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Genesis 9:24-26
New Catholic Bible
Genesis 9:24-26
New Catholic Bible
24 When Noah woke up from his drunken slumber, he learned what his youngest son had done to him. 25 Because of this, he said,
“Cursed be Canaan!
A slave of slaves
shall he be to his brothers!”[a]
26 [b]And he continued,
“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem,
and let Canaan be his slave!
Footnotes
- Genesis 9:25 According to the Semitic mentality, the blessings and curses of the Patriarchs (generally) are regarded as efficacious and able to determine the lot of the tribe represented by each Patriarch. For this reason, popular stories connected events or characteristics of a human group with blessings or curses uttered by an ancestor. In the present story Noah curses Canaan and therefore the Canaanites. The Canaanites were to be supplanted by the Hebrews in the conquest of the Promised Land. The Phoenicians, too, were Canaanites (see Gen 10:15-19; Jdg 1:31).
- Genesis 9:26 A great numerical and territorial expansion is announced for the descendants of Japheth; there is a play on the resemblance in sound between this ancestor’s name and the verb meaning “to open,” “to enlarge.”
