Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 9:24

"And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done unto him." — Genesis 9:24 (ASV)

Noah ... knew what his younger son had done to him. —Hebrew, his son, the little one. This can only mean his youngest son.

So it is applied to Benjamin in Genesis 42:34 and Genesis 43:29, and to David in 1 Samuel 16:11, where the words literally are, there remaineth yet the little one.

Now, Ham was not the youngest son, but Japheth; and it is not Ham who is cursed, but Canaan.

So far from Ham being accursed, his descendants were building mighty cities, such as Egyptian Thebes, Nineveh, and Babylon; they were rearing palaces, digging canals, organizing governments, and founding empires. This was at a time when the descendants of Japheth were wandering over Europe with no better weapons than implements of flint and bone.

The application of the curse to Ham seems to have been suggested to commentators by the degradation of the African race in modern times, and especially by the prevalence of the enslavement of African people. However, in ancient times, the opposite was true, and for centuries the Egyptians, a Hamite race, made the Israelites serve them.

Therefore, we must not extend to Ham the curse pronounced upon Canaan. But what had Canaan done to deserve it? As the son, the little one, was not Ham, and certainly not Japheth, it was probably Canaan. He was the youngest son of Ham, and in Hebrew “son” is occasionally used for grandson (as in Genesis 29:5 and Genesis 31:55). Thus, he might be described as Noah’s youngest son, being the youngest member of his family.

Origen quotes a tradition that Canaan was the first who saw Noah’s exposure and told it to his father. Aben Ezra says that Canaan had done worse than mock, though Scripture does not explicitly reveal his crime. We must be content with some such conjecture. The meaning seems to be, “Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what (Canaan) his youngest son (or grandson) had done to him; and it was a deed so shameless that he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan.’”