He said, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Shem. Let Canaan be his servant.
World English Bible
Genesis 9:26
This verse is examined in more than one Scripture Analysis section. Each lens is shown on its own terms, in the section's own words; GEBible reaches no verdict of its own.
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WEB World English Bible Public Domain ✓ - Modern English
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- TCENT Text-Critical English New Testament A modern reasoned-eclectic New Testament (2022) · CC BY 4.0
- F35 Family 35 New Testament Wilbur Pickering's Byzantine-priority New Testament, with text-critical commentary notes · CC BY-SA 4.0
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Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
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Does God approve of slavery?
Genesis 9:25-27 has Noah — explicitly called a just and righteous man — pronouncing a divine curse condemning Canaan to be 'a servant of servants,' and the Torah then provides extensive regulations for Hebrew and foreign slavery without ever abolishing it. Against that, the 'love thy neighbor' command of Leviticus 19:18, quoted by Jesus in Mark 12:31 and Matthew 22:39, makes slavery ethically untenable.
Critical scholarship: Genuinely disputed among scholars.
More on this question
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Each section sets the viewpoints side by side; you weigh the evidence. Here, "critical scholarship" means academic study, not a value judgment. How this is built →
Other verses examined for the same kind of question or claim
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This citation refers to this GEBible page — the verse and the analysis gathered here. To cite the underlying scholarship, cite those sources directly.
"Genesis 9:26 — Scripture Analysis" GEBible, https://gebible.app/analysis/verse/genesis/9/26?version=WEB (retrieved 27 August 2026).