Genesis 9:23
Verse
And Shem and Japheth took a garment and put it on both their shoulders. And they went backward and covered the nakedness of their father, their faces backward. And they did not see the nakedness of their father.
Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.
And Shem and Japheth having taken a garment, put it on both their backs and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their face was backward, and they saw not the nakedness of their father.
Footnotes
| 346 | he takes. The verb is the singular and not the plural they take. Shem takes the garment, Opened does not. |
| 347 | Hebrew הַשִּׂמְלָ֗ה, ha-simlah. The Mantle/Garment. Feminine noun with definite article occurs three times—Gen. 9:23, Deut. 22:17, and Judges 8:25. Also a name in Genesis 36:36 |
| 348 | Strong’s #7926, שְׁכֶ֣ם, shekem. Singular noun, shoulder. “Shoulder” is not found in the dual or plural in the Hebrew Scriptures. The shekem is not that part we understand as the right and left shoulders but the area between the shoulder blades or upper part of the back under the neck (cf. Gesenius). the shoulder in Hebrew. “And finding, he lays upon the shoulders of himself” Luke 15:5 literal This an important allegorical part of the Body. In Isa 9:6 it is said, “she is becoming the Government upon his shoulder.” Isa. 22:22, “I have given the key of the house of David upon his shoulder.” Zeph. 3:9 literal, “…to serve Him a shoulder of one.” |
| 349 | If the Hebrew timeline is “backwards” from ours we could deduce that the text means to tells us they are actually walking “forward” toward the beginning or “front” and thus their faces are pointed toward the beginning—backwards. |
