CANAAN
(kay' nan) HEBREW: KENAAN
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The son of Ham and grandson of Noah, Canaan was the ancestor of the Canaanites, a loose grouping of peoples who proved troublesome to the Israelites during the period of settlement in the Promised Land. It was Ham who "saw the nakedness" of the drunken Noah, but Canaan who received the curse: "a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers" (Genesis 9:22, 25).

The curse seems to have been realized when the Israelites "put the Canaanites to forced labor" (Judges 1:28). Among the descendants of Canaan listed in Genesis 10:15 were Heth (the Hittites), the Jebusites (a people who lived in the vicinity of Jerusalem), the Amorites (people of the Palestinian hill country), and the Hivites (perhaps the Horites or Hurrians).

{E2 Dictionary of Biblical People}