This Article: (5 Pages)
1) Noah's Prophecy
Noah speaks to his sons. Instead of making an observation regarding Ham Noah makes the following pronouncement:
Genesis 9:25-27 Cursed be Canaan: a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren And he said Blessed be Yahweh the Elohim of Shem: and Canaan shall be his servant. Elohim shall enlarge (Heb: yapth ‘persuade’) Japheth and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem: and Canaan shall be his servant.
This verse has been quoted as an explanation of the subjection of Africa, and the slavery associated with that subjection. However on examination this verse has nothing to say about Africa. It must be pointed out that it does not say ‘Cursed be Ham’. And in any case Ham’s descendants include Cush and from Cush comes Nimrod and the building of Babel and Nineveh, which are not in Africa.
So who is Canaan? In Genesis chapter 10 we are told who Canaan’s descendants are and also where they live. Canaan’s sons are Sidon and Heth, and the Jebusite, Amorite, Girgashite, Hivite, Arkite, Sinite, Arvadite, Zemarite and the Hamathite. It notes that afterwards they spread abroad. However, the land of the Canaanite was defined as being from Sidon (near Gerar) to Gaza and From Sodom to Lasha. So the subject of the curse is firmly located in the land of Canaan, later occupied by Israel, sometime called Palestine and now again called Israel.
We see that the scriptures are concerned with that small area of land at the bridgehead of the continents in the Middle East. This passage is solely concerned with the national struggles over the Land of Israel.
Shem and Japheth in Israel
Having established these verses are about events located in the Land of Israel, we can re-examine what is actually said. Verse 26 is quite remarkable. It says that through Shem would come the blessing of Yahweh Elohim. This is remarkable for this was said by Noah before the birth of Abraham. Even though it was formally recorded by Moses later, we have now some four thousand years of history showing that indeed from Shem are the people of The Book. We also have the undoubted history of the occupation of the land of the Canaanites by the Israelites and their subjection of those people called the Canaanites. And just in case we missed the point of who Shem is, Genesis Chapter 11 continues with the descendants of Shem to Abraham and in Chapter 12 Abraham is given an updated version of the blessing.
When we come to what Noah says regarding Japheth (verse 27) we see something even more remarkable. In the Hebrew there is a play on the name of Japheth, which means ‘expansion’. It says ‘Japheth (expansion) the Mighty Ones shall enlarge and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem’. But the word ‘enlarge’ yapth also means ‘entice’ or ‘persuade’ and is translated as that in 1 Kings 22:20. Chapter 10 identifies Japheth as Gomer and Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech and Tiras. Gomer’s sons included Togarmah, and Javan’s sons include Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim. And it says, “and by these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands”(verse 5). In other words the descendants of Japheth at that time established many nations to the edges unlike the Hamites and Shemites who stayed in the Middle East area.
This list of names reads like the list of nations in Ezekiel chapter 38. And it is quite remarkable that Ezekiel 38 predicts, just as Noah did, that Northern Gog’s bands (or the Japhethites) would with ‘hooks’ or by perusasion be brought into the Land of Israel/Canaan. The prophet Daniel, who calls Gog the ‘king of the North’ implies the persuasion at ‘the time of the end’ will come after another party styled ‘the king of the South’ had ‘pushed at’ the occupants of the Middle East.
Certainly it was the persuasion of WW1 that brought Britain (a Japhethite from the ‘isles’) to occupy the ‘tents of Shem’ or the Middle East area and subject the Palestinian/ Canaanite to rule until the Israelis declared independance (The Shemites) in 1948. Not only that but Britain and their allies still have military bases in the Middle East, placing them firmly in the ‘tents’ or dwelling place of Shem. But the occupation by Japhethites was already well established. There is an Orthodox Christian quarter in Jerusalem, and it has been there for hundreds of years.
The passage says also that the Canaanite would be Japheth’s servant. There is no doubt looking at Middle East politics of the last 100 years that the Northern Gentile nations have had an inordinate amount of power over the fate of the Canaanite or Palestinian. Some examples include the capture of Jerusalem in 1917 and the Balfour Declaration, the British sponsored Partition plan of 1947-48, the numerous United Nations resolutions regarding Israel and even the Suez invasion by Britain and France in 1956. More recently there are the European attempts to broker peace and determine the Canaanite’s fate. We have even the Americans proposing a “roadmap to peace”, really a road into the tents of Shem!
It is to be noted that an order of events is implied. First Canaan was to be cursed, and that happened, due to their own wickedness, then Shem is to subject Canaan, as the Israelites did after coming out of Egypt until the Babylonian captivity. Then Japheth is to be persuaded to come into the tents of Shem, as the European has since Alexander the Great to make ‘Canaan’ his servant. The ultimate fulfilment of Noah’s prophecy will, of course, come with the fulfilment of Ezekiel’s prophecy in Chapters 38-39.
In conclusion, this prophecy of Noah is about the Land of Canaan or Israel. Those who occupy it as ‘Canaan’ are cursed. For it is only through specific descendants of Shem that blessing comes, and it is the role of the Gentile nations, the Japhethites, to be persuaded to occupy the tents of Shem and subject the Canaanite. The next section will consider examples of Japhethite expansion into another’s territory and it’s effect on the development of the King of the South and their simultaneous incursion into the Tents of Shem and the consequence on the development of Daniel’s latter day King of the North.
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