Genesis 9:25, Canaan’s Destiny

Posted on Saturday, August 23, 2014 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

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

//The Bible tells us the story of a disgruntled nation of slaves (Israel) who escape from Egypt and head to a promised land named Canaan. There, they encounter inhabitants in their way. So what do they do? They slaughter them, in a shocking genocide that apparently has God’s blessing.

Now read today’s verse. It is a precursor to the conquest, cursing Canaan. Except that it’s not cursing a nation, but a person…the father of the nation named Canaan. The descendents of this person, then, become rightfully exterminated when God is ready to move his people into the land of Canaan.

Who is Canaan the person, who cursed him, and what did he do that was so evil? He was the son of Ham, the grandson of Noah, and he did nothing wrong. One day, Noah drank a little too much and flopped down in a drunken, naked stupor in his tent, and his son Ham happened to stumble in inadvertently seeing Noah’s nakedness. So what does Noah do? Why, he curses Ham’s son Canaan forever, naturally.

It is, of course, a mythical story written to justify the invasion of Canaan after the fact.