to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Cursed
אָר֣וּר'a.Rur
H779
to execrate · verb, qal passive participle, masculine singular absolute
Canaan
כְּנָ֑עַןke.Na.'an
H3667
Kenaan · proper noun, a man's name
servant
עֶ֥בֶד'E.ved
H5650
a servant · noun, common masculine singular construct
servants
עֲבָדִ֖ים'a.va.Dim
H5650
a servant · noun, common masculine plural absolute
brethren
לְאֶחָֽיוle.'e.Chav
H251
a brother (used in the widest sense of literal relation… · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Deuteronomy 27:16 Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.
Joshua 9:23 Now therefore ye are cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house…
Judges 1:28-30 And it came to pass, when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them out.
Joshua 9:27 And Joshua made them that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation, and for the altar of the LORD, even unto this day, i…
1 Kings 9:20-21 And all the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which were not of the children of Israel,
John 8:34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
2 Chronicles 8:7-8 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 n…
Genesis 9:22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 9:24-27
Here, I. Noah comes to himself: He awoke from his wine. Sleep cured him, and, we may suppose, so cured him that he never relapsed into that sin afterwards. Those that sleep as Noah did should awake as he did, and not as that drunkard (Pro 23:35) who says when he awakes, I will seek it yet again.
II. The spirit of prophecy comes upon him, and, like dying Jacob, he tells his sons what shall befal them, Gen 49:1.
1. He pronounces a curse on Canaan the son of Ham (Gen 9:25), in whom Ham is himself cursed, either because this son of his was now more guilty than the rest, or because the posterity of this son was afterwards to be rooted out of their land, to make room for Israel. And Moses here rec…
Cursed be Canaan--This doom has been fulfilled in the destruction of the Canaanites--in the degradation of Egypt and the slavery of the Africans, the descendants of Ham.
Adam Clarke on Genesis 9:25
Cursed be Canaan - See on the preceding verses. In the 25th, 26th, and 27th verses, instead of Canaan simply, the Arabic version has Ham the father of Canaan; but this is acknowledged by none of the other versions, and seems to be merely a gloss.
John Gill on Genesis 9:25
And he said,.... Not in a drunken fit, as some profane persons would suggest, for he was awaked from his wine; nor in the heat of passion, but by inspiration, under a spirit of prophecy:
cursed be Canaan; or, "O cursed Canaan", or rather, "Canaan is", or "shall be cursed" (q); for the words are either a declaration of what was his case, or a prediction of what it should be. It may seem strange that Canaan should be cursed, and not Ham, who seems to he the only aggressor, by what is said in the context; hence one copy of the Septuagint, as Ainsworth observes, reads Ham, and the Arabic writers the father of Canaan; and so Saadiah Gaon supplies it, as Aben Ezra relates; and the same supplement…
First of all, let us show great reverence to our parents, as we read in Genesis 9:25-27, that whoever was blessed by their father, was blessed, and whoever was cursed by their father, was cursed! Therefore, God has granted this grace to parents, so that the piety of their children may be provoked. Therefore, it is the duty of children to obey their parents. Honor your father, so that he may bless you.
Why did Ham sin and yet vengeance was declared against his son Canaan? Why was the son of Solomon punished by the breaking up of the kingdom? Why was the sin of Ahab, king of Israel, visited upon his posterity? How do we read in the sacred books, "Returning the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them" and "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation?" The number here can be taken for all the descendants. Are these statements false? Who would say this but the most open enemy of the divine words? Then carnal generation even of the people of God of the Old Testament binds children for the sins of their parents.
To be sure, some will say, this shows that the reason he did not curse Ham was that he had enjoyed blessing from God. Nevertheless, why is it that though Ham was the sinner, Canaan had to pay the penalty? This does not happen idly either. Ham did not endure less punishment than his son. He too felt its effects. You know well, of course, how in many cases fathers have begged to endure punishment in place of their children. Seeing their children bearing punishment proves a more grievous form of chastisement for the fathers than being subject to it themselves. Accordingly, this incident occurred so that Ham should endure greater anguish on account of his natural affection, so that God's blessing should continue without impairment and so that his son in being the object of the curse should atone for his own sins. You see, even if in the present instance he bears the curse on account of his father's sin, nevertheless it was likely that he was atoning for his own failings. In other words, it was not only for his father's sin that he bore the curse but perhaps also for the purpose of his suffering a heavier penalty on his own account. After all, for proof that parents are not punished for their children, nor children for their parents, each being liable for the sins he has committed, you can find frequent statements among the inspired authors—as, for instance, when they say, "The teeth of the one eating sour grapes shall be set on edge," "The soul that shall die is the soul that sins," and again, "Parents shall not die for their children, nor children for their parents."
Dictionary and topics
Covenant — A contract or agreement between two parties. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word berith is always thus translated. Berith is derived from a root which means “to cut,” and hence a covenant is a…
Curse — Denounced by God against the serpent (Gen. 3:14), and against Cain (4:11). These divine maledictions carried their effect with them. Prophetical curses were sometimes pronounced by holy men (Gen.…
Father — A name applied (1) to any ancestor (Deut. 1:11; 1 Kings 15:11; Matt. 3:9; 23:30, etc.); and (2) as a title of respect to a chief, ruler, or elder, etc. (Judg. 17:10; 18:19; 1 Sam. 10:12; 2 Kings…
Shem — A name; renown, the first mentioned of the sons of Noah (Gen. 5:32; 6:10). He was probably the eldest of Noah’s sons. The words “brother of Japheth the elder” in Gen. 10:21 are more correctly…
Canaanites, The · An accursed race — An accursed race
Children · Power of parents over, during the patriarchal age — Power of parents over, during the patriarchal age
Curse · .Against — .Against
Judgments · Upon individuals - Exemplified: Canaan — Upon individuals - Exemplified: Canaan
Noah · .Intoxi — .Intoxi
Parents · .Noah — .Noah
Patriarchal Government · Exercised in: Blessing and cursing their children — Exercised in: Blessing and cursing their children
John Calvin on Genesis 9:25
Cursed be Canaan [298] It is asked in the first place, why Noah instead of pronouncing the curse upon his son, inflicts the severity of punishment, which that son had deserved, upon his innocent grandson; since it seems not consistent with the justice of God, to visit the crimes of parents upon their children? But the answer is well known; namely that God, although he pursues his course of judgments upon the sons and the grandchildren of the ungodly, yet in being angry with them, is not angry with the innocent, because even they themselves are found in fault. Wherefore there is no absurdity in the act of avenging the sins of the fathers upon their reprobate children; since, of necessity, all…
The second occurrence in the life of Noah after the flood exhibited the germs of the future development of the human race in a threefold direction, as manifested in the characters of his three sons. As all the families and races of man descend from them, their names are repeated in Gen 9:18; and in prospective allusion to what follows, it is added that "Ham was the father of Canaan." From these three "the earth (the earth's population) spread itself out." "The earth" is used for the population of the earth, as in Gen 10:25 and Gen 11:1, and just as lands or cities are frequently substituted for their inhabitants. נפצה: probably Niphal for נפצה, from פּוּץ to scatter (Gen 11:4), to spread out…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Prophets · Mentioned in scripture: Noah — Mentioned in scripture: Noah
Servants · Early mention of — Early mention of
Shem · His filial conduct — His filial conduct
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
