eminently good men upon this topic. Poole admits the primary and pointed application of the curse to Canaan; he also acknowledges the subsequent power and greatness of the other three sons of Ham, and the spiritual blessedness which ultimately attended them; yet, with singular inconsistency, in another place, he involves Ham, the father, in the curse, which he declares to have been pointed at his son Canaan. He says: "When Canaan is mentioned, Ham is not exempted from the curse, but rather more deeply plunged into it; whilst he is pronounced accursed, not only in his person, (which is manifestly supposed by his commission of that sin for which the curse was inflicted,) but also in his posterity, which doubtless was a great aggravation of his grief."[1]
The learned and pious Matthew Henry says: "He (that is, Noah) pronounces a curse on Canaan, the son of Ham, in whom Ham himself is cursed; either because this son of his was now more guilty than the rest, or because the posterity of this son were afterward to be rooted out of their land, to make room for Israel."[2] Again, in another place, speaking of the division of the families of the earth, he says: "The birthright was now to be divided between Shem and Japheth, Ham being utterly discarded."
Bishop Newton, in the first place, applies this prophecy to Canaan and his descendants; but he afterward gives a fanciful correction of the text, on the authority of the Septuagint and the Arabic version; and then asks: "May we not suppose that the
