commentators, in every age, on the sacred writings. Bishop Newton thus understood the passage, who also refers the reader to the Arabic Bible for the true reading, as does Adam Clark.
Newton maintains, page 19, at considerable length, that the curse of Noah upon Ham, had a general and an interminable application to the whole Hamite race, in placing them under a peculiar liability of being enslaved by the races of the two other brothers.
Were not the above opinion the truth on that point, it would be a difficult matter to view the Divine procedure in that case otherwise than unjust; for why should Canaan, who was the youngest son of Ham, be selected from among the four to be cursed, and laid under a peculiar liability to be enslaved in his posterity, more than the other three brothers, for the act of their father. But when that Scripture is read and understood, as the Arabic records and understands it, the subject becomes plain, simple, and straight before us. Ham is the man who is denounced with his posterity, who were to become the slaves of the posterities of the two other races, and among themselves; for the text says, they should be the "servants of servants," as well as the servants of the hired servants of the other races, as is the fact in all countries, and has ever been thus.
It is not our opinion that for this one act of Ham that dreadful curse fell upon him and his race. It was not for that one act alone, but on account of his whole character and nature (which one act was, however, in awful keeping with his previous life), that the curse of slavery was entailed on his race.
