And Shem and Japheth took a garment. Literally, the robe, i.e. which was at hand (Keil, Lange); the simlah, which was an outer cloak (Deuteronomy 10:18; 1 Samuel 21:10; Isaiah 3:6, Isaiah 3:7), in which, at night, persons wrapped themselves (Deuteronomy 22:17).
Sometimes the letters are transposed, and the word becomes salmah (cf. Exodus 22:8; Micah 2:8). And laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backwards, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not the nakedness of their father; thereby evincing "the regard they paid to their father's honor and their own modesty (Calvin).