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Genesis 9:18. The sons of Noah, &c.— Japheth, though named last, was, as we have before observed, the eldest of Noah's sons, as appears from ch. Genesis 10:21. Shem, whom some would make the eldest, appears, says Shuckford, to have been two years younger than Japheth; for Noah was five hundred years old at the birth of his eldest son, that is, a hundred years before the flood. See Gen 5:32 compared with Genesis 7:6. But Shem was but a hundred years old two years after the flood, namely, at the birth of Arphaxad, ch. Genesis 11:10. and consequently he must have been two years younger than Noah's first-born. Canaan, the son of Ham, is mentioned here to introduce the following account, in which the origin of that people is marked out, who became so detestable afterwards, as to be destroyed for their enormities by the hand of the Israelites, under the immediate direction of God.

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Genesis 9:19. Three sons—of them was the whole earth overspread— Three things may be observed from this. 1. That though Noah lived three hundred years after he came out of the ark, yet he begat no more children; or, if he did, none of them lived to have any posterity. 2. That the deluge was universal, as the whole earth was re-peopled by these three sons of Noah and their wives; an event which, doubtless, gave rise to the fable of the partition of the world between the three sons of Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. 3. That the divine promise and benediction, in Genesis 9:1; Genesis 9:7. was fully and admirably accomplished.

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Genesis 9:21. He drank of the wine, and was drunken— Became inebriated, not knowing, perhaps, the nature and strength of the liquor; or being, through age, incapable of bearing it; and Moses is so faithful an historian, that he records the failings and imperfections of the most venerable patriarchs, as well as their excellencies. This remark is from Dr. Newton, the learned Bishop of Bristol; whose judicious exposition of the subsequent passage we shall follow, from his useful dissertations on the prophecies.

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Genesis 9:22. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness, &c.— The loose dress of those times, made it easy for any slight accident to produce that nakedness, which Ham seeing, wantonly and tauntingly exposed to his brethren, instead of concealing it, as a dutiful son ought to have done. In this, perhaps, consisted his great fault, that, instead of covering his aged father, he went and ridiculously exposed him to his brethren without in a public manner. But Shem and Japheth, more compassionate to the infirmities of their aged father, took a garment, and went backward, with such decency and respect, that they saw not the nakedness of their father, at the same time that they covered him.

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Genesis 9:24. Noah awoke—and knew what his younger, &c.— Noah when awaking would find the garment upon him, which Shem and Japheth had brought, and would thence, doubtless, be led to inquire whence and how it came, and so would know, by information, what his younger son had done unto him: words which plainly intimate more than bare seeing, and shew, that something irreverent and disrespectful had been done by that younger son.

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Genesis 9:25. And he said, cursed, &c.— In consequence of this different behaviour of his sons, Noah, as a patriarch, was enlightened, and as a father of a family, who is to reward or punish his children, was empowered to foretel what should happen to their respective families: for this prophecy relates not so much to themselves as to their posterity, the people and nations descended from them. He was not prompted by wine, or resentment; for neither the one nor the other could infuse the knowledge of futurity, or inspire him with the prescience of events, which happened hundreds, if not thousands, of years afterwards. This, like most of the ancient prophecies, was delivered in metre:

"Cursed be Canaan, A servant of servants shall he be to his brethren: Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem; And Canaan shall be their servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, And shall dwell in the tents of Shem, And Canaan shall be their servant."

Canaan was the fourth son of Ham, ch. Genesis 10:6. "And for what reason can you believe, that Canaan was so particularly marked out for the curse? for his father Ham's transgression? But where would be the justice, or equity, to pass by Ham himself, with the rest of his children, or to punish only Canaan for what Ham had committed? Such proceedings are contrary to all our ideas of the divine perfections." The truth is, the curse is to be understood not so properly of Canaan, as of his descendants to late generations. It is thinking meanly of the ancient prophecies, and having very imperfect and unworthy conceptions of them, to limit their intention to particular persons. We must affix a larger meaning to them; and understand them not of single persons, but of whole nations. The curse of servitude pronounced upon Canaan, and the promise of blessing and enlargement made to Shem and Japheth, extend to their whole race for many generations: as afterwards the prophecies concerning Ishmael, Esau, and Jacob, and the twelve patriarchs, were not so properly verified in themselves, as in their posterity. The curse therefore upon Canaan was, properly, a curse upon the Canaanites. God foreseeing the wickedness of that people, (which began in their father Ham, and greatly increased in this branch of his family,) commissioned Noah to pronounce a curse upon them, and to devote them to the servitude and misery, which their more than common vices and iniquities would deserve. And this account was plainly written by Moses for the encouragement of the Israelites, to support and animate them in their expedition against a people, who, by their sins, had forfeited the divine protection, and were destined to slavery from the days of Noah.

Cursed be Canaan— Having seen in the foregoing note the purport of the prophecy, let us attend to the completion of it. Cursed be Canaan: let us observe, there is nothing in the Hebrew for be: it is only cursed Canaan, and may be understood either as an apostrophe, Ah, devoted, wretched

Canaan! or Canaan shall, or will, be cursed. In whatever sense you understand it, certain it is the Canaanites were an abominably wicked (and so a cursed) people. The sin and punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah are well known: and as for the inhabitants of the land which was promised to Abraham and his seed, God bore with them till their iniquity was full, ch. Genesis 15:16. We are told, that every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done to their gods; for even their sons and their daughters have they burnt in the fire to their gods. Deuteronomy 12:31. Their religion was bad, and their morality (if possible) worse; for corrupt religion and corrupt morals usually generate each other. Read the 18th and 20th chapters of Leviticus, and you will find, that unlawful marriages, and unlawful lusts, witchcraft, adultery, incest, sodomy, beastiality, and the like monstrous crimes, were frequent among them. And was not a curse, in the nature of things, as well as by the just judgment of God, deservedly entailed upon such a people and nation as this? See Deuteronomy 9:4.

A servant of servants shall he be to his brethren— It is very well known, that the word brethren, in the Hebrew, comprehends more distant relations. (See Deu 9:5 of this chapter.) The descendants, therefore of Canaan were to be subject to the descendants of Shem and Japheth: and the natural consequence of vice in communities, as well as in single persons, is slavery. The same thing is repeated again and again in the two following verses, so that this is, as it were, the burden of the prophecy. A servant of servants, is a phrase of the same turn with Holy of holies, Song of songs, King of kings, and imports, that they should be the lowest and basest of servants.

We cannot be certain as to the time of the delivery of this prophecy. If it was delivered soon after the transactions which immediately precede in the history, it was soon after the deluge; and then Canaan was prophesied of before he was born, as it was prophesied of Esau and Jacob, Gen 25:23 compared with Romans 9:11. If the prophecy was delivered a little before the transactions which immediately follow in the history, it was a little before Noah's death; and he was then enlightened, as Jacob was, to foretel what was to befal his posterity in the latter days, Genesis 49:1. However this matter may be determined, it was several centuries after the delivery of this prophecy, when the Israelites, who were the descendants of Shem, under the command of Joshua, invaded the Canaanites, smote above thirty of their kings, took possession of their land, slew vast numbers of the inhabitants, and made the Gibeonites and others servants and tributaries. Solomon afterwards subdued the rest. See 2 Chronicles 8:7-8. The Greeks and Romans too, who were the descendants of Japheth, not only subdued Syria and Palestine, but also pursued and conquered such of the Canaanites as were any where remaining, as for instance, the Tyrians and Carthaginians; the former of whom were ruined by Alexander and the Grecians, and the latter by Scipio and the Romans. And ever since, the miserable remains of that people have been slaves to a foreign yoke; first to the Saracens, who descended from Shem; and afterwards to the Turks, who descended from Japheth; and they groan under the dominion of the latter to this day.

Hence you see, that this prophecy was not to take place immediately, but was to be fulfilled in process of time, when the descendants of Canaan should forfeit their liberties by their wickedness. Ham at first subdued some of the posterity of Shem, as Canaan sometimes conquered Japheth: the Carthaginians, who were originally Canaanites, did so particularly in Italy and Spain: but in time they were to be subdued, and to become servants to Shem and Japheth; and the change of their condition from good to bad would render the curse still more visible. AEgypt was the land of Ham, and, for many years, a great and flourishing kingdom; but it was subdued by the Persians, who descended from Shem, and afterwards by the Grecians, who descended from Japheth: and, from that time to this, it hath constantly been in subjection to some or other of the posterity of Shem or Japheth. The whole continent of Africa was peopled principally by the children of Ham: and for how many ages have the better parts of that country lain under the dominion of the Romans, and then of the Saracens, and now of the Turks? In what wickedness, ignorance, barbarity, slavery, and misery live most of the inhabitants? And of the poor negroes, how many thousands every year are sold and bought like beasts in the market, and are conveyed from one quarter of the world to do the work of beasts in another? These circumstances have led some eminent commentators to think, that the curse contained in this prophecy extended to the other branches of the posterity of Ham, as well as particularly to the posterity of Canaan. But, I conceive, the text will not justify this interpretation. However, if it do, nothing can be more complete than the execution of the sentence upon Ham, as well as upon Canaan. Let us next consider the promises made to Shem and Japheth.

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Genesis 9:26. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, &c.— The old patriarch doth not say, Blessed be Shem, as he said, Cursed be Canaan; for men's evil springeth of themselves, but their good from God: and therefore, in a strain of devotion, he breaketh forth into thanksgiving to God, as the author of all good to men. Neither doth he say the same to Japheth; for God certainly may dispense his peculiar favours according to his good pleasure, and salvation was to be derived through Shem and his posterity in the promised seed. God prefers Shem to his elder brother Japheth, as Jacob was afterwards preferred to Esau, and David to his elder brothers: but we shall say more on this subject in due place. The Lord being called the God of Shem, it is plainly intimated thereby, that the Lord would be his God in a particular manner: and of Shem, as concerning the flesh, Christ came. And Canaan shall be HIS servant, should rather be, their servant, or servant to them; that is, to his brethren. This, as we before observed, is the main part of the prophecy, and therefore so frequently repeated.

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Genesis 9:27. God shall enlarge, &c.— Some render the word (it is so rendered in the margin of our Bibles) God shall persuade, or allure, Japheth, so that he shall come over to the true religion, and dwell in the tents of Shem. But the best critics in the language have remarked, besides other reasons, that they who translate the word by persuade, or allure, did not consider that when it is so taken, it is used in a bad sense, and governs an accusative case, not a dative, as in this place. God shall enlarge Japheth, is the best translation; and, in the original, there is a manifest allusion to Japheth's name, such as is familiar to the Hebrew writers: see our note on ch. Genesis 4:1. see ch. Genesis 5:29. Genesis 49:8; Genesis 49:16; Genesis 49:19, &c. for Japheth signifies enlargement. Was Japheth then more enlarged than the rest? He was, both in territory and in children. The territories of Japheth's posterity were indeed very large; for, besides all Europe, great and extensive as it is, they possessed the Lesser Asia, Media, part of Armenia, Iberia, Albania, and those vast regions towards the north, which anciently were inhabited by the Scythians, and now by the Tartars: and it is nearly, if not quite certain, that the New World was peopled by some of his, or their, descendants, passing thither by the Straits of Anian. The enlargement of Japheth may also denote a numerous progeny, as well as ample territory: and if you consult the genealogies of the three brothers, comprised in the following chapter, you will find that Japheth had seven sons, whereas Ham had only four, and Shem only five. And the northern hive was always remarkable for its fecundity, and hath been continually pouring forth swarms, and sending out colonies into the more southern parts, both in Europe and in Asia, in former and in latter times.

He shall dwell in the tents of Shem— This passage is capable of a double construction: for thereby may be meant, either that God, or that Japheth, shall dwell in the tents of Shem: tents, speaking according to the simplicity of those times. They who prefer the former construction, seem to have the authority of the original text on their side; for there is no other noun to govern the verbs in the period, but God; there is no pronoun in the Hebrew answering to the HE, which is inserted in our translation: the whole sentence would run thus, "God will enlarge Japheth, and will dwell in the tents of Shem." And the Chaldee of Onkelos also thus paraphraseth it, "and will make his glory to dwell in the tabernacles of Shem." They who prefer the latter construction, seem to have done it, that they might refer this 27th verse wholly to Japheth, as they refer the 26th wholly to Shem; but the other appears to me the more natural and easy construction (especially if you refer to the metrical division we have given above, and not to the modern division of verses). Taken in either sense, the prophecy has been most punctually fulfilled. In the former sense, it was fulfilled literally, when the Shechinah, or Divine Presence, rested on the ark, and dwelt in the tabernacle and temple of the Jews: and when the Word, who was with God, and was God, (John 1:1.) εσκηνωσεν, pitched his tent, and dwelt among us, John 1:14. In the latter sense, it was fulfilled, first, when the Greeks and Romans, who sprung originally from Japheth, subdued and possessed Judea and other countries of Asia, belonging to Shem: and again, spiritually, when they were proselyted to the true religion; when they who were not Israelites by birth, became Israelites by faith, and lived as we and many others of Japheth's posterity do at this day, within the pale of the church of Christ. We cannot help observing in conclusion, what is memorable enough, that though Ham hath, in some instances, and upon some occasions, been superior, yet of the four famous monarchies of the world, the Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman; the two former were of the descendants of Shem, as the two latter were of the sons of Japheth!

And is not this a must extraordinary prophecy: a prophecy which was delivered near four thousand years ago, and yet hath been fulfilling through the several periods of time to this day! It is both wonderful and instructive. It is the history of the world, as it were, in miniature.

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