Genesis 9:25-27 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.… There is in the original a play upon the word Japheth, which itself signifies "enlargement." This enlargement is the most striking point in the history of Japheth, who is the progenitor of the inhabitants of Europe, Asia, and America, except the region between the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Euxine, the Caspian, and the mountains beyond the Tigris, which was the main seat of the Shemites. This expansive power refers not only to the territory and the multitude of the Japhethites, but also to their intellectual and active faculties. The metaphysics of the Hindoos, the philosophy of the Greeks, the military prowess of the Romans, and the modern science and civilization of the world, are due to the race of Japheth. And though the moral and the spiritual were first developed among the Shemites, yet the Japhethites have proved themselves capable of rising to the heights of these lofty themes, and have elaborated that noble form of human speech which was adopted, in the providence of God, as best fitted to convey to mankind that farther development of Old Testament truth which is furnished in the New. (Prof. J. G. Murphy.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.WEB: He said, "Canaan is cursed. He will be servant of servants to his brothers." |
    |