Canaan's further descendants include the Arvadites, Zemarites, and Hamathites, and afterward the Canaanite clans scattered. Hamath will appear frequently in the prophetic literature as a northern marker of Israel's territory (Numbers 34:8; Amos 6:14) and will be among the nations addressed in the oracles of judgment and restoration. The scattering of the Canaanite clans is presented as a natural process here — before the specific judgment of Babel in chapter 11, the nations are simply spreading according to the mandate to fill the earth. The word 'scattered' (Hebrew: patsah) will reappear in Genesis 11:8 in the context of God's judgment at Babel — here the scattering is natural, there it is judicial. The application: notice the difference between natural diversification (which Genesis celebrates) and forced dispersal as judgment. God desires the filling of the earth; he is not the God of one tribe or one geography.

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