signifies heat, probably in allusion to the hot and sultry regions which his descendants were to inhabit. Of 'Japheth' the import is enlargement, the grounds of which appellation are explained below. We may remark, moreover, that the order of mention here does not correspond with the order of age; for Japheth was undoubtedly the eldest and Shem the youngest of the three brethren.

is the token, &c. The remark of Jar-name that is above every name. 'Ham' Ichi the Jewish commentator on this passage we think peculiarly plausible and happy. He says that in what goes before God had merely affirmed, in a general way, that he would appoint the bow in the heavens as a sign of the covenant, and that whenever it should in future chance to appear it should be so regarded, while there is no intimation that one was actually visible at the time. But now, he thinks, for the greater confirmation of Noah's faith, God suddenly overspread the western sky with clouds, and causing the rainbow to appear, said to his servant, 'Behold, this is the sign of which I spake!' Such at any rate is the usual force of the demonstrative N this.

18. The sons of Noah-were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth. To whatever it may be owing, the fact is undoubted, that very many of the names of the early distinguished personages of Scripture are not only significant, but significant some way of the character or fortunes for which the individuals themselves were remarkable. Whether these names were bestowed by their parents under some degree of prophetic influence, as suggested on Gen. 4. 2. -5. 29, or whether the original names were gradually superseded and other appropriate ones substituted by their posterity in after times, is uncertain. That the fact is so, however, the names of Noah's sons afford one of many palpable proofs. 'Shem' signifies name, and doubtless points to the circumstance of his superior distinction over his brethren, especially from his being the progenitor of Him who inherits a

But Shem is usually

כנען .Heb

mentioned first because the birthright was conferred upon him.¶ Ham is the father of Canaan. Kenaan, from the root kâna, to humble, to depress, to cause to stoop or bow down; implying the depressive humiliation to which his descendants should be subjected. This remark of Moses respecting Ham was doubtless made with a special design; for living, as he did, when the Israelites, who descended from Shem, were about to take possession of the land of Canaan, it was of peculiar importance that they should be informed, that the people, whose country the Lord their God had given them to possess, were under a curse from the days of their first father. As Ham had several sons besides Canaan, there seems to be no other assignable reason for his being particularly specified here than that now suggested.

19. Of them was the whole earth overspread. Heb. dispersed,scattered; spoken of the earth figuratively, unless as some critics understand it, 'earth' is here used in the sense of in. habitants of the earth, the container for the contained. The ancient versions

husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:

21 And he drank of the wine,

all give an equivalent rendering, though the Syr. includes both senses;-'From these were mer. divided in the earth.' The fact mentioned would seem to exclude the idea that Noah had any more children born after the flood, as some have maintained.

band was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.

b Prov. 20. 1. 1 Cor. 10. 12.

fiery force, it warms the blood, it mounts to the brain, it leads reason captive, it overpowers every faculty, it triumphs over its lord. How often have arts been invented which have proved fatal to the inventors! Hunter. 21. And he drank of the wine and was drunken. This language is, alas! too plain to stand in need of expository comment. He that runs may read, and he that reads must grieve. It was very lawful for Noah to partake of the fruits of his labour; but he sinned in drinking to excess. He might not indeed have been aware of the strength of the wine, or his age might have ren

20. Noah began to be a husbandman. Heb. a man of the ground. Thus in the Heb. idiom a soldier is termed 'a man of war;' a shepherd, 'a man of cattle;' an orator, ‘a man of words,' &c The language does not necessarily imply that he had not followed the occupation of a husbandman before. The original for 'begin' both in Heb. and Gr. is often redun-dered him sooner affected by it.. At dant, being applied to one who continues or repeats an action begun before. Thus, Christ is said, Mark, 11. 15, to 'begin to cast out,' and Luke, 12. 1, to 'begin to speak,' for which in the parallel places he is said only, Mat. 21. 12, to 'cast out,' and Mat. 16. 6, to 'speak.' So likewise it is said Gen. 6. 1, when men began to multiply,' though we know they had multiplied before this, and were already very numerous. Here then the meaning is simply, that Noah began to cultivate the ground after the deluge and, among other agricultural operations, he planted a vineyard, and was perhaps the first who invented presses for extracting the juice of the grape and making wine in this man

ner.

་

If so, the increased quantities procured, or the augmented strength of the beverage, may account for the effect produced by drinking it upon Noah. 'Behold the juice of the grape in a new state; possessing a quality unheard of before. Eaten from the tree, or dried

in the sun,
is simple and nutritious,
like the grain from the stalk of corn;
pressed out and fermented, it acquires a

any rate, we have reason to conclude from his general character, that it was a fault of inadvertence, one in which he was overtaken, and of which he afterwards bitterly repented. 'Who would look to have found righteous Noah, the father of the new world, lying drunk in his tent?

Who could think that wine should overthrow him that was preserved from the waters? That he who could not be tainted with the sinful examples of the former world should begin the example of a new sin of his own? What are we men if we be left to ourselves! While God upholds us, no temptation can move us; when he leaves us, no temptation is too weak to overthrow us. God's best children have no fence for sins of infirmity. Which of the saints have not once done that whereof they are ashamed? Yet we see Noah drunken but once. One act can no more make a good man unrighteous, than a trade of sin can stand (consist) with regeneration.' Bp. Hall.-—' -T Was uncovered within his tent. Heb. in the midst of (the) tent; the original having nothing

ces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.

24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his young

23 And Shem and Japhether son had done unto him. took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father: and their fa

25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

little' not in literal truth but in comparative dignity. His conduct on this occasion had so degraded him that Shem and Japheth were both preferred before him, and in this sense we think it is that he is here denominated 'little' or 'young,' an epithet that would otherwise sound strangely as applied to a person already an hundred years old. Still it is a point on which we cannot speak with confidence.

sion is fair, that as nothing is said of Ham personally in the sentence uttered, his conduct, though highly criminal, merely afforded an occasion for the prompting of one of the most signal prophecies contained in the Scriptures. In like manner we suppose the indiscretion of Hezekiah in displaying his treasures to the embassadors of the king of Babylon, Is. 39. 6, was not so truly the cause as the occasion of the severe denunciation and the actual heavy

the connection between the incident here mentioned and the predicted doom of Canaan, it is especially to be borne in mind, that here, as in hundreds of other instances in the Scriptures, indi

25. And he said, Cursed be Canaan, &c. The important prophecy here re-judgment that followed. (2.) As to corded, which is remarkable for the fulness and extensive reach of its meaning, involves several particulars requiring a minute and critical investigation, which may perhaps swell our remarks somewhat beyond their usual dimen-viduals are not so much contemplated sions. The first inquiry that naturally arises respects the procuring cause of such an apparently severe denunciation, and that too a denunciation directed not against Ham, the real offender, but against Canaan his son, who does not appear from the text to have had any agency in the transaction.

On

this head we may remark, (1.) That the act of Ham was rather the occasion than the cause of the prediction against Canaan. At the most, his sin was that of irreverence and unbecoming levity towards his aged parent, and this, though by no means a slight offence, can yet be scarcely conceived to possess such peculiar enormity as to draw after it so dire a malediction not only upon the offender himself, but upon his posterity down to distant generations. It is moreover worthy of note, that Noah does not expressly say that because Ham had done so and so, therefore should his offspring be accursed; not to mention, that if Ham's malediction is to be referred entirely to his want of filial reverence, Shem's blessing, on the other hand, ought to be as distinctly ascribed to his piety towards his parent. But this evidently is not the case. We think then the conclu

as the nations and peoples descending from them. As the blessings promised were not to be confined to the persons of Shem and Japheth, so the curse denounced was not to be restricted to the person of Canaan, but was to alight upon his posterity centuries after he

was no more.

But the judgments of

God are not inflicted upon men irrespective of their moral character, nor have we any reason to think that this prediction was ever fulfilled upon the Canaanites themselves, any farther than as their own sins were the procuring causes of it. Noah therefore uttered the words from an inspired foresight of the sins and abominations of the abandoned stock of the Canaanites. Now it is clear from the subsequent history that the peculiar and characteristic sins of that people, the sins which in an especial manner incurred the divine indignation, were closely allied to the sin which immediately prompted Noah's denunciatory prophecy. It was the uncovering of nakedness(y nða) or in other words, the prevalence of the most flagrant corruption, licentious. ness, and debauchery of manners. proof of this we have only to turn to the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus,

In

Canaanites came to the full, Melchizedek whose name was expressive of his character, 'king of righteousness,' was a worthy priest of the most high God; and Abimelech whose name imports 'parental king' pleaded the integ

of his nation, Gen 20, 4-9, before God, and his plea was admitted. Yet both these personages appear to have been Canaanites. The import of this pre

we proceed. -TA servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. Chal. 'working servant.' That is, a servant reduced to the lowest degree of bondage and degradation. It is an Hebraic idiom conveying a superlative idea like holy of holies, king of kings, vanity of vanities, song of songs, &c. The terms 'brother,' brethren,' were used by the Hebrews for more distant relatives; and this prophecy more especially entered on a course of fulfilment about eight hundred years after its delivery, when the Israelites, the descendants of Shem, subdued the Canaanites and took possession of their country. The prediction was still farther accomplished,

where the black specification of the leading crimes of the Canaanites is given, and we cannot fail to be struck with the coincidence even in the very point of the language of the description; the whole concluding with the solemn injunction, v. 24, 25, 'Defile not ye your-rity of his heart and the righteousness selves 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 vom-diction will be still further developed as iteth out her inhabitants.' We may therefore justly regard the conduct of Ham towards his father as so far an image or sample of the future iniquitous conduct of the Canaanites, that it should very naturally be made, under the prompting of inspiration, a suggesting occasion of the curse now pronounced. (3.) This view of the subject, while it makes the burden of the prediction to centre more especially upon Canaan, does not utterly exclude Ham from all participation in it, inasmuch as no father can fail to be deeply affected with the prospect of a child's calamities. Omniscience perhaps saw that Ham's sin was not sufficiently aggravated to subject him just-when the scattered remnants of those ly to any severer punishment than the tribes were expelled by David and setknowledge of the future lot of this por- tled in those parts of Africa which first tion of his posterity. But at the same fell under the dominion of the Romans, time, it is worthy of remark, that al- the undoubted descendants of Japheth. though the sentence here recorded was Canaan therefore was in early ages the to spend itself mainly upon the de- slave of Shem, and in later times of scendants of Ham in the line of Ca- Japheth; and in this way is the diffinaan, yet it is an historical fact, that culty arising from the possible suppothe curse of servitude has signally fal- sition that Canaan was to be in bondlen upon other branches of his poster-age to both his brethren at once, effect ity, of which the fate of the Africanually removed. He first bowed to the race is a standing evidence; but how rod of one, and then, some centuries far we are to refer that fact to the afterwards, to that of the other. effects of Noah's curse, on this occasion, is not clear. (4.) The prediction is not to be considered as necessarily affecting individuals, or even communities proceeding from Canaan, so long as they continued righteous. In Abraham's days, before the iniquity of the

26 Blessed be the Lord God of Shem. These words are to be regarded as far more than a simple expression of Noah's thanks to God for the pious act of Shem; for in this sense Japheth's conduct was entitled to equal commendation, and God could not, on this ground alone