10:15-32 The posterity of Canaan were numerous, rich, and pleasantly seated; yet Canaan was under a Divine curse, and not a curse causeless. Those that are under the curse of God, may, perhaps, thrive and prosper in this world; for we cannot know love or hatred, the blessing or the curse, by what is before us, but by what is within us. The curse of God always works really, and always terribly. Perhaps it is a secret curse, a curse to the soul, and does not work so that others can see it; or a slow curse, and does not work soon; but sinners are reserved by it for a day of wrath Canaan here has a better land than either Shem or Japheth, and yet they have a better lot, for they inherit the blessing. Abram and his seed, God's covenant people, descended from Eber, and from him were called Hebrews. How much better it is to be like Eber, the father of a family of saints and honest men, than the father of a family of hunters after power, worldly wealth, or vanities. Goodness is true greatness.

Verse 18. - And the Arvadite, - dwelt in Arvad, Aradus, now Ruad (Josephus) - and the Zemarite, - Simyra, a city of Phoenicia (Bochart, Michaelis, Gesenius, Kalisch) whose ruins are still called Sumrah - and the Hamathite. The inhabitants of Hamath, called Hammath Rabbah (Amos 6:2); Epiphaneia by the Greeks; now Hamah. And afterwards - i.e. subsequent to the formation of these distinct tribes by the confusion of tongues - were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad.

And the Arvadite,.... The inhabitants of Arvad, or Aradus, an island in the Phoenician sea; it is mentioned with Sidon, Ezekiel 27:8 so Josephus says (q), the Arudaeans possessed the island Aradus: it is about a league distant from the shore; Strabo (r) says it is twenty furlongs from land, and about seven in circumference, and is said to be built by the Sidonians; it is now, as Mr. Maundrel (s) says, by the Turks called Ru-ad, or, as Dr. Shaw says (t), Rou-wadde; See Gill on Ezekiel 27:8.

And the Zemarite; who perhaps built and inhabited Simyra, a place mentioned by Pliny (u), not far from Lebanon, and along with Marathos, and Antarados, which lay on the continent, right against the island Aradus, or Arvad, and near the country of the Aradians. Strabo (w) makes mention of a place called Taxymira, which Casaubon observes should be Ximyra, or Simyra; and Mela (x) speaks of the castle of Simyra as in Phoenicia. There was a city called Zemaraim in the tribe of Benjamin, Joshua 18:22 which Bishop Patrick suggests, and Ainsworth before him, that Zemarus, the son of Canaan, might be the founder of; and there is also a mountain of the same name in Mount Ephraim, 2 Chronicles 13:4.

And the Hamathite: who dwelt in Amathine, as Josephus (y), and was in his time called by the inhabitants Amathe; but the Macedonians called it, from one of their race, Epiphania, which seems to have been the country called Amathite,He removed from Jerusalem, and met them in the land of Amathis: for he gave them no respite to enter his country. (1 Maccabees 12:25)there was another Hamath, called Antiochia, but cannot be meant, since Hamath was the northern border of the land of Israel, then called the entrance of Hamath, which border was pretty near to Epiphania, but not so far as Antioch; this is the Amathus of Syria, twice mentioned by Herodotus, as Hillerus (z) observes: but both Reland (a) and Vitringa (b) are of opinion, that the Hamath so often mentioned in Scripture, which doubtless had its name from the Hamathite, is neither Antiochia nor Epiphania, but the city Emesa, or Emissa, which lay below Epiphania, upon the Orontes, nearer Damascus and the land of Canaan; and Hamath is mentioned with Damascus and Arpad, or Arvad, Isaiah 10:9 and, according to Ezekiel 47:16. Hamath must lie between Damascus and the Mediterranean sea.

And afterwards were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad; not only these eleven, but two more which are not mentioned, the Canaanites properly so called, and the Perizzites; these families at first dwelt in one place, or within narrow limits; but, as they increased, they spread themselves further every way, and in process of time possessed all the country from Idumea and Palestine to the mouth of the Orontes, and which they held about seven hundred years, when five of these families, with the two other above mentioned, were cast out of the land for their sins, and to make way for the people of Israel.

(q) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 2.((r) Geograph. l. 16. p. 518. (s) Journey from Aleppo, &c. p. 19. Ed. 7. (t) Travels, p. 267. Ed. 2.((u) Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 20. (w) Geograph. l. 16. p. 518. (x) De situ orbis, l. 1. c. 12. (y) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 2.) (z) Onomastic. Sacr. p. 780. (a) Palestina Illustrata, tom. 1. l. 1. p. 121, 123, 317. (b) Comment. in Jesaiam, c. 10, 9.

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