Ham (son of Noah)

Ham (Cham)
Born 1557 AM[1]
(date disputed)[1]
Children Cush
Mizraim
Phut
Canaan
Parent(s) Noah

Ham (Hebrew: חָם, Modern H̱am, Tiberian Ḥām; Greek Χαμ, Kham; Arabic: حام, Ḥām, "hot" or "burnt"), according to the Table of Nations in the Book of Genesis, was a son of Noah and the father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan.[2][3]

Etymology

According to the Hebrew Bible, Ham was one of the sons of Noah and the father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan, who are interpreted as having populated Africa and adjoining parts of Asia. The Bible refers to Egypt as "the land of Ham" in Psalms 78:51; 105:23,27; 106:22; 1Ch 4:40. Since the 17th century a number of suggestions have been made that relate the name Ham to a Hebrew word for burnt, black or hot, to an Egyptian word for servant or the Egyptian word Kmt for Egypt.[4] A review of David Goldenberg's The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam states that Goldenberg "argues persuasively that the biblical name Ham bears no relationship at all to the notion of blackness and as of now is of unknown etymology."[5]

Ham in the Bible

This picture from the Nuremberg Chronicle uses the spelling "Cham".

Genesis 5:32 indicates that Noah begat Shem, Ham and Japheth while he was still 500 years old. (Noah was 600 years old at the time of the flood in Genesis 7.) The life of Ham is related in Genesis 9:20-27.

Genesis 9:20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:

21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. 23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.

24 ¶ And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. 25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. 26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
—Authorized King James Version

Curse of Canaan

Main article: Curse of Ham
Ivan Ksenofontov. The damnation of Ham

Ham was "blessed" in Genesis 9:1 – Noah did not curse him directly, instead cursing his son Canaan.

The Talmud deduces two possible explanations, one attributed to Rab and one to Rabbi Samuel, for what Ham did to Noah to warrant the curse.[6] According to Rab, Ham castrated Noah on the basis that, since Noah cursed Ham by his fourth son Canaan, Ham must have injured Noah with respect to a fourth son. Emasculating him thus deprived Noah of the possibility of a fourth son. According to Samuel, Ham sodomized Noah, a judgment that he based on analogy with another biblical incident in which the phrase "and he saw" is used: With regard to Ham and Noah, Genesis 9 reads, "[22] And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. [23] And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness."[7] In Genesis 34:2 it reads, "And when Shechem the son of Hamor saw her (Dinah), he took her and lay with her and defiled her." According to this argument, similar abuse must have happened each time that the Bible uses the same language. The Talmud concludes that, in fact, "both indignities were perpetrated."

Watchman Nee[8] simply sees Ham's act as rebellion: "So far as Noah's conduct was concerned, he certainly was wrong: he should not have been drunk. Yet Ham failed to see the dignity of authority. The father is God's instituted authority in the home, but the flesh delights in seeing a defect in authority so as to throw off all restraint."

Although the story can be taken literally, in more recent times, some scholars have suggested that Ham may have had intercourse with his father's wife.[9] Under this interpretation, Canaan is cursed as the "product of Ham's illicit union."[10]

Jubilees

The chronological scheme of the Book of Jubilees has Ham born in the year 1209 A.M. — two years after Shem, three before Japheth, and 99 before the flood. It gives the name of his wife who also survived the flood as Na'eltama'uk. After his youngest son Canaan was cursed in 1321 A.M., he left Mount Ararat and built a city named for his wife on the south side of the mountain. In 1569 A.M., he received a third division of the earth along with his two brothers for his inheritance: everything west of the Nile River, and to the south of Gadir. In 1639 A.M. when the nations were scattered following the failure of the Tower of Babel, Ham and his children journeyed to their allotment, with the exception of Canaan, who settled in Shem's territory, thus receiving another curse.

According to Jubilees 10:29–34, this second curse is attributed to Canaan's steadfast refusal to join his elder brothers in Ham's allotment beyond the Nile, and instead "squatting" within the inheritance of Shem, on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, the region later promised to Abraham:

And Canaan saw the land of Lebanon to the river of Egypt, that it was very good, and he went not into the land of his inheritance to the west (that is to) the sea, and he dwelt in the land of Lebanon, eastward and westward from the border of Jordan and from the border of the sea. And Ham, his father, and Cush and Mizraim his brothers said unto him: 'Thou hast settled in a land which is not thine, and which did not fall to us by lot: do not do so; for if thou dost do so, thou and thy sons will fall in the land and (be) accursed through sedition; for by sedition ye have settled, and by sedition will thy children fall, and thou shalt be rooted out for ever. Dwell not in the dwelling of Shem; for to Shem and to his sons did it come by their lot. Cursed art thou, and cursed shalt thou be beyond all the sons of Noah, by the curse by which we bound ourselves by an oath in the presence of the holy judge, and in the presence of Noah our father.' But he did not hearken unto them, and dwelt in the land of Lebanon from Hamath to the entering of Egypt, he and his sons until this day. And for this reason that land is named Canaan. – Jubilees 10:29–34,

Death

A tomb in Pind Dadan Khan, Pakistan has been claimed by local residents to be the site of Ham's burial since 1891, when Hafiz Sham-us-Din of Gulyana, Gujrat claimed Ham had revealed this to him in a dream. A plaque on the tomb since erected over the 78 foot long grave site states that Ham, locally revered as a prophet, was buried there after living 536 years.[11][12]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Anno Mundi era is based on the biblical creation – the 1557 birth year is based on the standard Massoretic text as represented in the Authorized Version. Septuagint and Samaritan texts have different values. See Chronology of the Bible.
  2. ↑ David Noel Freedman, Allen C. Myers, Astrid B. Beck, Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible, (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing: 2000), p. 543
  3. ↑ Stanley E. Porter, Craig A. Evans, The Scrolls and the Scriptures, (Continuum International Publishing Group: 1997), p. 377
  4. ↑ Goldenberg, David M. (2005). "Was Ham Black?". The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (New ed.). Princeton University Press. p. 144. ISBN 978-0691123707.
  5. ↑ Levine, Molly Myerowitz (2004). "David M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.". Bryn Mawr Classical Review. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  6. ↑ Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 70a.
  7. ↑ Genesis 9:20-27
  8. ↑ Nee, Watchman. "Spiritual Authority" Christian Fellowship Publishers Inc. New York.
  9. ↑ For example, Frederick W. Bassett, "Noah's nakedness and the curse of Canaan : a case of incest?" VT 21 [1971] pp. 232–237.
  10. ↑ John S. Bergsma and Scott Hahn, "Noah's nakedness and the curse on Canaan (Genesis 9:20–27)," JBL 124 [2005] p. 39.
  11. ↑ http://jang.com.pk/thenews/nov2007-weekly/nos-11-11-2007/foo.htm
  12. ↑ http://the6news.com/tomb-of-hazrat-ham-requires-attention-of-the-government/
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