Reverence to age, and especially where it is found in the person of those who by the will of God were the authors of their being, is insisted upon in the Jewish covenant—­not indeed less required now; but as the Jews were called from among the heathen nations of the earth to be the peculiar people of God, they were to show such evidences of this law in their hearts, by their conduct, that other nations might look on and say, “Ye are the children of the Lord your God.”

It was after an act of a child dishonoring an aged father, that the prophecy entailing slavery as a curse on a portion of the human race was uttered.  Nor could it have been from any feeling of resentment or revenge that the curse was made known by the lips of a servant of God; for this servant of God was a parent, and with what sorrow would any parent, yea, the worst of parents, utter a malediction which insured such punishment and misery on a portion of his posterity!  Even the blessing which was promised to his other children could not have consoled him for the sad necessity.  He might not resist the Spirit of God:  though with perfect submission he obeyed its dictates, yet with what regret!  The heart of any Christian parent will answer this appeal!

We may well imagine some of the reasons for the will of God in thus punishing Ham and his descendants.  Prior to the unfilial act which is recorded, it is not to be supposed he had been a righteous man.  Had he been one after God’s own heart, he would not have been guilty of such a sin.  What must that child be, who would openly dishonor and expose an erring parent, borne down with the weight of years, and honored by God as Noah had been!  The very act of disrespect to Noah, the chosen of God, implies wilful contempt of God himself.  Ham was not a young man either:  he had not the excuse of the impetuosity of youth, nor its thoughtlessness—­he was himself an old man; and there is every reason to believe he had led a life at variance with God’s laws.  When he committed so gross and violent a sin, it may be, that the curse of God, which had lain tranquil long, was roused and uttered against him:  a curse not conditional, not implied—­now, as then, a mandate of the Eternal.

Among the curses threatened by the Levites upon Mount Ebal, was the one found in the 16th verse of the 27th chapter of Deuteronomy:  “Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother.”  By the law of Moses, this sin was punished with death:  “Of the son which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother,” “all the men of his city shall stone him with stones that he die.” (Deut. xxi. 21.) God in his wisdom instituted this severe law in early times; and it must convince us that there were reasons in the Divine mind for insisting on the ordinance exacting the most perfect submission and reverence to an earthly parent.