From the age in which Moses lived and wrote, as well as from the spirit of illumination which was in him, he knew the channels into which the three great tides of humanity flowed; and he doubtless named the sources of them accordingly.
The father of his own race, to whom the blessing of renown or mastership had been given, and which in a measure he already saw in the grandeur of the nations beyond the Euphrates, he called Shem: the father of the race upon whom the blessing of enlargement was to come, and which already began to have a fulfillment in the tribes of Japheth wandering to the expansive North-west, he called Japheth or Yepheth: the father of the black race that he saw inhabiting the hot Peninsula he named Ham or Cham. In keeping with our idea he named the father of that race whose prophetic servitude was about to commence, Canaan, for he shall bow the knee. [1]
Moses gazed upon the descendants of Ham and lo! they were all black, and he named their progenitor accordingly. To suppose that Ham was really black, is to suppose such a freak as nature has never received the
- ↑ Gesenius finds the root of this "word in בׇּנַצto bend the knee.
