A. Ham's Place in his Family. Idolati-y connected with his Name. — Like his brothers, he was married at the time of the Deluge, and with his wife was saved from the general destruction in the ark which his father had prepared at God's command. He was thus, with his family, a connecting link between the antediluvian population and those who survived the Flood. The sal- ient fact of his impiety and dishonor to liis father had also caused him to be regarded as the transmitter and representative in the renovated world of the worst feat- ures of idolatry and profaneness, which had growai to so fatal a consummation among the antediluvians. Lac- tantius mentions this ancient tradition of Ham's idola- trous degeneracy: "Hie [Cham] profugus in ejus terne parte consedit, quce nunc Arabia nominatur; eaque ter- ra de nomine suo Chanaan dicta est, et posteri ejus Cha- nanoL'i. Ilrec fuit prima gens qu£B Deum ignoravit, quoiiiam princeps ejus [Cham] et coiiditor cultumDei a patre non accepit, nialedictus ab eo ; ifaque ignorantiam dirinitatis minoi-ibus suis 7-eliquit" (Be orir/. erroris, ii, 13 ; De falsa Reliy. 23). See other authors quoted in Beyer's Addif. ad Seldeni Syntag. de Diis Syris (Ugoli- no, Thes. xxiii, 288). This tradition was rife also among the Jews. R. IManasse says, ■' Moreover Ham, the son of Noah, was the tirst to invent idols," etc. The Tyrian idols called d^J^n, Chamanim, are supposed by Kircher to have their designation from the degenerate son of Noah (see Spencer, De ler/g. Heh. [ed. Pfaff J p. 470- 482). The old commentators, fuU of classical associa- tions, saw in Noah and his sons the counterpart of Koo- voc, or Saturn, and his three divine sons, of whom they identified Jupiter or Zivq with Ham, especially, as the name suggested, the African Jupiter Ammon (Afijiovv [or, more correctly, 'Aj^iovv, so Gaisford and Bahr] yap AlyviTTioi KaXtoi^i Tov A('a, Herod. Euterp. 42; Plu- tarch explains ' k\.iovv by the better known form " A\i- fiojv, Is. et Osir. ix. In Jer. xlvi, 25, " the multitude of No" is XJp 'i^N:, Amon of No; so in Nahum iii, 8, " Populous No" is No-A mon, ",i^X X3. For the identi- fication of Jupiter Ammon with Ham, see J. Conr. Dann- hauer's PoUtica Ji'dilini, ii. 1 ; Is. Vossius, De Idol. lib. ii, cap. 7). This identification is, however, extremely doubtful; eminent critics of modern times reject it; among them Ewald (Geschichte des Volkes Israel, i, 375 [note]), who says, "Mit dem iigyptischen Gotte Amou Oder Hammon ihn zusammenzubriiigen hat vum keinen Grund,'' u. s. w.). One of the reasons which leads Bo- chart (Phaleg, i, 1, ed.Villemaud, p. 7) to identify Ham with Jupiter or Zeus is derived from the meaning of the names. Wn (from the root dTSU, to be hot) combines the ideas hot and swarthy (comp. A(0.'o»^) ; accordingly, St. Jerome, who renders our word by culidus, arid Simon (Onomasf. p. 103) by niger, are not incompatible. In like manner, Zdi'c is derived afervendo, according to the author of the Etymol. Magn., ^apd ri)v Z,i(jiv, Sreppora- Toc yap 6 uiip, i'l Trapu to ^soi, to seethe, or boil,fervere. Cyril of Alexantlria uses Srep/iaaiav as sjmonymous (L ii, Glaphyr. in Genes.), Another reason of identifica-
I
HAM 35
tion, according to Bochart, is the fanciful one of com- parative age. Zeus was tlie youngest of three brothers, and so was Ham in the ojiinion of this autlior. He is not alone in this view of tlie subject. Josejjhus {Ant. i, (), 3) expressly calls Ham ihi' ijonnfjest of Noah's sons, ti vtwTciTOQ Twv TraiSwv. Gcseniiis {T//cs. \i. 4X9) calls him "tilius natu tertius et minimus;" similarly Flirst (IMr. WO/ierb. i, 408), Knobcl {die Gen. erkl.'\,. 101), Delitzsch {Comment, iiber die Gen, p. 280), and Kalisch {Gen. p. '229), which last lays down the rule in explana- tion of the '■JI'l' '23 applied to Ham in Gen. ix, 24, " If there are more than two sons, blia "|3 is the eldest, "jll^p '13 the youngest son," and he aptly compares 1 Sam. xvii, 13, 14. The Sept., it is true, like the A.V., renders by the comparati\-e— o vtdjTipoc, " his younger son." But, throughout, Shem is the term of compari- son, the central point of blessing from whom all else di- verge. Hence not only is Ham '^pfl, o vtwrspog, in comparison with Shem, but Japhet is relatively to the same VlliiH, 6 fiei^iov (see Gen. x, 21). That this is the proper meaning of this latter jiassago, -which treats of the age of Japhet, the eldest sun of Noah, we are con- vinced by the coiisideration just adduced, and our con- viction is supported by the Sept. translators, Symma- chus, Rashi (who says, "From the words of the text I do not clearly know whether the elder ajiplies to Shem or to Japhet. But, as we are aftenvards informed tliat Shem was 100 years old, and begat Arjjliaxad two years after the Deluge [xi, 10], it follows that Jajihet «•«.■> t/ie lidei, for Noah was 500 years old when he began to have chiklren, and the Deluge took place in his GOOth year. His eklest son must consequently have been 100 years old at the time of the Flood, whereas we are ex- |)ressly informed that Shem did not arrive at that age until two years after the Deluge"), Aben-Ezra, Luther, Junius, and Tremellius, Piscator, TVIercerus, Arius, Mon- tanns, Clericus, Dathius, J. D. Michaelis, and Mendels- sohn (who gives a powerful reason for his opinion; '• The tonic accents make it clear that the word bli:!?!, the elder, applies to Yapheth ; wherever the words of the text are obscure and equivocal, great resjicct and atten- tion must be paid to the tonic accents, as their author understood the true meaning of the text better than we do," De Sola, Lindenthal, and Raphall's Trans, of Gene- sis, p. 43). In consistency with this senioritj' of Ja- pheth, his name and genealogj^ are first gi\-en in the To- ledoth Beni JVoak of Gen. x. Shem's name stands Jirst when the three brothers are mentioned together, proba- bly because the special blessing (after%vards to be more fully developed in his great descendant Abraham) was bestowed on him by God. But this prerogative by no means affords any proof that Shem was the eldest of Noah's sons. The obvious instances of Seth, xVbraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Joseph, Ephraim, Moses, David, and Solomon (besides this of Shem), give sufficient ground for observing that primogeniture was far from always securing the privileges oi birthright and blessing, and other distinctions (comp. Gen. xxv, 23 ; xlviii, 14,