And the sons of Ham. These, who occupy the second place, that the list might conclude with the Shemites as the line of promise, number thirty, of whom only four were immediate descendants. Their territory generally embraced the southern portions of the globe.
Hence the name Ham has been connected with חָמַס, to be warm, though Kalisch declares it to be not of Hebrew, but Egyptian origin, appearing in the Chme of the Rosetta Stone. The most usual ancient name of the country was Kern, the black land.
Scripture speaks of Egypt as the land of Ham (Psalms 78:51; Psalms 105:23; Psalms 106:22) Cush. Ethiopia, including Arabia "quae mater est," and Abyssinia "quae colonia" (Michaelis, Rosenmüller). The original settlement of Cush, however, is believed to have been on the Upper Nile, whence he afterwards spread to Arabia, Babylonia, India (Knobel, Kalisch, Lange, Rawlinson).
Murphy thinks he may have started from the Caucasus, the Caspian, and. the Cossaei of Khusistan, and. migrated south (to Egypt) and east (to India). Josephus mentions that in his day Ethiopia was called Cush; the Syriac translates ἀ νη Ì ρ ἀ ιθιì οψ (Acts 8:27) by Cuschaeos; the ancient Egyptian name of Ethiopia was Keesh, Kish, or Kush ('Records of the Past, Genesis 4:7).
The Cushites are described as of a black color (Jeremiah 13:23) and of great stature (Isaiah 45:14). And Mizraim. A dual form probably designed to represent the two Egypts, upper and lower (Gesenius, Keil, Kalisch), though it has been discovered in ancient Egyptian as the name of a Hittite chief, written in hieroglyphics M'azrima, Ma being the sign for the dual.
The old Egyptian name is Kemi, Chemi, with obvious reference to Ham; the name Egypt being probably derived from Kaphtah, the land of Ptah. The singular form Mazor is found in later books (2 Kings 19:24; Isaiah 19:6; Isaiah 35:1-10:25), and usually denotes Lower Egypt.
And Phut. Phet (Old Egyptian), Phaiat (Coptic); the Libyans in the north of Africa (Josephus, LXX; Gesenins, Bochart). Kalisch suggests Buto' or Butos, the capital of the delta of the Nile. And Canaan.
Hebrew, Kenaan (vide on Genesis 9:25). The extent of the territory occupied by the fourth son of Ham is defined in Genesis 10:15-19.