According to the opinion now current, Canaan is said to mean "lowland," and to be transferred from the land to the people, and from the people to the pretended ancestor. But this opinion is shown to be untenable by the considerations, that, according to historical tradition, Canaan appears first as [Pg 33] the name of the ancestor;--that the verb כנע is never used of natural lowness, but always of humiliation;--that in our passage, where the name first occurs, it stands in connection with servitude;--that the masculine form of the noun (on the adjective termination _an_, compare _Ewald's Lehrb. d. Heb. Spr._ § 163, b.) is not applicable to the country;--that the country Canaan is so far from being a lowland, that it appears, everywhere in the Pentateuch, as a land of hills (see Deut. xi. 2, iii. 25, where the land itself is even called, "that goodly mountain");[2]--and, finally, that, from all appearance, Canaan is primarily the name, not of the country, but of the people--the former being called ארור כנען, the land of Canaan. The real etymology of the name is almost expressly given in Judges iv. 23; ויכנע, "and God bowed down, or _humbled_, on that day Jabin the king of _Canaan_." Compare also Deut. ix. 3, where, in reference to the Canaanites, it is said, הוא יכניעם, "He will humble or subdue them;" and Nehem. ix. 24: "Thou bowedest down before them the inhabitants of the land--the Canaanites." Our passage also proceeds upon this interpretation of the name. We are the rather induced to assume a connection betwixt the name "Canaan," and the words, "a servant of servants shall he be," as in the case of Japheth also there is certainly an allusion to the signification of the name, and probably in the case of Shem also. Perhaps even the name Ham, _i.e._, "the blackish one," may be connected with the character which he here displays--a suggestion which we do not here follow up. We refer, however, for an analogy, to what has been remarked in our Commentary on the Psalms, in the Introduction of Ps. vii. Canaan means: "the submissive one." It is a name which the people themselves, on whose monuments it appears, would never have appropriated to themselves (just as in the case of the Egyptians also, on which point _Gesenius_ in the _Thesaurus_, and my work _Egypt_, etc., p. 210, may be compared), unless it had been proper to them from their very origin. Ham gave this name to his son from the obedience which he demanded, but [Pg 34] did not himself yield. The son was to be the servant of the father (for the name suggests servile obedience), who was as despotical to his inferiors as he was rebellious against his superiors. When the father gave that name to his son, he thought only of submissiveness to _his_ orders; but God, who, in His mysterious providence, disposes of all these matters, had another submissiveness in view.