Noah, Ham and Rehab

Let me first say I am not a fan of either Hasselhoff or Baldwin, but I feel compelled to comment, and after all, what else is a blog for. The Bible is full of all kinds of examples for folks to use to draw from, however the one that I am going to use is one of the least used for many reasons.

In both of the situations above these individuals had an issue in their private lives made public by a child. In Hasselhoffs' case the circumstances definitely involve the over consumption of alcohol, not sure if Baldwin has blamed the booze yet or not.


Genesis 9

20 Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded [a] to plant a vineyard. 21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside. 23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father's nakedness.
24 When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said, "Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers."
26 He also said, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem. [b]
27 May God extend the territory of Japheth [c] ; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his [d] slave."

As you can read there are several controversial and politically incorrect issues covered here, but as you can see, Noah was very angry for the way his child handled the situation. Today Noah would most likely be publicly humiliated and forced into rehab, Ham would just be doing his service to society as he saw it and most likely would be offered trauma counseling and social intervention. I also find it interesting that there is no mention of punishment against Noah for his drunkenness.