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Canaan son of Ham

Canaan, Ham's fourth son, is the beneficiary of Noah's curse upon Ham's descendants. It should be noted that, just like Japheth, Canaan's descendants are described as powerful and influential nations occupying the coastal islands.

  • Zephaniah 2:5 "Woe to you who inhabit the coast of the sea, you people of perdition. The word of the Lord is over you, Canaan, the land of the Philistines"

  • Psalm 106:38 "And they shed innocent blood: the blood of their sons and of their daughters, which they sacrificed to the graven images of Canaan."

  • Isaiah 23:11 "The LORD has given a command that the strongholds of Canaan be destroyed."


In the following passages, the name Canaan has been removed in more recent versions of the Bible. In the verse below, the name Canaan has been replaced with “Ephraim.”


Here, the word “Canaanite” has been replaced by “traders.”

  • Zechariah 14:21 "Indeed, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the LORD of Hosts, and all who sacrifice will come and take some pots and cook in them. And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of Hosts." |Berean Standard Bible|

  • Zechariah 14:21 "And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the LORD of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the meat of the sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day." |English Standard Version|

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

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His first son Sidon:

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:

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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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?

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

  • 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."

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​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?

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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