'little' not in literal truth but in com- | sion is fair, that as nothing is said of parative 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. 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 indiscre tion 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 25. And he said, Cursed be Canaan, denunciation and the actual heavy &c. The important prophecy here re-judgment that followed. (2.) As to corded, which is remarkable for the the connection between the incident fulness and extensive reach of its mean- here mentioned and the predicted doom ing, involves several particulars requir- of Canaan, it is especially to be borne ing a minute and critical investigation, in mind, that here, as in hundreds of which may perhaps swell our remarks other instances in the Scriptures, indisomewhat 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(ba) or in other words, the prevalence of the most flagrant corruption, licentiousness, and debauchery of manners. In proof of this we have only to turn to the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus, 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, 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 vomiteth 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 knowledge of the future lot of this portion of his posterity. But at the same time, it is worthy of remark, that although the sentence here recorded was to spend itself mainly upon the descendants of Ham in the line of Canaan, yet it is an historical fact, that the curse of servitude has signally fallen upon other branches of his posterity, of which the fate of the African race is a standing evidence; but how far we are to refer that fact to the effects of Noah's curse, on this occasion, is not clear. (4.) The prediction is not to be considered as necessarily affect ing individuals, or even communities proceeding from Canaan, so long as they continued righteous. In Abraham's days, before the iniquity of the tribes were expelled by David and settled in those parts of Africa which first fell under the dominion of the Romans, the undoubted descendants of Japheth. Canaan therefore was in early ages the slave of Shem, and in later times of Japheth; and in this way is the difficulty arising from the possible supposition that Canaan was to be in bondage to both his brethren at once, effectually removed. He first bowed to the rod of one, and then, some centuries afterwards, to that of the other. 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 26 And he said, Blessed bel the LORD God of Shem: and Canaan shall be his servant. f Ps. 144. 15. Heb. 11. 16. 27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. g Eph. 2. 13, 14. & 3. 6. should receive from Him tokens of favour and blessing which were not vouchsafed to other people. This prediction as the time drew near for its further fulfilment was renewed in a still more clear and definite form to Abraham, Gen. 17. 7, 8, 'I will estab and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.' We find, moreover, that as the time of the ultimate accomplishment of the promise drew still nearer, the peculiar appropriated title of God, as the God of Shem, viz. Jehovah, begins to be more frequently employed, a fact which affords the genuine clew to the remarkable passages, Ex. 3. 14. and 6. 3. And it is especially worthy of note, that this peculiar privilege of Shem, of having God for his God, is more than once alluded to as distinguishing the Israelites from the Canaanites, when the former went to take possession of their inher strictly be called any more the God of the one than of the other. The declaration therefore carries a higher import. From a view of the whole prophecy it cannot be doubted, we think, that whatever patriarchal prerogatives would otherwise have accrued to Ham as an elder brother they are here in fact transfer-lish my covenant between me and thee red to Shem, the younger, and consequently that both the spiritual and temporal blessings which constituted the birthright henceforth devolved upon Shem as the appointed heir. In these were included mainly the promise of the Messiah as a natural descendant, and of the land of Canaan as a destined inheritance. This land, thus taken away from the Canaanites, and they reduced to bondage, was to be conferred upon the posterity of Shem, and that too in order that they might come into a close covenant relation to God; he becoming in a preeminent sense their God, and they his people, to which this earthly possession was to be entirely subordinate; 'for the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.' In these words, therefore, is mainly set forth the spiritual distinction of Shem, viz. that God should be his God, to which the prom-itance, and is mentioned as a special ise of the earthly Canaan is subjoined. Viewed in this light, the words, 'Blessed be the Lord God of Shem,' import that Jehovah, the true God, should, as the God of Shem, be the object of praise, homage, and blessing; that his worship should be established and perpetuated among them; that his name in opposition to that of idols should be acknowledged as known and reverenced in the line of this father of the chosen race, and that they on the other hand reason for their obeying all the precepts enjoined upon them, and for abstaining from those abominations of the devoted race, which had subjected them to the curse. It will be noticed that throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth chapters of Leviticus, a large proportion of the statutes and judgments there delivered are accompanied with the solemn affirmation 'I am the Lord your God;' and finally it is said, ch. 20. 26, 'Ye 28 T And Noah lived after | 29 And all the days of Noah the flood three hundred and fifty were nine hundred and fifty years: years. shall be holy unto me; for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.' The reason of this mode of address is to be sought for in the remarkable prophecy respecting Shem which we are now considering.- -T Canaan shall be his servant. Heb. 13 servant to them. So also the Chal., Syr., and Arab. The Sept. and some others render in the sing. 'his servant,' but it is certain that according to prevailing usage the Heb. pronoun 3 is plural, and we incline to believe with Gesenius that it is always so used except when referring to a singular of the collective kind. By the phrase 'servant to them,' therefore, is to be understood either that Canaan was to be servant to Shem and Japheth successively, or, as we think still more probable, to Shem and Jehovah conjointly; for the intimate covenant relation between Shem and the God of Israel would naturally lead to their being spoken of together. The words of Joshua to the Gibeonites Josh. 9. 23, seem to favour this interpretation, 'Now therefore ye are cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being bond men, and hewers of wood and drawers .of water for the house of my God.' Comp. v. 27, with my notes on the passage. By being given, or made Nethinims, to the house of God they were at the same time given to the service of Israel, and vice versa. and he died. take the word in the sense of increasing both the progeny and the territories of Japheth; and this, as a temporal promise, has been most remarkably fulfilled, for Japheth who had several more sons than either of his brethren, appears to have been the progenitor of more than half the human race. The whole of Europe and a considerable part of Asia were originally peopled, and have ever since been occupied, by Japheth's offspring. But it is supposed by some commentators that the mere promise of a vast posterity and extensive territory did not exhaust the full measure of Japheth's blessing. This opinion they found not only on the ensuing clause, which indeed supports it, but on the original term ( yapht) here employed. This they render persuade instead of enlarge, from the fact of the root being generally used in the sense of persuade, entice, allure, by fair and kind words. Accordingly the phrase yapht leyepheth, in which there is a paranomasia or play upon the words, they would translate God 'shall persuade Japheth,' or still more literally, 'God shall persuade the persuasible,' i. e. God shall so work upon and allure Japheth that he shall be brought to the faith and obedience of the Gospel, and thus made to dwell in the tents of Shem. But to this interpretation it is a serious objection, (1.) That the original, wherever it signifies to persuade or allure, is always, with perhaps the single ex 27. God shall enlarge Japheth. Rather, according to the Heb. (ception of Jer. 20. 7, used in a bad sense yapht leyepheth) 'shall enlarge or make room for Japheth,' very similar to the expression Gen. 26. 22, 'Now the Lord hath made room for us (77777777 Thus the Gr., Chal., Syr., Arab, Erp., and Lat. Vulg., all which .(לנר implying that kind of persuasion which is connected with deception. (2.) That when thus used it is always followed by the simple accusative of the object, instead of the dative with a preposition as here. (3.) That none of the more ployed or the history which confirms the event. As to the imagery, its leading point is in the words and ancient versions give it the sense of persuading, though the Targum of Jonathan, supposing the root of the verb to be to be beautiful, instead of, translated dwell and tents. Now translates it, 'Jehovah will beautify the we know that the Jewish tabernacle, in bounds of Japheth.' But grammatical which dwelt the Shekinah, was the propriety absolutely forbids such a der- most prominent object of their econoivation of the word and of course the my, and the principal means of presersense grafted upon it. To all which ving the true religion in the family of may be added, that the promise inter- Shem. But under what description is preted in this sense could not be said to it likely that the tabernacle, which was be peculiar to Japheth, for Ham was not erected till the days of Moses, also finally as much to be persuaded or should be mentioned in prophecy so allured into the Christian church as early as the days of Moses? Most obJapheth. We are therefore thrown viously under that of a tent, as a tent back upon the former as the true ren- and a tabernacle are in effect one and dering; 'God shall enlarge or make the same thing, and the word in the room for Japheth,' in bestowing upon Hebrew is the same. This holy tent or him a vast increase of offspring and a tabernacle was Shem's tabernacle, beproportionately large extent of territo- cause it was erected among the sons of ry. This was perhaps by way of off- Shem, and because none might bear a set and concession for the spiritual part in the whole service of it who did blessings of the birthright which were not incorporate with the chosen family. transferred to Shem.-————— -T And he This tabernacle and the service performshall dwell in the tents of Shem. Heb. ed in it were emblems of the Christian Here again church and the Christian service. In the language is ambiguous, and proba- the mention of the tents of Shem bly designedly so, that a twofold sense therefore the Holy Spirit had allusion might be included. The letter of the to the Jewish tabernacle as an emblem clause leaves it doubtful whether 'God' of the Christian church. Accordingly or 'Japheth' is the intended subject of the dwelling of Japheth in these tents the affirmation. The Chaldee supports of Shem took place when the idolathe former; 'He shall make his glory trous nations of Japheth's line were (his Shekinah) to dwell in the tents of converted to the faith of Christ, and Shem.' Interpreted thus the prophecy became worshippers of the God of was fulfilled by the visible presence of Shem in Shem's tabernacles. It apGod in the tabernacle and temple of the pears therefore that the ultimate uniting Jews, to which the Psalmist so striking- of all nations in the faith of Christ was ly alludes, Ps. 33. 12, 'In Judah God is a purpose of heaven announced at as known: his name is great in Israel. early a period as that of selecting a peIn Salem also is his tabernacle, and his culiar people to be for a season the dwelling-place in Zion.' It was still sole depositaries of the true religion. more signally accomplished when the It is remarkable too that the imaWord was made flesh and dwelt ges of this prediction bear a near af(soknywσev tabernacled) among the Jews finity to those under which later prophthe children of Abraham and of Shem. ets have described the same event. IsaiOn the other hand, if the 'he' be refer- ah especially announces the calling of red to Japheth the declaration is equal- the Gentiles in the following words adly true. And so it will appear, wheth- dressed to the Jewish church as the er we consider the imagery here em- emblem of the Christian; Isaiah, 54, ,shall tabernacle ישכן |