Genesis 9:18-23 – Love covers a multitude of sins

Noah and his family now take the centre piece in God’s redemptive history. In Genesis 9:1, they were explicitly instructed to, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” Now armed with the God-given mandate, the three sons of Noah came out of the ark to the devastated earth, ready to fulfil their mandate. In verse 18 we are given a head start to the lurking presence of the opposition to God’s good plan in the person of Canaan, the son of Ham. His role would be revealed later. Here in these six verses we are also given a hint to the lurking presence of sin that was about to display its ugly head. Remember that Noah was shown grace but he still had the fallen nature of Adam. The capacity to do wrong was still very much alive in him.

Noah became a farmer and had a vineyard going. From the produce of his vineyard he made wine. It was perfectly alright for him to drink the wine and enjoy the works of his hand. But it was not alright to over-indulge. And Noah over-indulged. He took a tad too much of the wine and became drunk and uncovered his nakedness. This episode of Noah’s life leaves us a reminder to exercise temperance in all that we do in life. Any seeming harmless activity when over-indulged can bring unwelcomed result. It’s a reminder to heed God’s word to live with a sober mind. We must avoid doing anything that can get us intoxicated and so lose our capacity to think rationally. Noah was intoxicated by the wine. We in our time and age can be intoxicated by worries, fears, finance, lust and much more. We must not lose sight of ourselves and mindlessly indulge and be engrossed in unhealthy excesses.

Another good lesson we can learn from this episode in Noah’s life is from the actions taken by his three sons. Instead of covering his father’s nakedness, Ham told his brothers about it. To speak of another person’s flaw or mistake is never a good thing.  The Bible tells us that love covers a multitude of sins. We must learn to guard each man’s dignity and save each man’s pride. The best thing to do is to deal wisely and not to gossip about a person’s flaw, especially when that person is one that everyone respects. Ham did unwisely when he told his two other brothers about their father’s nakedness. He could possibly have taken his father’s garment and showed it to his brothers, and told them of their father’s nakedness. Sham and Japheth on the other hand quickly picked up that garment, walked backward with the garment over their shoulders and dropped it over their father’s naked body, without taking a peep at his nakedness. What the two brothers did was a recollection of what God had done when Adam and Eve’s nakedness was uncovered. He covered them with the skin of an animal to save their dignity and pride. 

Ham on one hand, and Sham and Japheth on the other, leave us with lessons on how to deal with the wrong of others. We can choose to gossip about the flaw of someone or we can quietly deal with a situation without bringing embarrassment to a person who had acted wrongly. Remember love covers a multitude of sins. Notice the word is cover and not condone. In covering we correct the wrong without making it a big fuss out of it. In condoning we deal with the sin but do not correct the mistake. The right action to do in correcting a mistake is always to restore honour and minimize shame, and avoid making a big fuss to embarrass. Let’s lovingly deal with each other’s shortcoming.