“And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them:
“Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.” Deut. vii. 1, 2, 3.
The laws of God are always predicated upon some sufficient cause: in such cases we may ever notice a tendency towards the prevention of deterioration.
“Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.” Ex. xxii. 19.
The terms Japhet, Laban, Hor, and their derivatives in significancy ever include the idea white, of a light colour. These terms are applied among the descendants of Japheth and Shem, as the appellatives of their races and individual names, and as adjectives in description of their personal appearance, too frequently to permit a doubt of these families belonging to the white race.
There is but a single case in all the holy books, where any of these terms is applied to a person of colour, and which we trust we have explained; and if our view be correct, how came the poet to require its use there, unless to elevate the character he celebrates! Do we use any term to signify that a person is white in a country where there are none but white people? Whatever evidence then there may be that the families of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were white people, is also just as positive testimony that the Canaanites were black. See Gen. xxvi. 34, 35.
But in Judges i. 16, we find that the family of the race of Ishmael out of which Moses took his wife are denominated Kenites. We think that we have abundantly proved that they were black. From this connection of Moses, the Israelites seem to have felt some regard for that race. Now it appears that some of that descent were afterwards residing in the cities of Amalek; for we find in 1 Samuel xv. 6, that “Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get ye down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them, for ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed.” How should it be a fact, since they were black, that he could not distinguish them from the Amalekites, unless the Amalekites were black also?
The Amalekites were Canaanites, notwithstanding they claimed Esau in their ancestry. “Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan. Adah the daughter of Ebon the Hittite; * * * and Adah bore to Esau, Eliphaz; * * * and Timna was concubine to Eliphaz, Esau’s son; and she bore to Eliphaz, Amalek.” Gen. xxxvi. 2, 4, 12.
The Amalekites were one of those tribes, that the Israelites were particularly commanded to destroy from off the earth; and in them, he who amalgamates with the daughters of Ham may see his own prospect as to posterity.