later be charged with driving out the Canaanites from the Promised Land, and they were cautioned not to follow the practices of the Canaanites.  What was the background of these people?

We go on to read that Noah at one point drank too much wine and was passed out, naked, in his tent. Ham disrespectfully advertised this fact to Shem and Japheth, who were careful to cover up their father.  Noah later invoked a curse upon Canaan:  "Cursed be Canaan:  a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.''(v 25).

Two questions arise from this passage:  (1) What sin did Ham commit? (2) Why was Canaan singled out for a curse?

One possible answer is simply that Ham had disrespect for his father.  Noah had prophetic insight that Canaan was the son of Ham who would especially exhibit the sins of his father, and so he invoked a curse upon Canaan.

A second answer, popular among Jews and Christians in the early centuries AD, is that Ham castrated his father.  The rabbis, ever on the lookout for possibilities of measure for measure justice in the Bible, described it this way:  Ham prevented Noah from having a fourth son, so Noah invoked a curse upon Ham's fourth son (see Gen 10:4 for the sons of Ham). 

A weakness of this view is that there is nothing about castration in Genesis 9.  What the text does say is that Ham "saw the nakedness of his father'' (v 22). Elsewhere, in Lev 18 and 20, to "see the nakedness" of someone or to "uncover the nakedness" of someone refers to a sexual act---see Lev 20:17, which indicates these phrases are synonymous.  Significantly, the discussion of forbidden sexual unions in Lev 18 and 20 is prefaced with an admonition to avoid the sins of Egypt and Canaan (Lev 18:3).

Based on the connection with Lev18, 20, a number of interpreters propose that Ham's sin was a sexual act, either with Noah or with Noah's wife.  The latter possibility would give the best explanation of why Canaan was singled out.  If Ham committed incest with his mother, and Canaan was the product of that union, this could explain why Canaan was singled out for a curse.

This possibility fits with Lev 20:20-21, which refer to having sex with a man's wife as uncovering that man's nakedness (which, in turn, is synonymous with seeing the man's nakedness).  In this scenario, Ham is a precursor of Reuben (Gen 35:22).  Also, the Canaanites, like the Moabites and Ammonites, would have originated from an act of incest. 

In Ancient Near Eastern cultures, one way to assert dominance within a clan was to sleep with the clan leader's wife or wives.  Think, for example, of Absalom's behavior with the concubines of David (2 Sam 16).  Ham and Reuben may have had similar motives.  In this case, Noah invokes a curse upon Canaan because he does not want Ham's line through Canaan to be dominant.

For further discussion, listen to episode 158 of the Naked Bible Podcast and see the paper "Noah's Nakedness and the Curse on Canaan (Genesis 9:20-27) by  John Sietze Bergsma and  Scott Walker Hahn, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 124, No. 1 (Spring, 2005), pp. 25-40.