Canaan (son of Ham)
Canaan ( – "Kənáʿan", in pausa – "Kənā́ʿan"), according to the "Book of Genesis" in the Hebrew Bible, was a son of Ham and grandson of Noah, as well as the father of the Canaanites. Etymology. The English term "Canaan" (pronounced since c. AD 1500, due to the Great Vowel Shift) comes from the Hebrew ("knʿn"), via Greek "Khanaan" and Latin . It appears as in the Amarna letters (14th century BC), and is found on coins from Phoenicia in the last half of the 1st millennium. It first occurs in Greek in the writings of Hecataeus as "Khna"(Χνᾶ). Scholars  connect the name "Canaan" with , "Kana'an", the general Northwest Semitic name for this region. The etymology is uncertain. One explanation is that it has an original meaning of "lowlands", from a Semitic root "to be low, humble, depressed", in contrast with Aram, "highlands". An alternative suggestion derives the term from Hurrian "Kinahhu", purportedly referring to the colour purple, so that "Canaan" and "Phoenicia" would be synonyms ("Land of Purple"), but it is just as common to assume that "Kinahhu" was simply the Hurrian rendition of the Semitic . Descendants of Canaan. According to the Table of Nations in Genesis 10 (verses  15–19), Canaan was the ancestor of the tribes who originally occupied the ancient Land of Canaan: all the territory from Sidon or Hamath in the north to Gaza in the southwest and Lasha in the southeast. This territory, known as the Levant, is roughly the areas of modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, western Jordan, and western Syria. Canaan's firstborn son was Sidon, who shares his name with the Phoenician city of Sidon in present-day Lebanon. His second son was Heth. Canaan's descendants, according to the Hebrew Bible, include: According to traditional Ethiopian histories, Canaan's son Arwadi  (lit. "the Arvadite") and his wife Entela crossed from Asia into Ethiopia in 2101 BC, and the Qemant tribe were said to be descended from their son, "Anayer". There is further an Ethiopian tradition that two other Canaanite tribes, viz. the Sinites and Zemarites, also entered Ethiopia at the time it was ruled by the Kingdom of Kush, and became the Shanqella and Weyto peoples, respectively. The Qemant relate that they share their Canaanite origin with the other Agaw groups. The Omotic speaking Shinasha have a similar tradition of descent from Canaan's son Hamati Similarly, the Shinasha extend the  Canaanite ancestry to neighboring ethnic groups The Persian historian Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (c. 915) recounted a tradition that the wife of Canaan was named Arsal, a daughter of Batawil son of Tiras, and that she bore him the "Blacks, Nubians, Fezzan, Zanj, Zaghawah, and all the peoples of the Sudan." Likewise, Abd al Hakam tells that "Canaan is the father of the Sudan (Sub Saharan Africans) and the Abyssinians". The German historian Johannes Aventinus (fl. c. 1525) recorded a legend that Canaan's sons "the "Arkite"" and "the "Hamathite"" first settled in the area of Greece, and gave  their names to the regions of Arcadia and Emathia. Curse of Canaan. According to , Noah became drunk and afterward cursed his grandson Canaan, for the transgression of Canaan's father, Ham. This is the "Curse of Canaan", to which the misnomer "Curse of Ham" has been attached since Classical antiquity. <poem> "Ham's transgression:" And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. (Genesis 9:22) Genesis 9:24–27 (—Authorized King James Version)</poem> Some modern scholars view the "curse of Canaan" in Genesis 9:20–27 as an early Hebrew rationalization for  Israel's conquest of Canaan. When Noah cursed Canaan in Genesis 9:25, he used the expression "Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brethren." The expression "servant of servants", otherwise translated "slave of slaves", emphasizes the extreme degree of servitude that Canaan will experience in relation to his "brothers". In the subsequent passage, "of Shem... may Canaan be his servant," the narrator is foreshadowing Israel's conquest of the promised land. Biblical scholar Philip R. Davies explains that the author of this narrative used Noah to curse Canaan, in order to provide justification for the  later Israelites driving out and enslaving the Canaanites.