The Book of Jubilees explains that Noah had allocated Canaan a land west of the Nile along with his brothers, but that he chose instead to squat in land which was delineated to Shem (and later Abraham), and so rightly deserved the curse of slavery. Philo of Alexandria, a 1st century BC Jewish philosopher, said that Ham and Canaan were equally guilty, if not of whatever had been done to Noah, then of other crimes, "for the two of them together had acted foolishly and wrongly and committed other sins." Rabbi Eleazar decided that Canaan had in fact been the first to see Noah, and had then gone and told his father, who then told his brothers in the street; this, said Eleazar, "did not take to mind the commandment to honour one's father." Another interpretation was that Noah's "youngest son" could not be Ham, who was the middle son: "for this reason they say that this youngest son was in fact Canaan."
Read more about this topic: Curse Of Ham, Curse of Canaan
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