And the sons of Ham,.... Next to the sons of Japheth, the sons of Ham are reckoned; these, Josephus says, possessed the land from Syria, and the mountains of Amanus and Lebanon; laying hold on whatever was towards the sea, claiming to themselves the countries unto the ocean, whose names, some of them, are entirely lost, and others so greatly changed and deflected into other tongues, that they can scarcely be known, and few whose names are preserved entire; and the same observation will hold good of others.
Four of the sons of Ham are mentioned,Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan; the first of these, Cush, Josephus says, has suffered no loss by time; for the Ethiopians, whose prince he was, are to this day by themselves, and all in Asia, called Chusaeans: but though this word Cush, as used in Scripture, is generally rendered by us Ethiopia, this must not be understood of Ethiopia in Africa, but in Arabia; and indeed is always to be understood of one part of Arabia, and which was near to the land of Judea; so Moses's wife is called an Ethiopian, when she was an Arabian, or of Midian, Nu 12:1 and Chusan and Midian are mentioned together, Hab 3:7 see 2Ki 19:9 2Ch 14:9 and Bochart has shown, by various arguments, that the land of Cush was Arabia; and so the Targum of Jonathan interprets it here Arabia.
There was a city called Cutha in Erac, a province in the country of Babylon , where Nimrod the son of Cush settled, which probably was called so from his father's name. Here the eastern writers say Abraham was born, and is the same place mentioned in 2Ki 17:24.
The second son of Ham was Mizraim, the same with the Misor of Sanchoniatho , and the Menes of Herodotus , the first king of Egypt, and the builder of the city of Memphis in Egypt, called by the Turks to this day Mitzir .
Mitzraim is a name by which Egypt is frequently called in Scripture, and this man was the father of the Egyptians; and because Egypt was inhabited by a son of Ham, it is sometimes called the land of Ham, Ps 105:23.
The word is of the dual number, and serves to express Egypt by, which was divided into two parts, lower and upper Egypt. Josephus says , we call Egypt, Mestres, and all the Egyptians that inhabit it, Mestraeans; so the country is called by Cedrenus , Mestre; and Kairo, a principal city in it, is to this day by the Arabians called Al-messer, as Dr.
Shaw relates. The third son of Ham is Phut; of whom Josephus says, that he founded Libya, calling the inhabitants of it after his name, Phuteans; and observes, that there is a river in the country of the Moors of his name; and that many of the Greek historians, who make mention of this river, also make mention of a country adjacent to it, called Phute: mention is made of this river as in Mauritania, both by Pliny and Ptolemy and by the latter of a city called Putea: this Phut is the Apollo Pythius of the Heathens, as some think.
The last son of Ham is Canaan, the father of the Canaanites, a people well known in Scripture. Concerning these sons of Ham, there is a famous fragment of Eupolemus preserved in Eusebius ; and is this;"the Babylonians say, that the first was Belus, called Cronus or Saturn (that is, Noah), and of him was begotten another Belus and Chanaan (it should be read Cham), and he (i.
e. Ham) begat Chanaan, the father of the Phoenicians; and of him another son, Chus, was begotten, whom the Greeks call Asbolos, the father of the Ethiopians, and the brother of Mestraim, the father of the Egyptians.'
' Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect 1.) Ibid. Phaleg. l. 4. c. 2. Vid. Hyde Hist. Relig. Pers. c. 2. p. 39, 40. Vid. Hyde Hist. Relig. Pers. c. 2. p. 72. Apud Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 1. p. 36. Enterpe sive, l.
2. c. 4. 99. See Cumberland's Sanchoniatho, p. 59. Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect 1.) Apud Grotium de vera Christ. Relig. l. 1. p. 8. & Ainsworth in loc. Travels, ch. 3. p. 294. Ed. 2. Ut supra.
(Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect 1.) Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 1. Geograph. l. 4. c. 1, 3. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 17. p.