the fourth son of Ham. The irreverence of Ham towards his father Noah is recorded in Gen. ix. Upon that occasion the patriarch cursed him in a branch of his posterity: "Curse," says he, "be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." This curse being pronounced, not against Ham the immediate transgressor, but against his son, who does not appear, from the words of Moses, to have been anywise concerned in the crime, hath occasioned several conjectures. Some have believed that Noah cursed Canaan, because he could not well have cursed Ham himself, whom God had not long before blessed. Others think Moses's chief intent in recording this prediction was to raise the spirits of the Israelites, then entering on a terrible war with the children of Canaan, by the assurance, that, in consequence of the curse, that people were destined by God to be subdued by them. For the opinion of those who imagine all Ham's race were here accursed, seems repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, which confines the malediction to Canaan and his posterity; and is also contrary to fact. Indeed, the prophecy of Noah, that "Canaan should be a servant of servants to his brethren," seems to have been wholly completed in him. It was completed with regard to Shem, not only in that a considerable part of the seven nations of the Canaanites were made slaves to the Hiraclites, when they took possession of their land, as part of the remainder of them were afterwards enslaved by Solomon; but also by the subsequent expeditions, of the Assyrians and Persians, who were both descended from Shem; and under whom the Canaanites suffered subjection, as well as the Hiraclites; not to mention the conquest of part of Canaan by the Elamites, or Persians, under Chedorlaomer, prior to them all. With regard to Japhet, we find a completion of the prophecy, in the successive conquests of the Greeks and Romans in Palestine and Phoenicia, where the Canaanites were settled; but especially in the total subversion of the Carthaginian power by the Romans; besides some invasions of the northern nations, as the posterity of Thorgarma and Magog; wherein many of them, probably, were carried away captive.

The posterity of Canaan were very numerous. His eldest son was Sidon, who at least founded and peopled the city of Sidon, and was the father of the Sidonians and Phoenicians. Canaan had besides ten sons, who were the fathers of so many peoples, dwelling in Palestine, and in part of Syria; namely, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgaites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and Hamathites.

Land of CANAAN, the country so named from Canaan the son of Ham. It lies between the Mediterranean sea and the mountains of Arabia, and extends from Egypt to Phoenicia. It is bounded to the east by the mountains of Arabia; to the south by the wilderness of Paran, Idumæa, and Egypt; to the west by the Mediterranean, called in Hebrew the Great sea; to the north by the mountains of Libanus. Its length from the city of Dan (since called Cæsarea Philippi, or Paneadis, which stands at the foot of these mountains) to Beer-sheba, is about 70 leagues; and its breadth from the Mediterranean sea to the eastern borders, is in some places 30. This country, which was first called Canaan, from Canaan the son of Ham, whose posterity possessed it, was afterwards called Palestine, from the people which the Hebrews call Philistines, and the Greeks and Romans corruptly Palestinians, who inhabited the sea coasts, and were first known to them. It likewise had the name of the Land of Promise, from the promise God made to Abraham of giving it to him; that of the Land of Israel, from the Israelites having made themselves masters of it; that of Judah, from the tribe of Judah, which was the most considerable of the twelve; and lastly, the happiness it had of being sanctified by the presence, actions, miracles, and death of Jesus Christ, has given it the name of the Holy Land, which it retains to this day.

The first inhabitants of this land therefore were the Canaanites, who were descended from Canaan, and the eleven sons of that patriarch. Here they multiplied extremely; trade and war were their first occupations; these gave rise to their riches, and the several colonies scattered by them over almost all the islands and maritime provinces of the Mediterranean. The measure of their idolatry and abominations was completed, when God delivered their country into the hands of the Israelites. In St Athanasius's time, the Africans still said they were descended from the Canaanites; and it is said, that the Punic tongue was almost entirely the same with the Canaanitish and Hebrew language. The colonies which Cadmus carried into Thebes in Boeotia, and his brother Cilix into Cilicia, came from the stock of Canaan. The isles of Sicily, Sardinia, Malta, Cyprus, Corfu, Majorca, and Minorca, Gades and Ebusus, are thought to have been peopled by the Canaanites. Bocart, in his large work entitled Canaan, has set all this matter in a good light.

Many of the old inhabitants of the north-west of the land of Canaan, however, particularly on the coast or territories of Tyre and Sidon, were not driven out by the children of Israel, whence this tract seems to have retained the name of Canaan a great while after those other parts of the country, which were better inhabited by the Israelites, had lost the said name. The Greeks called this tract, inhabited by the old Canaanites along the Mediterranean sea, Phoenicia; the more inland parts, as being inhabited partly by Canaanites, and partly by Syrians, Syrophoenicia: and hence the woman said by St Matthew (xv. 22.) to be a woman of Canaan, whose daughter Jesus cured, is said by St Mark (vii. 26.) to be a Syrophoenician by nation, as she was a Greek by religion and language.