THE notices of the Canaanite families are more minute, as God considered His people whose duty it was to execute judgment and dispossess them of the promised land. However they might be “spread abroad” or dispersed, and seen to flourish for a while, the curse was on them, from the first on moral grounds, aggravated at last by enormities against God and man which to His eyes called for extermination.
It may be remarked that we do not hear of Perizzites in this genealogical account, though the name occurs in Gen. 13:7; 15:20; 34:30; Ex. 3:8, 17; 23:23; 33:2; 34:11; Deut. 7:1; 20:17; Josh. 3:10; 9:1; 11:3; 12:8; 17:15; 24:11; Judg. 1:4, 5; 3:5; 1 Kings 9:20; Ezra 9:1 Chron. 8:7; and Neh. 9:8. This appears to imply that they were not a distinct race, but rather such as separated from the town-life, to which the Canaanites generally were addicted, and remained villagers; as in the later history of Israel those who were religious separatists were called Pharisees.
“And afterward the families of the Canaanites spread themselves abroad. And the border of the Canaanites was from Zidon, as thou goest toward Gerar, unto Gazah; as thou goest toward Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, unto Lasha. These [are] sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, in their nations” (vers. 18-20).
The border is thus traced from Zidon on the N.W. of Gerar and Gazah on the S.W., and from the four doomed cities of the plain in the S.E. to Lasha (probably Laish or Leshem in the N.E.), though Jerome identifies it with Callirrhoe on the east of the Dead Sea, and Bochart with a city called by the Arabs Lusa in the south of Judah. Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim are specified on which fell fire from heaven in early patriarchal days, as recorded in this book, to their utter destruction: a dealing of Jehovah in His wrath, which was recalled to the warning of Israel from Moses (Deut. 29:23) to Hosea (11:8) and Jeremiah (20:16).
In reviewing the posterity of Ham, this we cannot but see, that none sprang so early into prominence of earthly power and dominion, that none carried forward civilization so rapidly and extensively in primeval times, that no other peoples were so distinguished at first with material grandeur, both in the plain of Shinar and in that remarkable country which lies along the Nile, that is, in both Asia and Africa; and that they were long the sole pioneers of commerce in west and east, north and south. But the true God was absent from their souls; nor this only: they out-ran all other races in their vain thoughts, ungratefully abandoning Him when they knew Him, and their foolish heart was soonest darkened. Professing to be wise they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and quadrupeds and reptiles. Wherefore God gave them up to the lowest defilement and vile affections contrary to nature, and worse than brutish, reprobate. Their very mind had pleasure in evil. Such man became without God, none so audaciously and shamefully as the Canaanites, whose judgment therefore was most righteous save to such as are more or less reprobate.
What an illustration is their history of the words of the apostle on the first man as contrasted with the last Adam! “That was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual.” The book of nature man never did read aright, though he ought; and conscience, the monitor of fallen man, shows him his sins, but of itself never leads to repentance: only God's goodness does, above all revealed in Christ. But the Hamite races were the leaders of the departure from God, and none so flagitiously as the Canaanite.