Genesis Deeper ㊱ Went In Backwards · Why Did Shem and Japheth Walk In Backwards? (Genesis 9:18~29)
This series takes one Bible passage at a time and looks at it a little more closely. The images are free to use in worship, in class, and on social media.
The sons of Noah who went out from the ship were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham is the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these, the whole earth was populated. Noah began to be a farmer, and planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and got drunk. He was uncovered within his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it on both their shoulders, went in backwards, and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were backwards, and they didn’t see their father’s nakedness. Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done to him. He said, “Canaan is cursed. He will be a servant of servants to his brothers.” He said, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Shem. Let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth. Let him dwell in the tents of Shem. Let Canaan be his servant.” Noah lived three hundred fifty years after the flood. All the days of Noah were nine hundred fifty years, and then he died.
Genesis 9:18~29 (World English Bible)
1. A Father Lying in His Tent, and the Steps of Three Sons
After the flood, God set the rainbow in the cloud and promised never again to destroy the earth with a flood (9:8~17). Today’s passage is the story of Noah’s family that comes after that. Noah began to work the land as a farmer and planted a vineyard. Then he drank the wine, got drunk, and lay uncovered in his own tent (9:20~21). The text neither scolds him nor excuses him. It simply tells us what happened.
Then the text turns to the three sons. Noah’s son Ham saw his father uncovered, and he told his two brothers about it outside (9:22). Shem and Japheth acted differently. They took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went into the tent backwards to cover their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness (9:23).
In verse 24, Noah wakes from his wine and learns what happened, and in verses 25~27 he speaks. People have long offered many interpretations of those words. Today we will follow the two verses before them (verses 22~23), the two different ways the sons moved in front of the same father. As we follow those steps, a question comes up. Why did Shem and Japheth go in backwards?
2. Was Only Seeing Really So Serious?
People reading this scene for the first time usually get stuck on Ham. Ham did not lay a hand on his father, and he did not shout insults at him. The text records only two actions for Ham: he ‘saw,’ and he ‘told.’ So we find ourselves asking: was seeing his father uncovered really such a serious wrong?
Because of this, people have long guessed at what Ham really did. Some have supposed that there must have been something worse that the text does not record. Read that way, Shem and Japheth walking backwards looks like a small extra detail. The story becomes only a matter of finding out what Ham did.
But the text does not dig further into what Ham did. Instead, it describes what the two brothers did at great length. What the text sets before us to compare is not the hidden motives of one man, Ham, but two different paths taken in front of the same scene.
3. Going Deeper · Steps That Tell, Steps That Cover
Here is the answer first. Shem and Japheth went in backwards so that they would not see their father’s shame. In front of the same father, the text sets side by side the steps that ‘see and tell outside’ and the steps that ‘go in without seeing and cover,’ and it describes the covering steps in far more detail.
You can see this when you set the two verses side by side. In verse 22, Ham does two things: he ‘saw’ and he ‘told.’ The verse does not say he went out; it says he told his brothers ‘outside.’ In the Hebrew text (the Old Testament was first written in Hebrew), verse 22 has ten words. Verse 23 has nineteen, almost twice as many. In it, one action follows another: they take a garment, lay it on their shoulders, go in backwards, cover, turn their faces away, and do not see. What Ham did passes in a single line, while the brothers’ steps are recorded one by one.
Verse 23 also repeats a word. In the World English Bible you can see it: ‘went in backwards’ and ‘Their faces were backwards.’ In Hebrew, too, both are the same word. It appears twice in one verse: once their bodies went backwards, and once their faces were turned backwards. The word ‘nakedness’ also appears three times in verses 22 and 23 together, each time as their father’s nakedness. Ham ‘saw’ it, and the two brothers ‘covered’ it and ‘didn’t see’ it. Verse 23 ends with these very words: they ‘didn’t see their father’s nakedness.’
So the brothers walking backwards is not a small extra detail. Even in the short time it took to go in and cover their father, the two brothers avoided seeing him. They could have walked in facing forward and thrown the garment over him, and he would still have been covered. But they chose a way that kept their father’s shame from staying even in their own eyes.
Ham’s steps went the opposite way. The two brothers went into the tent and covered their father, while Ham ‘told’ what he had seen ‘outside.’ His father’s shame did not end inside the tent. It was carried outside. The text sets the two paths against each other in this way. Before the same shame, one side carried it outside, and the other covered it where it was.
4. Word Study · Achoranit · Higgid · Kissah
Here are three Hebrew words from today’s passage.
① backwards · achoranit (אֲחֹרַנִּית). It means ‘toward the back.’ In verse 23, both ‘went in backwards’ and ‘Their faces were backwards’ use this word. In all of Genesis, this word appears only in this one verse, and it appears there twice. Even across the whole Old Testament, it appears in only six verses. This rare word shows up twice in this one scene of two sons approaching their father.
② tell · higgid (הִגִּיד). ‘Told’ in verse 22 is vayyagged (וַיַּגֵּד) in Hebrew. It is the basic form higgid with ‘and he’ added to it. The first time this word appears in Genesis is 3:11, when God asks Adam a question in the garden.
“God said, ‘Who told you that you were naked?…’” (3:11)
The World English Bible uses the same English word, ‘told,’ in both places. In Genesis, the first time the word ‘tell’ appears (3:11) and the second time (9:22) are both about nakedness. What Ham did was to ‘tell’ others about his father’s nakedness.
③ cover · kissah (כִּסָּה). ‘Covered’ in verse 23 is vaykhassu (וַיְכַסּוּ) in Hebrew, and its basic form is kissah. A word from the same root appears just before, in the flood story: “…All the high mountains that were under the whole sky were covered” (7:19), and “…the mountains were covered” (7:20). The World English Bible uses the same English word here too. During the flood, the water covered the whole earth. After the flood, the first place this verb ‘cover’ appears again is 9:23. This time what covers is not water but the garment the two sons brought, and what is covered is not mountains but their father’s shame.
5. One More Thing · One Garment, the Shoulder of Two
There is one more expression in verse 23 worth noticing. The World English Bible says they ‘laid it on both their shoulders.’ In Hebrew it reads ‘the shoulder of the two of them,’ and ‘shoulder’ is singular. It is a picture of two people sharing one garment as if on one shoulder. This expression appears nowhere else in the Old Testament.
When you walk backwards, you cannot see where you are going. Alone, it would have been much harder. The two brothers carried one garment together and walked backwards. They could hardly have walked without matching their steps, and since they were walking backwards, they could not have gone quickly. Covering their father was done not by one person’s quick hand but by the slow, shared steps of two people.
In Genesis, the first one to clothe someone who was naked was God. Before Adam and his wife left the garden, “Yahweh God made coats of animal skins for Adam and for his wife, and clothed them” (3:21). What Shem and Japheth did for their father resembles what God first did for people who were naked.
6. For Us Today
This passage leaves us with one message. In front of someone’s shame, we can stand on the side that carries it outside, or on the side that does not look and covers it.
In this passage, Noah lay in his weakest state. He was the man who had built the ship and come through the flood, but that day in his tent he could not even cover his own body. The text divides the steps of the three sons by whether they looked or did not look, whether they told or covered.
Moments like this come to us more often than we think. A photo of a coworker who got drunk and embarrassed himself at a company dinner gets posted in a group chat. An elderly parent whose memory is fading says something strange in front of others, and we feel like passing it along as a funny story. Sometimes we want to bring up a failure a friend confided in us somewhere else, and sometimes we want to forward a post that shows someone’s mistake just as it is. At those times, part of us thinks, ‘I only said what was true. What’s wrong with that?’
What the text records about Ham is also that he told his brothers what he saw. The text does not say Ham lied. Even so, the text clearly separates Ham’s steps from the brothers’ steps. It divides the two paths not by whether something was true, but by which way a person walks while carrying that truth.
Of course, covering does not mean hiding wrongs that harm other people. If someone is being hurt or is in danger, that is something to tell someone who can help. The scene in this passage is one where a person lay in his weakest state inside his tent. Covering means not turning that kind of weakness into a spectacle.
While their father lay in that weak state, Shem and Japheth carried one garment together and walked in backwards. Covering does not have to be done alone, and it does not have to be fast. For the two brothers, slow steps taken together were enough.
If someone’s embarrassing story reaches you today, you might let it stop with you instead of passing it on to the next person. And if you can, may today be a day to think about what garment you could quietly lay over that person. Not laughing along when others laugh, or a kind word given privately later, can be that kind of garment.
“God, you were the first to make clothes for those who were naked and clothe them. Make us people who quietly cover others in their weakness, not people who carry it outside. Help us remember your heart that covers our own shame too. Let us match our steps with the people around us today, so that together we may cover someone. Amen.”
🕊 How to Use This in Ministry
Opening question
Ask, “Your friend fell down and their pants ripped. The other kids haven’t seen it yet. What would you do?” and listen to the children’s answers. Then say, “In today’s Bible story, three sons see their father in an embarrassing state. Let’s see together what each son did,” and move into the passage.
Activity
Read Genesis 9:22~23 together. On the board, write what Ham did (saw · told) and what Shem and Japheth did (took · laid on shoulders · went in backwards · covered · turned faces away · did not see) in two separate rows. Next, have children pair up, lay one blanket over both their shoulders, and walk backwards toward a chair placed two or three steps behind them, then cover the chair. The teacher stands beside the chair so that no one bumps into anything. Afterwards, ask, “What was hard about walking backwards? What would it have been like without a partner?” Finally, from today’s images, show the picture captioned ‘went in backwards’ on a screen or as a printout, and ask, “Why did the two brothers try not to look at their father?”
Application
Give each child a small card and have them draw a piece of clothing. Underneath, write together, “When a friend makes a mistake, I want to cover it instead of spreading it.” Then point out together, “But if someone is getting hurt or bullied, that is not something to cover up. Always tell an adult.” Before they put the card in their bag, have each child say one thing they could do when a friend makes a mistake.
🖼️ Today’s Four Images · Press and hold or right-click to save
Noah began to be a farmer, and planted a vineyard |
told his two brothers outside |
went in backwards |
Noah lived three hundred fifty years after the flood |
📄 Image license CC0 (public domain) · Free to use, modify, and redistribute without attribution.
🤖 These images were created with AI (Grok).
📖 Genesis Deeper ⑭ Where Are You · the garden story where God asked, ‘Who told you that you were naked?’
Origin Bible · Mission Zedero
Contact joypej@gmail.com
✍️ This article was written with the help of AI and reviewed by a person.
The text is CC BY-NC 4.0. You are free to use it for noncommercial purposes with attribution.
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