We shall, in the course of these studies, with some particularity
examine what evidence there may be that Ham took a wife from the race of
Cain; and we propose a glance at that subject now. Theological students
generally agree that, in _Genesis_ vi. 2, “sons of God” mean those of
the race of Seth; and that the “daughters of men” imply the females of
the race of Cain. The word “fair,” in our version, applied to these
females, does not justly teach us that they were white women, or that
they were of a light complexion. It is translated from the Hebrew טֹבֹת
_tovoth_, being in the feminine plural, from טוֹב _tov_, and merely
expresses the idea of what may seem _good_ and _excellent_ to him who
speaks or takes notice: it expresses no quality of complexion nor of
beauty beyond what may exist in the mind of the beholder; it is usually
translated good or excellent. Immediately upon the announcement that
these two races thus intermarry, God declares that his spirit shall not
always strive with man, and determines to destroy man from the earth. Is
it not a plain inference that such intermarriages were displeasing to
him? And is it not also a plain inference, these intermarriages were
proofs that the “wickedness of man had become great in the earth?” Cain
had been driven out a degraded, deteriorated vagabond. Is there any
proof that his race had improved?
The fact is well known that all races of animals are capable of being
improved or deteriorated. A commixture of a better with a worse sample
deteriorates the offspring of the former. Man is no exception to this
rule. Our position is, that sin, as a moral poison, operating in one
continued strain in the degradation and deterioration of the race of
Cain, had at length forced them down to become exceedingly obnoxious to
God. Intermarriage with them was the sure ruin of the race of Seth: it
subjected them at once to the curses cleaving to the race of Cain. Even
after the flood, witness the repugnance to intermarry with the race of
Ham often manifested by the descendants of Shem; and that the Israelites
were forbidden to do so.
Now, for a moment, let us suppose that Ham did marry and take into the
ark a daughter of the race of Cain. If the general intermixture of the
Sethites with the Cainites had so deteriorated the Sethites, and reduced
them to the moral degradation of the Cainites, that God did not deem
them worthy of longer encumbering the earth before the flood, would it
be an extraordinary manifestation of his displeasure at the supposed
marriage of Ham with one of the cursed race of Cain, to subject the
issue of such marriage to a degraded and perpetual bondage?
But again, in case this supposed marriage of Ham with the race of Cain
be true, then Ham would be the progenitor of all the race of Cain who
should exist after the flood; and such fact would be among the most
prominent features of his history. It would, in such case, be in strict
conformity with the usages of these early times for his father to have
called him by a name indicative of such fact: instead of calling him
Ham, he would announce to him a term implying his relationship with the
house of Cain. If such relation did not exist, why did he call him
_Canaan_?
Some suppose that this question would be answered by saying that the
term was applied to the youngest son of Ham; but all the sons of Ham
were born after the flood; yet the planting of the vineyard and the
drinking of the wine are the first acts of Noah which are mentioned
after that deluge; and further, Canaan, the son of Ham, was most
certainly not the individual whose ill-behaviour was simultaneous with
and followed by the curse of slavery. Have we any proof, or any reason
to believe, that Canaan, the son of Ham, was then even born? But in the
catalogue of Noah’s sons, even before the planting of the vineyard is
mentioned, Ham is called the father of Canaan, even before we are told
that he had any sons. Why was he then so called the father of Canaan,
unless upon the fact that by his marriage he necessarily was to become
the progenitor of the race of Cain in his own then unborn descendants?
Under all the facts that have come down to us, we are not to suppose
that there was any Cainite blood in Noah, or in Noah’s wife. Why then
did Ham choose to commemorate the race of Cain, by naming his fourth son
Cain, a term synonymous with Cainite, or Canaanite? And why did the race
of Ham do the same thing through many centuries, using terms differently
varied, sometimes interchanging the consonant and vowel sounds, as was
common in the language they used? These variations, it is true, when
descending into a language so remote as ours, might not be noticed, yet
the linguist surely will trace them all back to their root, the original
of “Cain.”
God never sanctions a curse without an adequate cause; a cause under the
approbation of his law, sufficient to produce the effect the curse
announces. The conduct of Ham to his father proved him to possess a
degraded, a very debased mind; but that alone could not produce so
vital, so interminable a change in the moral and physical condition of
his offspring. And where are we to look for such a cause, unless in
marriage? And with whom could such an intermarriage be had, except with
the cursed race of Cain? The ill-manners of Ham no doubt accelerated the
time of the announcement of the curse, but was not the sole cause. The
cause must have previously existed; and the effect would necessarily
have been produced, even if it had never been announced.
But again, the condition of slavery imposed on the descendants of Ham,
subjected them to be bought and sold; they became objects of purchase as
property, for this quality is inseparable from the condition of the most
abject slavery. Now the very name _Cain_ signifies “_one purchased_.” “I
have _gotten_ a man from the Lord.” The word “gotten,” in the original,
is the word his mother Eve gave her son for his name, “Cain.” _I have
purchased_, &c., evidently shadowing forth the fact that his race were
to be subjects of purchase.
The history of man since the flood is accompanied with a sufficiency of
facts by which we are enabled to determine that the descendants of Ham
were black, and that the black man of Africa is of that descent.
“And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him would kill
him.”
The word “_mark_” is translated from אוֹת _oth_; its signification is,
_a mark by which to distinguish_; _a memorial or warning_; _miraculous
sign or wonder, consisting either in word or deed, whereby the certainty
of any thing future is foretold or known_; and hence it partook of the
nature of a prophecy. In the present case it was the mark of sin and
degradation; it was the token of his condition of slavery, of his being
a vagabond on the earth. It distinguished his rank of inferiority and
wickedness, proclaiming him to be the man whose greatest punishment was
to live and bear his burthens, _below all rivalship_.
Hence its protective influence. Now, by the common consent of all men,
at all times, what has been the mark of sin and degradation? Were we
even now, among ourselves, about to describe one of exceedingly wicked
and degraded character, should we say that he looked very white? Or
should we say that his character was black? And so has been the use of
the term since language has been able to send down to distant times the
ideas and associations of men.
“Their visage is blacker than a coal.”
“Our skin was black.”
“I am black: astonishment hath taken hold on me.”
“For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet
thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God.”
And who shall say that the wicked, disgusting mode of life, the
practices deteriorating the physical and mental powers imputed to the
Cainites, do not constitute what some may call a philosophical cause of
the physical development of the mark of sin? Does not our own
observation teach us that a single lifetime, spent in the practice of
some degrading sins, leaves upon the person the evidence, the mark, the
proof of such practice? We are under no compulsion of evidence or belief
to suppose that the mark set upon Cain was the product of a moment; but
the gradual result of his wicked practices, as a physical and moral
cause.
But allow the fact to have been that, in the case of Cain, the physical
change was instantaneous, God had the power to institute in a moment
what should thereafter be produced only by progression or inheritance.
God created man; but, thereafter, man was born and became mature through
the instrumentality only of physical causes.
“The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they
declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not.” _Isa._ iii. 9. In fact,
“The faces of them all gather blackness.” _Nahum_ ii. 10.
But we know that the descendants of Ham were black; nor is it stated
that any personal mark was placed upon him, although the name applied to
his first-born son, “Cush,” signifies that he was black, giving proof
that the colour was inherited; but from whom? Not from his father!
“Can the _Ethiopian_ (כּוּשִׁי _Cushi_, _the Cushite_, _the black man_)
change his skin?”
The evidence forced on the mind leads to the conclusion that the
descendants of Ham were black, not by the progressive operation of the
laws of God on the course of sin which they doubtless practised, but
that they were so at birth,—consequently an inheritance from parentage.
And a further conclusion also is, that the wife of Ham must have been
black, of the race of Cain, inheriting his _mark_, and that _that mark_
was black.
A further proof that Ham took to wife a daughter of the race of Cain is
found in the traces of evidence indicating her person, who she was.
Lamech, of the race of Cain, had a daughter, Naamah; her name is given
as the last in the genealogy of Cain. Why did the inspired penman think
it necessary to send her name down to us? Why was the genealogy of Cain
given us, unless to announce some fact important for us to know? If this
whole race were to be cut off by the flood, we see nothing in the
genealogy teaching any lesson to the descendants of Noah. Why was the
particular line from Cain to Naamah selected, unless she was the
particular object designed to be pointed out? Hundreds of other
genealogies, commencing in Cain and terminating in some one just at the
coming of the flood, existed; but not written down nor transmitted, for
the obvious reason that such list could be of no benefit to posterity.
Are we not, then, led to believe that there was some design in the
preservation of the one terminating in Naamah? But this genealogy could
only be preserved through the family of Noah; through whom we also have
a genealogy of the line from Seth, terminating in Noah’s youngest son.
These two stand in a parallel position, at the foot of each separate
list. But it is so extremely unusual for ancient genealogies to give the
name of a female, who had brothers, that it becomes strong evidence,
when such catalogue terminates in the name of such a female, that she
personally was the individual on whose account the catalogue was formed.
Is not this consideration, and the fact that it could only be preserved
by the family of Noah, evidence that they attached sufficient importance
to it to make its preservation by them a desirable object?
Inasmuch as Naamah belonged to a race distinct from that of Seth, could
the family of Noah have any desire to preserve her lineage from any
other cause than that of her having become a member of that family?—in
which case the cause of its preservation is obvious, and a thing to have
been expected. On any other state of facts, would they have carefully
handed down the genealogy, so far as we are informed, of a mere
uninteresting woman of the cursed race of Cain, and neglected to have
given us the _name_ and _genealogy of Noah’s wife_, of the more holy
race of Seth?
The presumption then being that she did become the wife of one of Noah’s
sons, the first inquiry is, to which was she attached? A sufficient
answer to this question, for the present moment, will be found in the
fact that Ham was doomed to perpetual and bitter slavery, while his
brothers were blessed and ordained to be his masters. Now since an
amalgamation of the races of Seth and Cain was deemed a most grievous
sin before the flood, if Japheth or Shem had either of them taken Naamah
to wife, it would be past understanding to find them both highly blessed
and made the masters of Ham.
But a more direct evidence that Ham did take to wife Naamah, of the race
of Cain, is found in the fact that the descendants of Ham commemorated
her name by giving it to persons of their race, as descendants might be
expected to do, who wished to keep it in remembrance. The name of her
mother also is found in similar use.
These names are varied, often, from the original form, as are a great
number of proper names found in use among the ancient nations. These
words we shall have hereafter occasion particularly to examine. We shall
merely add, that in the marriage of Ham and Naamah we may find a
reasonable explanation for the otherwise inexplicable speech of Lamech
to his two wives,—since such marriage would have produced, what we find
was produced, the ruin and degradation of Ham,—we might say, his moral
death, his extinguishment, from the race of Seth. Some commentators
deduce the name Naamah from the root “_nam_,” and consequently make it
signify _beautiful_. We give it quite a different origin, which we shall
explain at large elsewhere. It is to be expected that men will differ in
opinion as to the historical facts of these early days. Some have made
Naamah a pure saint; some, the wife of Noah; some, of her brother,
Tubal-Cain; some make her the heathen goddess Venus; others, the mother
of evil spirits.
Thus diversified have been the speculations of men. We present our view,
because we believe it better sustained by Scripture and known facts than
any we have examined: but we deem it no way important in the
justification of the ways of God to man; for, whatever the truth may be,
this we know, that the curse of slavery was, if Scripture be true,
unalterably uttered against the race of Ham,—in which condition, as a
people, they ever have been and still are found: a condition so well
adapted to their physical and mental organization, the result of ages
spent in bad, degenerating habits, that when held in such relation by
the races of Japheth or Shem, the race of Ham is found gradually to
emerge from its native brutality into a state of comparative elevation
and usefulness in the world; a condition without which they, as a race,
have never been found progressing, but ever exhibiting the desire of
wandering backward, in search of the life of the vagabond, in the midst
of the wilderness of sin;—unless in this author, Dr. Channing, we find
an exception; for he more than intimates that he found the negro women
of Jamaica rather to excel the white ones of New England. We believe,
according to his own taste and judgment, what he said was true; but we
also believe his taste was very depraved, and his judgment of no value
on this subject; yet we feel less astonishment at the degenerate sons of
Seth before the flood, on the account of their admiration of the black
daughters of the race of Cain; and we should feel it a subject of
curious solicitude, if Dr. Channing’s taste and judgment on this subject
were to become the standard among his disciples, whether they will, by
their practice, illustrate the habit of these antediluvians!
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Study IV.
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