HAM

ham, in the bible. (1) [hebrew: ham], _ham_, in gen. v. 32, vi. 10, vii. 13, ix. 18, x. 5, 1 chron. i. 4, the _second_ son of noah; in gen. ix. 24, the _youngest_ son (but cf. below); and in gen. x. 6, 1 chron. i. 8, the father of cush (ethiopia), mizraim (egypt), phut and canaan. genesis x. exhibits in the form of genealogies the political, racial and geographical relations of the peoples known to israel; as it was compiled from various sources and has been more than once edited, it does not exactly represent the situation at any given date,[1] but ham seems to stand roughly for the south-western division of the world as known to israel, which division was regarded as the natural sphere of influence of egypt. ham is held to be the egyptian word _khem_ (black) which was the native name of egypt; thus in pss. lxxviii. 51, cv. 23, 27, cvi. 22, ham = egypt. in gen. ix. 20-26 canaan was originally the third son of noah and the villain of the story. ham is a later addition to harmonize with other passages. (2) [hebrew: ham], _ham_, 1 chron. iv. 40, apparently the name of a place or tribe. it can hardly be identical with (1); nothing else is known of this second ham, which may be a scribe's error; the syriac version rejects the name. (3) [hebrew: ham], _ham_, gen. xiv. 5; the place where chedorlaomer defeated the zuzim, apparently in eastern palestine. the place is unknown, and the name may be a scribe's error, perhaps for ammon. (w. h. be.) footnote: [1] a. jeremias, _das a.t. im lichte des alten orients_, p. 145, holds that it represents the situation in the 8th century b.c.