Incest is Best, but Only if You Keep It in the Family

Several lines in Genesis attracted the attention of my innate prurience. Some acts of human sexuality are explicitly referenced in the Hebrew Bible, as in the rape of Dinah in Genesis 34.2. At other times sex is cloaked or even ambiguous.

In Genesis 9.22 we read about a drunken Noah passes out naked in his tent. One of his sons, Ham, “saw the nakedness of his father” and told his brothers, who covered Noah up with a garment. We read in Coogan, “On the surface, Ham was guilty of not treating his father with appropriate respect, but there may be a sexual innuendo here, as is frequently the case in J.” He notes that in Leviticus 18.6; 20.11 and 17 that the expression “to uncover [or to see] the nakedness” of someone means to have sex with them. We also note that in Genesis 19.30-38, drunkenness leads to incest. Put the two together and you have a son molesting his drunken father. [I admire Coogan for using relatively nonjudgmental around this rather disturbing image.]

Importantly, Noah curses not Ham but his son Canaan, who goes on to father a nation of Canaanites. Note, these are not God’s chosen people.

Parallels to the Noah story are found in Genesis 19.26-36, in which Lot’s two daughters get him drunk and seduce him. Their pregnancies lead to the small nations of Ammonites and Moabites. These also are not God’s chosen people.

Contrast the Noah and Lot drunken incest stories with what we read in Genesis 21.8-10. Here, Sarah sees her step-son Ishmael making her son Isaac “laugh." She subsequently persuades her husband, Abraham, to send the other wife, Hagar, and her son, Ishmael, away. We learn from Coogan that making someone laugh is a euphemism for having sex, as when Abimelech sees Isaac "making Rebecca laugh" and immediately knows Rebecca is not Isaac’s sister. Unlike the Noah and Lot stories, both Ishmael and Isaac go on to sire large broods of God’s chosen people, eventually leading to the David Dynasty.

So, while drunken incest can lead to eternal damnation in the manifestation of non-Jewish lineages, sober incest in the form of two boys playing doctor can launch a nation of chosen people. Are there conclusions to be drawn from these stories or is this just another case of the wonderfully ambiguous relationship with God that permeates the Hebrew Bible?