Ham

Noah had three sons, “Shem, and Ham, and Japheth” (Genesis 5:32), and Ham is the one whose name keeps travelling. Genesis 10 lists his sons as Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan, and follows their families into Babel, Nineveh and the lands of the Canaanites. Nimrod, “a mighty hunter before the LORD,” comes from this line. In the Psalms, Egypt is called “the land of Ham”: “Israel also came into Egypt; and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham” (Psalm 105:23). Genesis 9 also tells of a hard moment between Ham and his father, and readers should take it as it is written. Genesis 10 is the family map.

23 verses

Genesis

Genesis 5:32

And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Genesis 9:18

And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.

Genesis 9:24

And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

Genesis 10:6

And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.

Genesis 10:7

And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.

Genesis 10:8

And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.

Genesis 10:9

He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.

Genesis 10:10

And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

Genesis 10:11

Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah,

Genesis 10:12

And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.

Genesis 10:13

And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim,

Genesis 10:14

And Pathrusim, and Casluhim,(out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim.

Genesis 10:15

And Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn, and Heth,

Genesis 10:16

And the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite,

Genesis 10:17

And the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite,

Genesis 10:18

And the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad.

Genesis 10:19

And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.

Genesis 10:20

These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.

Genesis 14:5

And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh Kiriathaim,

1 Chronicles

1 Chronicles 4:40

And they found fat pasture and good, and the land was wide, and quiet, and peaceable; for they of Ham had dwelt there of old.

Psalms

Psalms 78:51

And smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham:

Psalms 105:23

Israel also came into Egypt; and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.

Psalms 105:27

They shewed his signs among them, and wonders in the land of Ham.

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

Warm, hot, and hence the south; also an Egyptian word meaning “black”, the youngest son of Noah (Gen. 5:32; comp. 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 Gen. 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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From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

(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." (Genesis 10:6) comp. 1Chr 1:8 Egypt is recognized as the "land of Ham" in the Bible. (Psalms 78:51; 105:23; 106:22) 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.

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(2.) According to the present text, (Genesis 14:5) Chedorlaomer and his allies smote the Zuzim in a place called Ham, probably in the territory of the Ammonites (Gilead), east of the Jordan.