Descendants of Canaan[edit]
Locations of Canaan's descendants
According to the
Table of Nations in Genesis 10 (verses 15-19), Canaan was the ancestor of the tribes who originally occupied the ancient
Land of Canaan: all the territory from
Sidon or
Hamath in the north to
Gaza in the southwest and
Lasha in the southeast. This territory is roughly the areas of modern day
Israel, the
Palestinian Territories,
Lebanon, western
Jordan, and western
Syria. Canaan's firstborn son was Sidon, who shares his name with the
Phoenician city of Sidon in present-day Lebanon.
[1] His second son was
Heth. Canaan's descendants, according to the Hebrew Bible, include:
- Sidonians, i.e. the Phoenicians[2][3]
- Hittites, children of Heth
- Jebusites
- Amorites
- Girgashites
- Hivites
- Arkites
- Sinites
- Arvadites
- Zemarites
- Hamathites
According to traditional
Ethiopian histories, Canaan's son Arwadi (lit. "the Arvadite") and his wife Entela crossed from Asia into Ethiopia in 2101 BC, and the
Qemant tribe were said to be descended from their son,
Anayer. There is further an Ethiopian tradition that two other Canaanite tribes, viz. the Sinites and Zemarites, also entered Ethiopia at the time it was ruled by the
Kingdom of Kush, and became the
Shanqella and
Weyto peoples, respectively.
[4]
The German historian
Johannes Aventinus (fl. c. 1525) recorded a legend that Canaan's sons
the "Arkite" and
the "Hamathite" first settled in the area of Greece, and gave their names to the regions of
Arcadia and
Emathia.
Curse of Canaan[edit]
Main article:
Curse of Ham
Ham's transgression:
And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. (Genesis 9:22)
Genesis 9:24-27
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
25 And he said, Cursed
[be] Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
26 And he said, Blessed
[be] the L
ORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
(—
Authorized King James Version)
Some modern scholars view the
curse of Canaan in Genesis 9:20-27 as an early Hebrew rationalization for
Israel's conquest of Canaan.
[8] When Noah cursed Canaan in Genesis 9:25, he used the expression "Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brethren."
NKJV The expression "servant of servants", otherwise translated "slave of slaves",
NIV emphasizes the extreme degree of servitude that Canaan will experience in relation to his "brothers".
[9] In the subsequent passage, "of Shem... may Canaan be his servant,"
[9:26] the narrator is foreshadowing Israel's conquest of the promised land.
[10] Biblical scholar
Philip R. Davies explains that the author of this narrative used Noah to curse Canaan, in order to provide justification for the later
Israelites driving out and enslaving the
Canaanites.
[11]
Canaan, son of Ham in Jubilees[edit]
The
Book of Jubilees, considered canonical in the
Ethiopian Orthodox Church, relates an anecdote of Canaan, son of Ham, that he refused to travel westward to his designated inheritance in Ham's allotment beyond the Nile, and instead occupied the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, within the inheritance delineated for Shem. His elder brothers continued on into Africa, after cursing him for violating the agreed delineations. This seizure of land in the Fertile Crescent allotted to Shem is also seen in
Jubilees as a justification for the Israelite conquest of Canaan.
And Canaan saw the land of Lebanon to the river of Egypt, that it was very good, and he went not into the land of his inheritance to the west (that is to) the sea, and he dwelt in the land of Lebanon, eastward and westward from the border of Jordan and from the border of the sea. And Ham, his father, and Cush and Mizraim his brothers said unto him: 'Thou hast settled in a land which is not thine, and which did not fall to us by lot: do not do so; for if thou dost do so, thou and thy sons will fall in the land and (be) accursed through sedition; for by sedition ye have settled, and by sedition will thy children fall, and thou shalt be rooted out for ever. Dwell not in the dwelling of Shem; for to Shem and to his sons did it come by their lot. Cursed art thou, and cursed shalt thou be beyond all the sons of Noah, by the curse by which we bound ourselves by an oath in the presence of the holy judge, and in the presence of Noah our father.' But he did not hearken unto them, and dwelt in the land of Lebanon from Hamath to the entering of Egypt, he and his sons until this day. And for this reason that land is named Canaan. -- Jubilees 10:29-34.
Etymology[edit]
The English term
Canaan (pronounced
// since c. AD 1500, due to the
Great Vowel Shift) comes from the
Hebrew כנען (
knʿn), via
Greek Χαναάν Khanaan and
LatinCanaan. It appears as
KUR ki-na-ah-na in the
Amarna letters (14th century BC), and
knʿn is found on coins from Phoenicia in the last half of the 1st millennium. It first occurs in Greek in the writings of
Hecataeus as
Khna(Χνᾶ).
[12] Scholars connect the name
Canaan with
knʿn,
Kana'an, the general
Northwest Semitic name for this region.
The etymology is uncertain. One explanation is that it has an original meaning of "lowlands", from a Semitic root
knʿ "to be low, humble, depressed", in contrast with
Aram, "highlands".
[13] An alternative suggestion derives the term from
Hurrian Kinahhu, purportedly referring to the colour purple, so that
Canaan and
Phoenicia would be synonyms ("Land of Purple"), but it is just as common to assume that
Kinahhu was simply the Hurrian rendition of the Semitic
knʿn.
[14][15]
References[edit]
- Jump up^ María E. Aubet. "The Phoenicians and the West: politics, colonies and trade", (ISBN 0521795435, ISBN 978-0-521-79543-2), 2001, p. 66
- Jump up^ James C. Prichard. Researches into the physical history of mankind, 1817, p. 447
- Jump up^ But see also: Harvard University. The Canadian journal of science, literature and history, Vol. 13, p. 533
- Jump up^ Yohannes Wolde Mariam, Yealem Tarik, 1948 p. 105-6.
- Jump up^ Tabari's Prophets and Patriarchs
- Jump up^ Alida C. Metcalf. Go-betweens and the colonization of Brazil, 1500-1600, (ISBN 0292712766, ISBN 978-0-292-71276-8), 2005, p. 163-164
- Jump up^ Goldenberg. The Curse of Ham, 2009, (ISBN 1400828546, ISBN 978-1-4008-2854-8), p. 157
- Jump up^ Donald E. Gowan, Genesis 1-11: Eden to Babel, Wm. B. Eerdmans, ISBN 0-8028-0337-7, p.110-15
- Jump up^ Ellens, J. Harold, & Rollins, Wayne G., eds. (2004). Psychology and the Bible: A New Way to Read the Scriptures. v.1–4. Westport: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 9780275983475 p.54
- Jump up^ Stephen R. Haynes. Noah's curse: the biblical justification of American slavery, 2002, (ISBN 0195142799, ISBN 978-0-19-514279-2), p. 184
- Jump up^ Philip R. Davies; John Rogerson (2005). The Old Testament World second edition. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 121–122. ISBN 0-664-23025-3.
- Jump up^ David Asheri, Alan Lloyd, Aldo Corcella, A Commentary on Herodotus, Books 1-4, Oxford University Press, 2007 p.75.
- Jump up^ Bible Places: The Topography of the Holy Land By Henry Baker Tristram
- Jump up^ Gesenius, Hebrew Lexicon
- Jump up^ Lemche 1991, pp. 24–32
External links[edit]