It is thought by some that the race of Ham, one of the sons of Noah,
had a curse pronounced upon it at the beginning, whereby through
all time this particular branch of the human family was to be kept
in an inferior and servile condition. This is not correct. No curse
stands recorded in the Bible against the race of Ham. The curse in
question was pronounced upon Canaan, one of the four sons of Ham, whose
descendants settled in the hill country, called after his name, along
the east end of the Mediterranean Sea. There they dwelt for several
centuries, and built up a corrupt and idolatrous nation, until they
were dispossessed of their inheritance by the invading hosts of the
Jews. By this invasion vast numbers of this Canaanitish race perished,
and those who survived were brought into an abject, dependant, and
servile condition.
The perversion of the passage is the more noteworthy from the fact,
that while Ham was the offender, on account of whose conduct the curse
was pronounced--so that the reader is naturally looking for some
manifestation towards him personally--his name does not appear. The
curse, though three times repeated, falls steadily upon Canaan, one of
the four sons. When the three sons of Noah came forth with their father
out of the ark, the historian simply says, "And Ham is the father
of Canaan." True, so he was, and was also the father of Misraim, and
Cush, and Phut. Shem, too, was the father of five sons, and Japheth of
seven; but nothing is said at that time about all these, only, "Ham is
the father of Canaan." And so also when Ham's irreverent wickedness is
mentioned, it is "Ham the father of Canaan."
What is perhaps still more noticeable, when the curse is passed, and
the historian in the next chapter takes up the genealogy of the race
after the flood, and shows us the first founders of kingdoms and
nations, the only instance in all that long list, when he stops to give
us the boundaries of any people, is in this case of Canaan. It seems
as if God took especial pains to set the people who were to be cursed,
apart from the rest, that there need be no doubt who they were, and
where they lived.
But if we take the race of Ham generally, we shall find that for two
thousand years after the flood it continued by far the most noticeable
and conspicuous of the three branches. For some reason the early
developments of civilization were almost entirely in this race. Egypt
and Assyria, by far the grandest empires of antiquity, were both of
this Hametic order. Misraim, the son of Ham, is the reputed father of
the one, and Nimrod, the grandson, of the other. So obvious was this
fact, at least as respects Egypt, that it is familiarly called in the
Scriptures "the land of Ham." "Israel also came into Egypt, and Jacob
sojourned in the land of Ham." And again, "He sent Moses His servant,
and Aaron whom He had chosen. They showed His signs among them, and
wonders in the land of Ham."