When the rights of the Hebrews to Canaan had been proved, when at the same time it was ascertained that the kindred tribes of Moab and Ammon could establish no claim to the land, after the voluntary renunciation of their progenitor, it remained to be shown that the ancient inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites themselves, had been from the first destined to give way to the Hebrews. We found that the Canaanites, like the Hebrews, belonged to the great family of the Semitic nations; but they were distinguished from them in character, in dialect, and religious conceptions. Hence they were not derived from Shem, but from Noah's second son, Ham; and they were also burdened with the curse of Noah--a trait which the prophetic reviser has added to the narrative.[592] After the flood, Noah planted a vineyard, and he became drunken, and uncovered himself in his tent; and Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, but Shem and Japhet went backwards and covered him. And when Noah heard what Ham had done, he said, "Cursed be Ham; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren." Abraham passed through the length and breadth of Canaan, the land which his descendants were destined to possess. At Shechem and Hebron, and then in the south, at Kadesh (Barnea) and Shur, he abode longest; at Hebron, and between Bethel and Ai, he built an altar to Jehovah. The presence of the patriarchs consecrated the places where his descendants were to dwell; among the Hittites and the Canaanites Abraham remained true to the God who had led him into Canaan; he rendered a willing obedience even to the harshest command. At the places where Abraham had set up altars, and where he had offered sacrifice, we find at a later period centres of Hebrew worship: by Abraham's sacrifices they were already consecrated. The Judæan text places the abode of Abraham mainly in the south of Canaan, at Hebron; the south belonged mainly to the tribe of Judah, and Hebron was David's royal abode till he conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites. The Ephraimitic text placed Abraham mainly at Shechem, the chief city of the tribe of Ephraim, and gives especial prominence to the sacred place at Bethel. The wandering of Abraham from the south of Canaan to Egypt, where the Pharaoh, warned by plagues from Jehovah, sends him away with valuable presents and in peace, is the work of the reviser. It is an anticipation of the later sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt, and forms at the same time a contrast to the widely different circumstances of their exodus.