Genesis 10:20

These are the sons of Ham,.... His sons and grandsons, which some reckon to be thirty, others thirty one, if the Philistines are taken in: after their families, after their tongues, in their

These are the sons of Ham after their families after their tongues in their countries and in their nations These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.

Genesis 10:20 These [are] the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, [and] in their nations.Ver. 20. These are the sons of Ham.] More in number, and more sweetly situated, than the posterity of either Shem or Japheth: thirty sons and nephews of cursed Ham are here recited and registered, when of blessed Shem we find but twenty-six, and of Japheth but fourteen. And for their countries, Canaan hath the navel of the world ( sumen totius orbis , as one calls that country), a land that floweth with milk for necessity, and honey for delight; where the hardest rocks sweat out honey and oil. Nihil mollius coelo, nihil uberius solo , as Florus saith of Campania; a land that God had spied out among all lands for his own peculiar people, yea, for himself to dwell in. Lo, this was Ham’ s possession, when his two better brethren dwelt in the more barren waste countries of the east and west. God deals by his people here as the host doth by his guests, who lets them have the best meats and fairest lodgings, but reserves the inheritance for his children. The Lord holds his servants to hard meat many times; but then they have it of free cost: whereas the wicked eat of the fat and drink of the sweet; but their "meat in their bowels is turned into the gall of asps, God shall cast it out of their bellies". In fattening them he doth but fit them for destruction, as he did these Canaanites, whose pleasant land he afterwards made a spoil to his own Israel. They grew a burden to that good land, which therefore, for their wickedness, spued them out, after they had filled it from corner to corner with their abominable uncleannesses. L. Flor, lib. i. cap. 16. See Deuteronomy 8:7-9; Deuteronomy 11:11-12.

(19, 20) The border . . . —The boundaries given are Sidon in the north, Gerar and Gaza in the south and south-west, and thence to the Dead Sea. The only Lasha known is a place famous for its hot springs on the east of the Red Sea Though the Phœnicians may-have occupied this town on their way to Palestine, it could not have been one of their boundaries, so that it is probably some place destroyed in the convulsion which overthrew the cities of the plain. We must notice also that while Sidon is Aradus and Hamath were considerably above it. It is probable, therefore, that both the Arvadite and the Hamathite were still wandering tribes without settlements when this table was drawn up.

Verse 20. These are the sons of Ham after their families] No doubt all these were well known in the days of Moses, and for a long time after; but at this distance, when it is considered that the political state of the world has been undergoing almost incessant revolutions through all the intermediate portions of time, the impossibility of fixing their residences or marking their descendants must be evident, as both the names of the people and the places of their residences have been changed beyond the possibility of being recognized.

20. These are the sons of Ham (P), &c.] Cf. Genesis 10:31; and the note on Genesis 10:5. The synonyms here given are characteristic of P’s fondness for redundancy and repetition.