but were guilty of the worst sort of idolatry; for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.'-Deut. xii. 31. Their religion was bad, and their morality, if possible, was worse; for corrupt religion and corrupt morals usually generate each other. Read the 18th and the 20th chapters of Leviticus, and you will find that unlawful marriages and unlawful lusts, witchcraft, adultery, incest, sodomy, beastiality, and the like monstrous enormities were frequent and common among them. And was not a curse in the nature of things, as well as in the just judgment of God, deservedly entailed upon such a people and nation as this? It was not for their own righteousness' that the Lord brought' the Israelites into possess the land :' but for the wickedness of these nations did the Lord drive them out'-Deut. ix. 4: and he would have driven out the Israelites in like manner for the very same abomination. Defile not you yourselves in any of these things; for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you. And the land is defiled; therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations--That the land spue not you out also when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you. For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them, shall be cut off from among their people.-Levit. xviii. 24, &c.

But the curse particularly implies servitude and subjection. 'Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.' It is very well known that the word brethren' in Hebrew comprehends more distant relations. The descendants therefore of Canaan were to be subject to the descendants of both 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, and Canaan shall be servant to them,' or 'their servant;' so that this is as it were the burden of the prophecy. Some critics take the phrase of servant of servants' strictly and literally, and say that the prediction was exactly fulfilled when the Canaanites became servants to the Israelites, who had been servants to the Egyptians.*

rum.

Noa Chamum execratus prædixerat fore ut ejus posteri servi essent servoatque id impletum in Chananæis, tum cum subire coacti sunt Israelitaru

But this is refining too much; the phrase of servant of servants.'* is of the same turn and cast as 'holy of holies, king of kings, song of songs,' and the like expressions in scripture; 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; for the history of Moses is so concise, that it hath not gratified us in this particular. If the prophecy was delivered soon after the transactions, which immediately precede in the history, Noah's beginning to be a husbandman, and planting a vineyard,' 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. xxv. 23. the elder shall serve the younger,' before the children were born and had done either good or evil,' as St. Paul saith, Rom. ix. 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 enlightened in his last moments as Jacob was, to 'foretel' what should befall' his posterity in the latter days,'-Gen. xlix. 1. However this matter be determined, it was several centuries after the delivery of this prophecy, when the Israelites, who were descendants of Shem, under the command of Joshua, invaded the Canaanites, smote about thirty of their kings, took possession of their land, slew several of the inhabitants, made the Gibeonites and others servants and tributaries, and Solomon afterwards subdued the rest. As for all the people that were left of the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which were not of Israel; but of their children who were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel consumed not; them did Solomon make to pay tribute until this day. But of the children of Israel did Solomon make

jugum qui Ægyptiis diu servierant.---Bocharti Phaleg. b. 1, cap. 1, col. 3, 4 [Noah, having cursed Ham, predicted that a time would come when his posterity should be the servant of servants; which was fulfilled when the Canaanites were under the yoke of the Israelites, who had long been the servants of the Egyptians.]

* S. Pompeius, studiis rudis, libertorum suorum libertus, servorumque servus; spe. ciosis invidens ut pareret humillimis.---Velleius Paterc. II. 73. [S. Pompeius was a man of no learning, a freedman of his own freedmen, a servant of servants; envious of the great, while he crouched to the meanest.---Velleius Paterculus, II. 73] Hic vero valet postremus servorum.---Vide Sallust. Fragm. Id. Velleius II. 83. Infra servos cliens.---From some M. S. notes of Mr. Wasse's in the hands of Dr. Jortin. Here indeed the lowest of servants has power. See the Fragments of Sallust and Velleius, 11. 83. A denendant below a servant.

no servants for his work; but they were men of war, and chief of his captains, and captains of his chariots and horsemen.'-2 Chron. viii. 7, 8, 9. The Greeks and Romans too, who were 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. "This fate," says Mr. Mede,* "was it that made Hannibal, a child of Canaan, cry out with the amazement of his soul, Agnosco fortunam Carthaginis—I acknowledge the fortune of Carthage." And ever since the miserable remainder of this 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 their dominion at this day.

Hitherto we have explained the prophecy according to the pre sent copies of our bible; but if we were to correct the text, as we should any ancient classic author in a like case, the whole perhaps might be made easier and plainer. Ham the father of Canaan' is mentioned in the preceding part of the story; and how then came the person of a sudden to be changed into Canaan? The Arabic version+ in these three verses hath the father of Canaan' instead of Canaan. Some copies of the Septuagint likewise have Ham instead of Canaan, as if Canaan was a corruption of the text. Vatablus and others by Canaan' understand the father of Canaan,' which was expressed twice before. And if we regard the metre, this line Cursed be Canaan,' is much shorter than the rest, as if something was deficient. § May we not suppose therefore

Mede's Works, B. I. Disc. 50, p. 284.

Livy, lib. 27, in fine.

+ Maledictus pater Canaan, &c. Arab. [Cursed be the father of Canaan, &c. Arabic version.]

Les Septante dans quelques exemplaires, au lieu de Canaan, lisent Cham, comme si le texte qui porte Canaan etoit corrompu.--Calmet on the text. So Ainsworth too [Translated in the text.]

§ Quidam subaudiunt & pater, quod paulo ante bis expressum est, Maledictus Cham pater Chananæorum-Vatab. in locum. [Some suppose that father, is under. stood, because a little above, Cursed be Ham the father of the Canaanites, is twice mentioned.-Vatablus on this passage.]

My suspicion hath since been confirmed by the reverend and learned Mr. Green, Fellow of Clare-Hall in Cambridge; who is admirably well skilled in the Hebrew language and Hebrew metre, and hath given abundant proofs of his knowledge and judgment in these matters, in his new translation and commentary on the song of

(without taking such liberties as Father Houbigant hath with the Hebrew text) that the copyist by mistake wrote only 'Canaan' instead of Ham the father of Canaan,' and that the whole passage was originally thus? And Ham the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.-And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Ham the father of Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Ham the father of Canaan shall be servant to them. God shall enlarge Japheth; and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Ham the Father of Canaan shall be servant to them.'

And

By this reading all the three sons of Noah are included in the prophecy, whereas otherwise Ham, who was the offender, is excluded, or is only punished in one of his children. Ham is characterized as the father of Canaan' particularly, for the greater encouragement of the Israelites, who were going to invade the land of Canaan; and when it is said, 'Cursed be Ham the father of Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren ;' it

Deborah, the prayer of Habakuk, &c. He asserts, that according to Bishop Hare's metre, the words ham abi are necessary to fill up the verse. He proposes a further emendation of the text, by the omission of one line, and the transposition of another and would read the whole prophecy thus, according to the metre:

And Noah said,

Cursed be Ham the father of Canaan;

A servant of servants shall he be to his brethren.

And he said,

Blessed be Jehovah the God of Shem;

For he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.

God shall enlarge Japheth;

And Canaan shall be their servant.

If you will not allow this emendation to be right and certain, yet I think you must allow it to be probable and ingenious, to render the sense clearer and plainer, and to give to every part its just weight and proportion. Or the whole may, with only ■ transposition and without any omission, be represented thus:

Is implied that his whole race was devoted to servitude, but particularly the Canaanites. Not that this was to take effect immediately, but was to be fulfilled in process of time, when they 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 particularly in Spain and Italy; but in time they were to be subdued, and to become servants to Shem and Japheth: and the change of their fortune from good to bad would render the curse still more visible, Egypt was the land of Ham,' as it is often called in scripture; and for many years it was 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, misery, live most of the inhabitants? and of the poor negroes how many hundreds 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?

Nothing can be more complete than the execution of the sentence upon Ham as well as upon Canaan and now let us consider the promises made to Shem and Japheth. And he said,' ver. 26, 'Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant;' or rather, and Canaan shall be servant to them,' or their servant,' that is to his brethren; for that, as we observed before, is the main part of the prophecy, and therefore is so frequently repeated. A learned critict in the Hebrew language, who hath lately published some remarks on the printed Hebrew text, saith that "if it should be thought preferable to refer the word blessed directly to Shem, as the word 'cursed' is to Canaan; the words

* Cham licet maledictus, non tamen fuit exclusus a terrenis benedictionibus ---Quippe in mundi divisione, illi præter Ægyptum atque Africam universam, Syriæ magna pars obtigit, &c.---Bocharti Phaleg. lib. 4, cap. 1, col. 203. [Although Ham was cursed, yet he was not excluded from earthly blessings; for, in the division of of the world, a great part of Syria, together with Egypt and the whole of Africa, was allotted to him.-Bochart's Phaleg. book 4, c. 1. col. 203.]

+ See Kennicott's Dissertation, p. 561.