CANAAN, son of Ham and grandson of Noah. The transgressions of his father Ham (Gen. ix. 22-27), to which some suppose Canaan to have been in some way a party, gave occasion to Noah to pronounce that doom on the descendants of Canaan which was, perhaps, at that moment made known to him by one of those extemporaneous inspirations with which the patriarchal fathers appear in other instances to have been favoured. That there is no just ground for the conclusion that the descendants of Canaan were cursed as an immediate consequence of the transgression of Ham, is shown by Professor Bush, who in his Notes on Genesis has fairly met the difficulties on the subject.