this is universally passed over and ignored; but that he was cursed by Noah is only one of the conjectures of men. In the sacred record we find Canaan's name, and his only, mentioned as the person cursed.
It is mentioned, moreover, in such a way as though the Divine mind intended there should be a marked significance connected with it. For why, when the Scripture narrative is so careful to give the names of Ham's four sons, according to seniority, why is Canaan's name—the name of the youngest—selected, singled out, and repeated, no less than five different times, in the brief narrative which records this remarkable event?[1] Surely for no other reason than to mark nm distinctly as the individual referred to, and to separate his three elder brothers from the curse.
The argument of an American writer upon this point is of great force, and deserves notice. He adduces "two rules of law and logic, viz.: enumeration weakens, in cases not enumerated; exceptions strengthen, in cases not excepted. In the curse Canaan is enumerated, and therefore the probability of its application to his brothers is weakened by this enumeration, and in the blessings bestowed upon Shem and Japheth, in the next two verses, Canaan, and not Ham and his posterity, is excepted; and therefore the
- ↑ See Genesis ix. 18, 22, 25, 26, 27.
youngest son) override the blessing of God, for perpetual generations, to Ham and his seed, in the general and particular blessings of Gen. ix. 9 and 12? Does the curse of man supersede and set aside the covenanted blessings of God?
