When you look at the severity of the curse placed upon Canaan, Ham’s son, whatever Ham, or Canaan, had done, it must have been especially perverse. It was no misdemeanor.
Since the curse was upon Canaan, I think a clue would be the Canaanites. Abraham made his servant swear that he not take a wife for Isaak from among the Canaanites, but from his kindred, the Shemites, Gen. 24:1-4. Likewise, Jacob, Gen. 28:1,2.
The Canaanites were so wicked in God’s eyes, that when the Israelites under Joshua went into the land of the Canaanites, they were told to kill ‘em all, men, women, and children.
Halley’s Bible Handbook, p. 166, 167, says that the land of Canaan was Sodom and Gomorrah “on a national scale.” (Both - the Sodomites and Canaanites - being Hamites and children of Noah’s curse.) Halley says they were idolators of the worst kind worshiping Baal and Ashtoreth their female goddess.
They practiced abortion on a grand scale, sacrificing their children. To archaelogists, it was the sexual perversion of the Canaanites that was the most striking and definitive.
In their “high places” of worship, archealogists...
“found enormous quantities of images of Ashtoreth with rudely exaggerated sex organs. Canaanites worshiped, by immoral indulgence in the presence of their gods; and then, by murdering their first-born children, as a sacrifice to these same gods.”
Halley goes on to say,
“Do we wonder any longer why God commanded Israel to exterminate the Canaanites? Did a civilization of such abominable filth and brutality haven any right longer to exist? Archeologists that dig in the ruins of Canaan wonder that God did not destroy them sooner than he did.”
It thus appears to me, that most posters on this thread attempting to put their finger on the reason for the curse upon Canaaan, are way to skittish. Just look at evidence.
I’m not going to be skittish in what I’m going to say here:
Any people that enacts laws favoring abortion and same sex marriage, are incurring the curse of Canaan upon them. They have put themselves in the same category as Sodom and Gomorrah and the land of Canaan, both incurring the wrath of God.
Those who call themselves of the right, but can’t find in in themselves to make a stand against abortion and the Sodomites, like the Rino’s and libertarians, are placing themselves in God’s crosshairs, no different in God’s eyes than the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Canaanites.
The curse upon Canaanites, is not about taxes and finance, which so many FReepers think are most important than the cultural issues.
RE: Since the curse was upon Canaan, I think a clue would be the Canaanites. Abraham made his servant swear that he not take a wife for Isaak from among the Canaanites
Side note on some ancient custom....
The Bible says that Abraham made his servant swear that he won’t search for a bride for his son among the Cannaanites by asking him to ““Put your hand under my thigh.”
What kind of a custom is that? If you are really serious about keeping your promise, you have to put your hand on someone’s thigh? Do they do that to women too?
Just asking...