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Canaan son of Ham

Canaan, Ham's fourth son, is the beneficiary of Noah's curse upon Ham's descendants. His father Ham is considered the ancestor of Black people.


According to the Scriptures, Ham was cursed by Noah through his son Canaan. Although Canaan is generally associated with the peoples of the Levant and Mesopotamia, people have been conditioned to associate Canaan with the Black race, and it is not uncommon to hear that black skin symbolizes the curse of Ham, and this is reflected in the enslavement the Black race endures at the hands of other nations.



However, labeling Ham's skin color as a curse is completely illogical for the following reason:


Firstly, it is a fact that black skin is the origin of all other variations in skin color. And ancient texts classified as apocryphal suggest that, in Noah’s time, human beings had dark skin. This hypothesis is supported in chapter 106 of the Book of Enoch, where it is written that Noah was born with white skin, and his parents were frightened by his appearance, for he did not resemble the humans of his time, but rather the offspring of fallen angels.


Now, if his son Ham was born with black skin, even before any curse was cast upon him, it would be illogical, irrational, and even absurd to claim that Ham’s black skin could have been a sign of Noah’s curse, given that he was born that way and black skin was a common and ordinary trait of that era.


Translation error or misinterpretation?

We find several apocryphal books translated or retranslated by modern translators, which mention that “the descendants of Ham darkened and became black.” 


The problem with this analogy is that if Ham was already born black, his descendants would naturally have inherited his Negroid genes. How, then, could they have darkened and become black if their skin tone was already black? In this context, one might hypothesize that the European theologians who transcribed the ancient texts and manuscripts did not correctly interpret the spiritual meaning of the term “darkened” as it applied to Ham and mistranslated it literally as “black skin,” when in reality it referred to “the darkening of the heart.”


It is important to remember that in the Middle Ages, the association between Ham, Africa, and Africans was not systematic. Even modern sources often associated Ham with races of giants and pagan gods such as Pan, rather than with Africa. The descendants of Ham were cited to illustrate discrimination between social classes in Europe, where Ham was identified as the ancestor of European peasants. It was only after European travelers reached the African continent and observed the physical characteristics and lifestyles of the various black populations of Central Africa that they began to label Ham as the ancestor of Africans.​


This characterization was popularized by the 6th-century Babylonian Talmud, which interpreted the biblical account to mean that the descendants of Canaan had been accursed with blackness and degeneracy.


The idea that the descendants of Canaan were black and had “Negroid” phenotypic characteristics persisted in several medieval rabbinic writings. The reasons given were that, just as Canaan's lips had mocked Noah, the lips of his descendants would become "swollen"; and just as Canaan had exposed Noah's nakedness, the children of Canaan would walk around naked, with their sexual organs “shamefully enlarged.” |Black Jews in Africa and the America by Tudor Parfitt|.


​​For decades, this stereotype has been used to justify abuse, acts of violence, atrocities, and crimes committed against Black people in the name of religion.


Canaan, the Levantine peoples

When one conducts a thorough analysis of Canaan and his descendants, it quickly becomes clear that the Scriptures do not associate him with Africa or with Black people in general, but rather with the peoples of the Levant and Mesopotamia.


According to the Bible, Canaan begat two sons: Sidon and Heth (Genesis 10:15)

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His first son Sidon the Hittite:

He built the city of Sidon which was located in the region known as Phoenicia. Ancient Phoenicia was a region located along the eastern Mediterranean, corresponding to present-day Lebanon, with parts adjacent to modern Syria and Israel. Most of the ships that sailed the seas and spread Phoenician culture set sail from the port of Sidon. It was also considered the “seat” of Phoenician civilization and the Jerusalem of the cult of Baal, where the Phoenician religious duo, Baal Sidon and Ashteroth, were worshipped. It was Sidon that gave gods to the Phoenicians, and through them to Greece, Italy, and Carthage.

  • Ezekiel 28:21-22 "“Son of man, set your face toward Sidon, prophesy against her and say, ‘Thus says Lord Yahweh, Behold, I am against you, O Sidon, And I will be glorified in your midst."​​

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His second son Heth:

He begot Hor (Hur), who was the progenitor of Seir the Horite, making Seir the great-great-grandson of Canaan.

  • Seir* the son of Hur, the son of Heveus, the son of Canaan, found a valley near mount Pharan, and he settled there with his seven sons and all his family. He gave his name to the city he built there. It is the country called Seir * until the present day.  |Jasher 10:28|​​​ ​

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The Bible alludes to the fact that Esau was born with pale skin and according to Genesis 36, during his father's lifetime, Esau went to Mount Seir, land of the Horites. There, Esau subjugated the Horites, took possession of Mount Seir, and renamed it “the land of Edom” or “Idumea", namely the land of red people.

  • Ezekiel 35:3 "and declare that this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I am against you, O Mount Seir. I will stretch out My hand against you and make you a desolate waste."

  • Jeremiah 49:8 "Turn and flee, hide in deep caves, you who live in Dedan, for I will bring disaster on Esau at the time when I punish him.

  • Genesis 36:9 "These are the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir."

  • Lamentations 4:22 "He will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will uncover your sins!"

 Esau then married and cohabited with the “Horites/Hurrians,” and their descendants became the Edomites.

  • Ezekiel 35:15 "As you rejoiced because the inheritance of the house of Israel was desolate, so I will do to you; you shall be desolate, O Mount Seir, as well as all of Edom—all of it! Then they shall know that I am the LORD.”

  • Malachi 1:2-4 "Yet Jacob I have loved; But Esau I have hated, And laid waste his mountains and his heritage For the jackals of the wilderness.”Even though Edom has said,“We have been impoverished,But we will return and build the desolate places, ”Thus says the Lord of hosts: “They may build, but I will throw down;They shall be called the Territory of Wickedness,And the people against whom the Lord will have indignation forever.

  • Isaiah 34:5 "When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, then it will come down upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction"


Interesting facts about the meaning of the word Horite

**Horite is derived from the Hebrew word "Hori" or "Chori" which means "white". As stated by the ISBE (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia), it could possibly mean "white nation".

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**Another tradition holds that the name Horite comes from חוֹר or chor, meaning “hole” or “cave”, presumably because the Horites were considered “Troglodytes or cavemen”. Note that the only time troglodytes are mentioned in the Bible is in Job 30:6, and they are described in the most pejorative sense of the term, namely troglodytes of the worst kind.

  • Job 30:4-8 "Whose houses were the caves of the rocks, who lived under the wild shrubs. They will cry out among the rustling bushes. They are sons of fools and vile men, whose name and glory are quenched from off the earth. But now I am their music, and they have me for a by-word. And they stood aloof and abhorred me, and spared not to spit in my face."

  • Obadiah 1:3-8 "The pride of your heart has deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks whose habitation is the heights ... But how Esau will be pillaged, his hidden treasures sought out! ... In that day, declares the LORD, will I not destroy the wise men of Edom and the men of understanding in the mountains of Esau?

​If Seir the Horite and his descendants were a white nation, this means that Canaan would have been the progenitor of a white nation.  Where did Canaan's Caucasian lineage come from, given that he is supposed to be descended from Ham, who is historically identified as the ancestor of the Black race? Could it be that just as Cain, Canaan also received the curse of leprosy?


Bible verses that express a strong rebuke against Canaan

  • Genesis 28:1 "And Isaac called to Jacob, and he blessed him, and he commanded him and said to him, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan."

  • Leviticus 18.3 "You must not follow the practices of the land of Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not follow the practices of the land of Canaan, into which I am bringing you. You must not walk in their customs."

  • Psalm 106:38 "and they shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with the blood."

  • Psalm 135:10-11 "He struck down many nations and slaughtered mighty kings: Sihon king of the Amorites, Og king of Bashan, and all the kings of Canaan."

  • Isaiah 23:11 "He stretched out His hand over the sea, He shook the kingdoms; The LORD has given a commandment against Canaan To destroy its strongholds.


You be the judge, and we encourage you to do your own research.


©2019 by Les Versets Bibliques - Secrets of Heaven. 

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