Noah's Prophecy

It was common among the patriarchs when about to die, to pronounce a prophetic sentence on their children, and which frequently bore a relation to what had been their conduct, and extended to their remote posterity. This prophecy however, though not immediately after the flood, was probably many years before the death of Noah. — I shall first attempt to ascertain its meaning, and agreement with the great outlines of historic fact, and then endeavour to justify the ways of providence in such dispensations.

The prophecy is introduced with a curse upon the posterity of one of Noah’s sons, and concludes with a blessing upon the other two, each corresponding with his conduct on the late unhappy occasion.

Cursed be Canaan: a servant of sergeants, that is, the meanest of servants, shall he be unto his brethren — But why is the name of Ham omitted.

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and the curse confined to his son Canaan? Some suppose that Canaan must have been in some way partaker in the crime: but this is uncertain. It is thought by several able critics, that instead of Canaan we should read, as it is in ver. 22, Ham the father of Canaan;* and which seems very plausible, as otherwise there is nothing said of Ham, .except in the person of his son; and what is still more, the curse of servitude actually came, though at a remote period, upon other branches of the posterity of Ham, as well as Canaan. It is manifest however, that it was directed principally against him in the line of Canaan, and intended by Moses for the encouragement of Israel in going up against his descendents, the Canaanites. Canaan is under a curse of servitude to both Shem and Japheth: the former was fulfilled in the conquest of the seven nations of Israel; and the latter in the subjugation of the Tyrians and Carthaginians, who were the remainder of the old Canaanites, by the Greeks and Romans.

So far as the curse had reference to the other descendents of Ham, it was a long time, as I

* A’ms’xorth says,” By Canaan may be understood or implied Canaan’s father, as the greek translation hath Ham, and as elsewhere in scripture. Goliath is named for Goliath’s father. 2 Sam. xxi. I9, compared with 1 Chron. xx. 5. See alsu Bishov XeiiioH on the prophecies. Disser. I.

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have said, ere it came upon them. In the early ages of the worUl they flourished. They were the first who set up for empire; and so far from being subject to the descendents of Shem or Japheth, the latter were often invaded, and driven into corners by them. It was Nimrod, a dcscendent of Ham, who founded the imperial city of Babylon; and INIizraim, another of his descendents, who first established the kingdom of Egypt. These, it is well known, were for many ages two of the greatest empires in the world. About the time of the captivity however, God began to cut short their power. Both Egypt and Babylon within a century sunk into a state of subjection, first to the Persians who descended from Shem, and afterwards to the Greeks and Romans, who were the children of Japheth. Nor have they ever been able to recover themselves: for to the dominion of the Romans succeeded that of the Saracens, and to theirs that of the Turks, under which they with a great part of Africa, which is peopled by the children of Ham, have lived and still live in the most degraded state of subjection. To all this may be added, that the inhabitants of Africa seem to be marked out as objects of slavery by the European nations. Though these things are far from excusing the conduct of their oppressors, yet they establish the fact, and pro(; the fulfilment of prophecy.

Blessed be Jehovah, God of Shem! — The form of this blessing is worthy of notice. It may not «eem to be pronounced on him, but on his God. But such a mode of speaking implies his blessedness, no less than if it had been expressly spoken of him; for it is a principle well known in religion, that “blessed is that people whose God is Jehovah.” They are blessed in his blessedness. It is in this form that Moses describes the blessedness of Israel: “There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky.”* Shem was the ancestor of Abram, and so of Israel, who, while the descendents of both Ham and Japheth were lost in idolatry, knew and worshipped Jehovah, the only true God; and of whom as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God biased for ever. It has been remarked too, that Shem is the first person who had the honour of having the Lord styled his Q 06.] and that this expression denotes his being a God in covena7it with him, as when he is called the God of Abram, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Noah, foreseeing by a spirit of prophecy that God would enter into a special covenant with the posterity of Shem, taking them to be his peculiar people, and binding himself to be their God, was affected at the consideration of

* Deut. xxxiii. 26.

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SO great a privilege, and breaks out into an ascription of praise to God on this account.

God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem. — If this part of the prophecy have respect to temporal dominion, it seems to refer to the posterity of Japheth being formerly straitened, but in the later ages of the world enabled to extend their conquests, which exactly corresponds with history. For more than two thousand years the empire of the civilized world has in a manner been in the hands of the posterity of Japheth. First the Greeks, after them the Romans, and since the declension of their empire, the different powers of Europe, have entered into the richest possessions of Asia, inhabited by the chjldren of Shem. Add to this, their borders have lately been enlarged beyond the Atlantic, and bid fair to extend over the continent of America.

But as Japheth united with Shem in the act of filial respect to his father, it would seem as if the dwelling of the one in the tents of the other must be friendly, and not hostile; and as the blessing of Shem had a peculiar reference to the church of God among his descendents, it may be considered as prophetic of the accession of the gentiles to it, under the gospel. It is a fact, that Christianity has principally prevailed amongst the posterity of Japheth. The Lord God of Shem is there known, and honoured. The lively oracles given to the fathers of the one, are possessed ad prized by the other: they laboured, and we have entered into their labours. This interpretation is favoured by the marginal reading, and which the very learned Ainsworth says the original word properly signifies: “God shall persuade Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.”

Let us proceed, in the next place, to offer a remark or two on the justice of the divine proceeding in denouncing a curse upon children, even to remote periods, for the iniquity of their parents. — It is worthy of notice that the God of Israel thouo-ht it no dishonour to his character to declare, that he would “visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, in those that hated him,” any more than that he would “shew mercy to those that loved him,” which he did in an eminent degree to the posterity of Abram. And should any object to this, and to the bible on this account, we might appeal to universal fact. None can deny that children are the better or the worse for the conduct of their parents. If any man insist that neither good nor evil shall befal him, but what is the immediate consequence of his own conduct, he must go out R 2

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of the world; for no such state of existence is known in it.

There is however an important difference between the sin of a parent being the occasion of the prediction of a cwse upon his posterity, zcho were considered by Him who knew the end from the beginning as walking in his steps, and its being the formal cause of their punishment. The sin of Ham was the occasion of the prediction against the Canaanites, and the antecedent to the evil predicted; but it was not the cause of it. Its formal procuring cause may be seen in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus. To Ham, and perhaps to Canaan, the prediction of the servitude of their descendents was a punishment: but the fulfilment of that prediction on the parties was no farther such, than as it was connected with their own sin.

There is also an important difference between the providential dispensations of God towards families and nations in the present world, and the adoninistration of distributive justice towards individuals with respect to the world to come. In the last judgment, ‘’every one shall give an account of himself to God, and be judged according to the deeds done in the body:” but while we are in this world we stand in various relations, in

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-which it is impossible that we should be dealt with merely as individuals. Ciod deals with families and nations as such; and in the course of his providence visits them with good and evil, not according to the conduct of individuals, but, as far as conduct is concerned, that of the general body. To insist that we should in all cases be treated as individuals, is to renounce the social character.

We are informed at the close of the chapter, that Noah lived after the flood three, hundred and fifty years, and died at the age of nine hundred and fifty. How long this was after the foregoing prophecy, we are not informed; but he lived to see in the descendents of Shem, Eber, and Nahor, and Terah the father of Abram.