The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 229

with their faces bnckwo.rd," so tho.t "they saw not their father's nakedness.'' 2. Tender charity. In addition to the mocking eye which gloater! over the patriarch's infirmity, there was present in the heart of Ham an evil and m'1.liciouR spirit, which led him to inflict another and a severer indignity upon his father's fame. The faults of even bad men are required by religion to be covered up rather than paraded in public view. Much more the indiscretions, failings, and sins of good men. Most of all the faults of a father. But, alas, instead of sorrowing for his father's overthrow, Ham obviously took pleasure in it; instead of charitably trying to excuse the old man, nay, without even waiting to ascertain whether an explanation of his conduct might be possible, he appears to have put the worst construction on it; instead of doing what he could to hide his father's sin and shame, he rushes forth and makes it known to his brothers. But these brothers, with another spirit, without offering any apology for their father's error, perhaps instinctively perceiving it to be altogether unjustifiable, take the first loose garment they can find, and, with a beau- tiful modesty as well as a becoming piety, casting it around their shoulders, enter their father's presence with their faces backward, and cover up his prostrate form. Let the incident remind us-(1) That if nothing can extenuate a father's falling into sin, much more can nothing justify a son for failing in respect towards his father. (2) That it is a sure sign of depravity in a child when he mocks at a parent's infirm ities and publishes a parent's faults. (3) That filial piety ever seeks to extenuate and to bide rather than to aggravate and blaz'3 abroad a parent's weaknesses and sins. (4) That children in the eame family may be distinguished by widely different dispositions. (5) That a son may have pious parents and experience many providential mercies for their sakes, and yet be at heart a child of the devil. (6) That that which makes one son differ from another in the same family is Divine grace ; and (7) that the characters of children, and of men in general, are oftentimes revealed at the most unexpected times, and by the most improbable events. III. A DISCLOSURE OF HUMAN DESTINY. Awaking from bis wine, the patriarch became aware of what had taken place. Discerning in the conduct of his sons an indication of divergence in their characters, recognising in their different characters a repetition of what had taken place at the commencement of the first era of the world's history, viz., the division of mankind into a holy and a wicked line, foreseeing also, through the help of inspiration, the development of the world's population into three different tribes or races, ho foretells, acting in all under the Spirit's guidance, the future destinies that should await them. His utterance takes the form of a pre- diction, in which he declares-I. The degradation of Canaan. " Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren." (1) So far as Ham was con- cerned this judgment was severe, as being imposed upon his youngest and probably his best beloved son; appropriate-he for whose sake it had been inflicted having been his father's youngest son ; merciful, as falling not on all his race, but only upon one son and his descendants. N.B.-God's judgments upon sinful men are always proportioned in severity to the guilt which brings them, adjusted to the natures of the sins for which they come, and mixed with mercy in the experience of the persons on whom they fall. (2) So far as Canaan was concerned the doom of servitude was sovereiunly imposed. There is no evidence that Canaan was at all connected with the incident that happened in his grandfather's tent. That the penalty of his father's offence was made to fall on him of all his father's sons was in virtue of that high prerogative which belongs to God alone of assigning to men and nations their lots on earth (cf. Ps. l:xxv. 7 ; Isa. xli. 2; Dan. v. 19; iv. 35; Acts xvii. 2G). Richly merited. Whether Canaan had begun by this time to display any of the dispositions of his father cannot certainly be known; but in after years, when the prophecy was nearing its accomplishment, it is well known that the peculiar sins for which tho Canaanites were destroyed or subjected to bondage were allied to those which are referred to in the text (vide Levit. xviii. 27). Exactly f11lfilled by the subjugation of the land of Canaan under Joshua and David, though here it should ho noted that the enslavement of the African negro, who, though a Hamite, is not a C[Lllaanite, was a daring defiance of those limits within which the supreme Judge had confined the sentence pronounced upon the Hamite race. Mercifully cancelled by the later promise which was given to Abraham, and is now fulfilled in the iBcarnation of the Lord ,T\.'SIIS Christ-of a seed in whom all the families of the earth should be  154 THE BOOK OF GENESIS. [en. 1x. 18-29,