Reference: Ham
American
1. Burnt, swarthy, black, A son of Noah, Ge 5:32; 7:13; 9:18; 10:1. The impiety revealed in his conduct towards his father, drew upon him, or rather, according to the Bible statement, on his son Canaan, a prophetic malediction, Ge 9:20-27. Ham was the father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan, that is, the ancestor of the Canaanites, Southern Arabians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, and the Africans in general, Ge 10:6-20.
2. A poetical name for Egypt, Ps 78:51; 106:22.
3. An unknown place of the Zuzim, Ge 14:5.
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Easton
warm, hot, and hence the south; also an Egyptian word meaning "black", the youngest son of Noah (Ge 5:32; comp. Ge 9:22,24). The curse pronounced by Noah against Ham, properly against Canaan his fourth son, was accomplished when the Jews subsequently exterminated the Canaanites.
One of the most important facts recorded in Ge 10 is the foundation of the earliest monarchy in Babylonia by Nimrod the grandson of Ham (6, 8, 10). The primitive Babylonian empire was thus Hamitic, and of a cognate race with the primitive inhabitants of Arabia and of Ethiopia. (See Accad.)
The race of Ham were the most energetic of all the descendants of Noah in the early times of the post-diluvian world.
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Fausets
("hot".)
1. The Egyptian. (See KEM.) (Egypt is singularly the land of Ham, Ps 78:51; 105:23), "black"; the sun-burnt and those whose soil is black, as Ethiopia means. Father (i.e. ancestor) of Cush (Ethiopia), Mizraim (See EGYPT), Phut (Libya), and Canaan. These mean races. not individuals. Egypt being the first civilized was singled out as the chief country of Hamite settlements. (On the Hamitic or Cushite origin of Babylon, alleged by Scripture and confirmed by the vocabulary in ancient remains. (See CUSH; BABEL.) Solid grandeur characterizes the Hamitic architecture, as in the earliest of Egypt, Babylonia, and S. Arabia. The first steps in the arts and sciences seemingly are due to the Hamites. The earliest empires were theirs, their power of organization being great. Material rather than moral greatness was theirs. Hence their civilization, though early, decayed sooner than that of the Semitic and Japhetic races.
Egypt, fenced on the N. by a sea without good harbours, on the E. and W. by deserts, held its sway the longest. The Hamites of S. Arabia were at a very early date overcome by the Joktanites, and the Babylonians yielded to the Medes. Ammon, the god of N. Africa, is related to Ham. Ham is supposed to be youngest of Noah's sons from Ge 9:24, but "younger (Hebrew: little) son" there probably means Noah's grandson, namely, Canaan, not Ham. Shem is put first, having the spiritual eminence of being father of the promised seed. The names Shem (the man of name or renown), Ham (the settler in hot Africa), and Japbet (father of fair descendants, or of those who spread abroad), may not have been their original names, but derived from subsequent facts of their history.
2. A place where Chedorlaomer smote the Zuzim (Ge 14:5). If Zuzim be the same as Zamzummim, who dwelt in the territory afterward occupied by Ammon (De 2:19-21), Ham answers to Rabbath Ammon. Septuagint and Vulgate read baheem for b'Ham, i.e. "with them", but KJV seems correct.
3. Simeonites went to the eastern entrance of the valley of Gedor in quest of pasture, and dispossessed the previous inhabitants, being men "of Ham" (1Ch 4:40). Perhaps an Egyptian settlement, Egypt being closely connected with this southern part of Palestine.
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Hastings
The original (?) use of the name as = Egypt appears in Ps 78:51; 105:23,27; 106:22. It has been derived from an Egyptian word kem, 'black,' in allusion to the dark soil of Egypt as compared with the desert sands (but see Ham [Land of]). H
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Morish
1. One of Noah's three sons: he was father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. Mizraim and Phut, in their descendants, were mainly connected with Egypt. Nothing personally is known of Ham except his disrespectful behaviour when his father was intoxicated, and which drew down the curse of Noah on Canaan. Ge 5:32; 6/10/type/bbe'>6:10; 9:18,22; 10:1,6,20; 1Ch 1:4,8.
2. The dwelling place of the above in Egypt was mostly designated 'the land of Ham.' Ps 78:51; 105:23,27; 106:22.
3. A place somewhere on the east of the Dead Sea, where the Zuzims dwelt who were smitten by Chedorlaomer. Ge 14:5.
4. The Simeonites in searching for pasture for their flocks in the South came to a place where they of Ham had dwelt of old. 1Ch 4:40. Some suppose these to have been a colony from Egypt; others judge them to have been Canaanitish nomads.
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Smith
(hot; sunburnt).
1. The name of one of the three sons of Noah, apparently the second in age. (B.C. 2448.) Of the history of Ham nothing is related except his irreverence to his father and the curse which that patriarch pronounced. The sons of Ham are stated, to have been "Cush and Mizraim and Phut and Canaan."
comp. 1Chr 1:8 Egypt is recognized as the "land of Ham" in the Bible.
The other settlements of the sons of Ham are discussed under their respective names. The three most illustrious Hamite nations--the Cushites, the Phoenicians and the Egyptians--were greatly mixed with foreign peoples. Their architecture has a solid grandeur that we look for in vain elsewhere.
2. According to the present text,
Chedorlaomer and his allies smote the Zuzim in a place called Ham, probably in the territory of the Ammonites (Gilead), east of the Jordan.
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Watsons
HAM, or CHAM, ??, son of Noah, and brother to Shem and Japheth, is believed to have been Noah's youngest son. Ham, says Dr. Hales, signifies burnt, or black, and this name was peculiarly significant of the regions allotted to his family. To the Cushites, or children of his eldest son, Cush, were allotted the hot southern regions of Asia, along the coasts of the Persian Gulf, Susiana or Chusistan, Arabia, &c; to the sons of Canaan, Palestine and Syria; to the sons of Misraim, Egypt and Libya, in Africa. The Hamites, in general, like the Canaanites of old, were a sea-faring race, and sooner arrived at civilization and the luxuries of life than their simpler pastoral and agricultural brethren of the other two families. The first great empires of Assyria and Egypt were founded by them; and the republics of Tyre, Sidon, and Carthage, were early distinguished for their commerce: but they sooner also fell to decay; and Egypt, which was one of the first, became the last and "basest of the kingdoms," Eze 29:15; and has been successively in subjection to the Shemites, and Japhethites; as have also the settlements of the other branches of the Hamites. See CANAAN.