Endnote 5 – Woman, a Power Equal to Man

Another example of the Bible’s use of both meanings of a double entendre can be found in Genesis 9:20–27, where Ham “saw his father’s nakedness” (a euphemism for sexual intercourse, cf. Leviticus 20–17, and so meant in Genesis 9:20–21, as the curse proves, cf. Deuteronomy 27:20), but his brothers literally “cover their father’s nakedness” with a garment that they carry while walking backwards. Immanuel Casanowitz collected some 500 examples of paranomasia (puns) in his Paranomasia in the Old Testament (Boston, 1894).