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This expression for sexual union is used throughout the incest prohibitions in Lev 18:1-18, 20:17-21,9 where, for example, we read: "If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace, and they shall be cut off in the sight of their people; he has uncovered his sister's nakedness, he shall be subject to punishment." (20:17, NRSV) Notice the parallelism here between "seeing nakedness" and "uncovering nakedness," both inferring "having sex with." Because of a different context, "seeing" and "uncovered" in the Noah story do not prove that Ham had sex with Noah – but they do suggest some possible link between "nakedness" (erwa = genitals) and looking and sex in this story. Wold raises this interesting question also: how could Ham have known that his father was naked when he first entered the tent? Perhaps he only intended to speak to Noah or, if he knew his father had drunk a lot, to see if he needed assistance. No precedents can be found in ancient Near Eastern or Egyptian records showing that for a son simply to see his father naked was such a horrible thing or for placing a curse on someone other than the wrongdoer.10 In the Bible, we do have the incident where Lot's daughters get their father drunk (Gen 19:30-37), on two consecutive nights, so they can expose and manipulate his genitals to impregnate themselves (to get an heir); and no condemnation is passed on this indignity, in Genesis or elsewhere in the OT. Their motive, no doubt considered praiseworthy in ancient times, outweighed the insult done to their father. Further, in the Noah story, Wold holds that the verb asa ("to do, make") in v. 24 "implies physical rather than verbal action" and "is best understood in this concrete way."
