Genesis 9:23

23 And Shem and Japheth putted a mantle on their shoulders, and they went backward, and covered the shameful members of their father, and their faces were turned away, and they saw not the privy members of their father.

Genesis 9:23 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 9:23

And Shem and Japheth took a garment
Who were the two brothers Ham told what he had seen, and who, no doubt, reproved him for his ill behaviour, and then took a garment, a coat of their own, very probably, some large garment fit for the purpose;

and laid it upon both their shoulders;
one part of it on the right shoulder of the one, and the other on the left shoulder of the other:

and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father;
going backward when they came into the tent, and to the place where their father lay, they threw the garment off from their shoulders over him, and so covered him:

and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's
nakedness:
which they purposely shunned, for which reason they went backwards, and their faces were backwards to their father; which showed their modesty, and their filial piety and duty, and thus by their actions reproved Ham, as well as doubtless they did by words.

Genesis 9:23 In-Context

21 and (one day) he drank wine, and was drunken; and he was naked, and lay in his tabernacle (and he lay naked in his tent).

22 And when Ham, the father of Canaan, had seen this thing, that is, that the shameful members of his father were made naked, he told his two brethren withoutforth.

23 And Shem and Japheth putted a mantle on their shoulders, and they went backward, and covered the shameful members of their father, and their faces were turned away, and they saw not the privy members of their father.

24 And Noe waked of the wine, and when he had learned what things his less(er), or younger , son had done to him, (And when Noah awoke from the wine, and he had learned what his youngest son had done to him,)

25 he said, Cursed be the child Canaan, he shall be (a) servant of servants to his brethren. (he said, Cursed be Ham's child Canaan, let him be a slave of slaves to his brothers.)