Themes in Genesis: Curses in Genesis

I have seen a few horror movies wherein someone (usually a black woman from Haiti or from the deep South where voodoo is popular) curses her tormenters and their offspring.  For the rest of the movie the tormented and their children suffer scary results of the curse placed upon them.

Curses were not all that different in the book of Genesis.  People believed in curses and the effects those curses held on others.  Curses that people made were every bit as nasty as they are in horror movies and curses held their power for generations, if not all time.

These are the curses mentioned in the book of Genesis:

WHEN GOD CURSED

1.  As a result of the first sin, God cursed the serpent to crawling on the ground, and He cursed the ground so that it would not yield its full potential in growing crops.  As a result, humanity would have to work hard and suffer for a living.

When Noah was born, he was named Noah, which means "rest," because his family had hopes that he would be able to help work the fields, and thus bring some rest from all the hard work that was a result of the curse.

2.  Because Cain killed his brother, God cursed him to a nomadic life.  The wandering God cursed him to was a result of a curse that God put on Cain's crops.  No matter how hard he worked the ground, it would  not be enough for him to live on, so he had to wander in search for good soil. 

Furthermore, because he had to wander, Cain was also removed from God's presence.  AS in many places in the Old Testament, people believed that God inhabited a certain area and was distant from other areas.  Jonah tried to flee from the presence of God.  One grand revelation he got on a ship was that God was there too.

3.  When He made a covenant (binding agreement) with Abraham in chapter 12, God told Abraham that He would bless those who blessed him and curse anyone who cursed Israel.  This was illustrated when the King of Moab tried to curse Israel through Balaam.  Sent to curse Israel, all Balaam could do is bless Israel and say, "There is no sorcery against Jacob, no divination against Israel. It will now be said of Jacob and of Israel, 'See what God has done (Numbers 23:23)!' "

Furthermore, after blessing Israel, Balaam repeated what God said to Abraham:  Like a lion they crouch and lie down, like a lioness—who dares to rouse them? "May those who bless you be blessed and those who curse you be cursed (Numbers 24:9)!"

After blessing Israel and repeating what God promised Abraham, he cursed Moab and other nations surrounding Israel, claiming that God would cause Israel to become great and that Israel would rule over and even destroy the others (Numbers 24:15-25).  Thus God's word to Abraham was fulfilled, "Those who curse you will be cursed."

WHEN PEOPLE CURSED

God was not the only one who cursed.

1.  Noah cursed his second born son's descendants, for something Ham (the second born - although he may be third) did when Noah was drunk.  In order to understand what Ham did, one needs to understand that languages often have things called idioms, which literally do not mean what they say to a culture.  For example, let's say that archeologists 4,000 years from now find the remains of 21st Century New York City, and find a book wherein they read that someone "had to take a leak."  Unless there is context, that archeologist will have no clue as to what taking a leak means.  The archeologist will try to read it very literally and get confused as to its meaning, possibly coming up with wild conjectures as to what it means to "take a leak." 

In the English language, there are over 7,000 idioms such as "bend over backwards," "smell a rat," "something's fishy," and "bite the dust."  The people in the Bible times also used idioms such as:
Uncover the feet = Expose the genitals
Seed = Descendants
Possess Gates = Take a city
The way of a woman or her sickness = menstruation
Cover his feet = relieve himself

So when Ham went into the tent and "saw his father's nakedness," he told his brothers, and for that, he was cursed a horrible curse.  At first glance, this episode looks like Noah was way overexagerating his response to a son who did nothing more than tell his brothers about their drunk dad, but there is more here than meets the eye.  When the Hebrew language says that Ham "saw his father's nakedness," we are dealing with a Hebrew idiom.  This passage carries several possibilities due to its idiom or possible idioms:

a.  He did something sexual to his father.  The story of Noah parallels Lot in many ways.  Both were delivered from cataclysmic destruction and both got outrageously drunk afterwards.  In Lot's case, his daughters committed incest with him and became pregnant.  It only fits the pattern to say that Ham had some kind of sexual encounter with his dad. 

b.  He had sex with his mother.  This could be the case if we have two idioms going on in the verse.  In the Law of Moses, when dealing with incest, exposing a man's nakedness meant having sex with that man's wife.  So if one had sex with his step mom, he was exposing his father's nakedness, or if a person had sex with his aunt, he was exposing the nakedness of his uncle, and so on.

There is an interesting side to this story.  Noah did not curse Ham who did whatever evil that was done; He cursed Ham's son Canaan and his descendants.  I think this had to do more with the Canaanites than with Ham, but that's a whole other story.

2.  When Isaac blessed Jacob, he passed on the same blessing and curse that God gave to Abraham.

Genesis 27:29

May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed."

3.  Simeon and Levi were Jacob's 2nd and 3rd eldest sons.  Simeon should have received the blessing from his father when his father was dying.  Reuben who was the oldest ruined his possibilities of receiving the blessing, because in his anger he slept with one of his father's wives when he was much younger. 

When Jacob passed out the blessings, he skipped Reuben and skipped Simeon and Levi because when they were younger, they had slaughtered an entire town of men, to revenge the deflowering of their sister.

Rather than receiving a blessing, the two boys were cursed by their father:   Cursed be their anger, so fierce, and their fury, so cruel! I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel (Genesis 49:7).

The curse that the two boys received were very much like the curse God placed on Cain for killing his brother.  Cain was doomed to wander because he killed his brother; Jacob's two boys were doomed to be scattered throughout the land because they killed their neighborhood city.

4.  Even though Jacob did not pronounce a curse on his wife Rachel, he did pronounce a very solemn word of death to whoever stole one of his father-in-law's idols.  In reality, Rachel had stolen one of her father's idols and had hidden it away, and Laban accused Jacob of stealing it.  Jacob didn't know that Rachel had stolen it, so he answered his father-in-law with harsh words condemning to death anyone who stole it.

But if you find anyone who has your gods, he shall not live. In the presence of our relatives, see for yourself whether there is anything of yours here with me; and if so, take it." Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the gods (Genesis 31:32).

A little later, when Jacob entered into the promised land, he asked all of his household to deliver over all the idols they had to be buried.  It is not said here, but it is very possible that when everybody delivered the idols to be buried, he saw that Rachel had taken the idol from her dad.  Rachel died very shortly afterward.

QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION

Are curses really that powerful?
Is there a proper time to curse?
Does the New Testament encourage us to forgive so that we should not curse others?