The sons of Ham Cush and Mizraim, Phut and Canaan.
Chronicles opens its long genealogy with the four sons of Ham, one of Noah's three sons — the same four names given in Genesis 10:6. Why does Scripture keep a bare list like this, and where do these four names turn up again?
Chronicles lists Ham's line before Shem's. One writer sees a deliberate order in that, repeated elsewhere in Scripture.
In God's eyes Shem, chosen by grace, has the first place. But in the natural order, what is spiritual does not come first, as we have already pointed out. It is the same with Abraham's sons: "The sons of Abraham: Isaac and Ishmael" (v. 28). Isaac is named first, seen as first in God's thoughts. But Ishmael, the elder, is listed first (v. 29) as the son born according to the flesh.
ESV calls the third son Put; older versions spell the name Phut. He is the hardest of the four to trace, and one writer reads that obscurity as telling.
Phut or Put shows us the more degraded stock of Ham's descendants in Africa. They lived next to Egypt and Ethiopia, and are named with one or the other at times… The very obscurity that covers this African branch of Ham's sons shows how low they had fallen.
This family produced the earliest great civilisations and also the deepest collapse.
The obvious fact that strikes one here is this. After the flood, this branch of mankind stood out for the earliest and strongest civilisation. And not in one isolated case, but in Asia and in Africa alike… Yet along with material progress another feature is just as marked: the degradation of the race, their fall into ways and habits of savagery… However opposite the two are, both are effects of turning away from God.
Cush is named first of the four, and royal power rises first in his line.
Ham receives much more detail, filling verses 6 to 20. With the holy boldness and openness that marks the truth, this chapter does not hide the early rise of royal power in that race. It sets that rise plainly before us. The beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Nimrod was of Cush, Ham's eldest son.
The last of the four names carries the heaviest weight.
But Canaan, named last, has the worst place of all. He was the early object of the curse, and the fiercest enemy of Israel in the land assigned to them according to promise. His was a highly civilised race, but steeped in shameless idolatry and every moral evil. So they were given up to destruction, as earthly righteousness required — both because they deserved it, and to keep Israel from being drawn into the same evils.
Why did the curse fall on Canaan, and not on Ham himself?
It may seem strange that Noah did not curse Ham himself, who had not respected his father. But no doubt it was God who led Noah here. As Noah gave out the prophecy about his three sons in the new world, God in His government led him to visit Ham's conduct on his son. God had already blessed Ham along with Noah, and had made a covenant with him. How then could He lead Noah to curse him? Besides, we do not find that all Ham's sons became the servants of Shem; the curse fell on Canaan only.
These names are not only ancient history. One writer follows them into prophecy.
The children of Ham are pointed out in Genesis 10:6. Of these, Canaan has been destroyed, and his country given over to Israel. Cush (Ethiopia) and Phut are also found under Gog (Ezekiel 38:5). Cush appears there only in part: one part of that family settled on the Euphrates, the other on the Nile — north and south of Israel. Mizraim, or Egypt (Mizraim is simply the Hebrew name for Egypt), and the rest of Cush and the Libyans you will find in the scenes of the last day; Daniel 11:43.
A bare list of names can look like filler. One writer meets that thought directly.
We do not claim that we are to linger with equal interest over 1 Chronicles 1 and John 17 or Romans 8… But what we do say is that God inspired each of these scriptures, one just as much as another. And we say more: 1 Chronicles 1 and passages like it fill a place which John 17 cannot fill, and do a work which Romans 8 cannot do.
- Order — Chronicles lists Ham before Shem, because the natural comes before the spiritual, just as Ishmael is listed before Isaac.
- Rise — Ham's line led the world in early civilisation, in Asia and Africa alike. Royal power first rose through Nimrod, of Cush's line, at Babel.
- Fall — the same family sank into savagery, and Canaan alone of the four carried Noah's curse. Rise and fall alike came from turning away from God.
- Reach — Cush, Phut and Mizraim (Egypt) reappear in Ezekiel and Daniel, so four old names still touch the last days.
- Worth — this list is inspired as much as John 17 or Romans 8, and does work those chapters cannot do.
-- And the sons of Cush Seba and Havilah, and Sabta, and Raama, and Sabtecha. And the sons of Raamah Sheba and Dedan.
This list belongs to Cush, a son of Ham and grandson of Noah. Every name in it later becomes a people, a trading port, or a tribe around Arabia and the Red Sea. So why does Chronicles stop to record the family tree of nations outside Israel?
Chronicles is copying Genesis 10. One writer explains what hangs on that chapter.
I will not go into details, but I will say this. In the Bible there is no more important chapter than Genesis 10 for the way God arranged languages, families, and nations. This is the only place that gives the rise of the different races, with their sources. Who else could have told us how and when the earth was divided in this way? … This is the divine ethnology. Here man is at sea.
The verse lists Cush's sons long before the chosen line reaches Abraham. The same order repeats through the chapter.
Shem is mentioned first in verse 4, although he is not the firstborn… But the genealogies of Japheth and of Ham come before his (vv. 5-16), as in Genesis 10. In God's eyes Shem, chosen by grace, has the first place, but in the natural order what is spiritual is not first… The same is true of Abraham's offspring: "The sons of Abraham: Isaac and Ishmael" (v. 28). Isaac is named first, seen as first in God's thoughts. But Ishmael, the elder, is listed first (v. 29) as the seed according to the flesh.
Compare this verse with Genesis and you find Chronicles keeps the names but drops the map.
Genesis 10 deals with the distribution of the nations on the earth. Those developments would be useless for the aim of the book we are now considering. For the same reason the boundaries of the Canaanites in Genesis 10:18-20 and those of the sons of Joktan are passed over in complete silence here.
These names are not empty syllables. Seba, the first in the list, left his name on the map.
The man Seba gave his name to the country and people afterwards known as Meroë, between Ethiopia and Egypt.
Raamah's trail runs further still.
Raamah is easier to identify, not only through his own name, but through his sons' names too. Indeed Ezekiel names father and son, represented long afterwards by the merchants from the eastern coast of Arabia. "The traders of Sheba and Raamah traded with you; they exchanged for your wares the best of all kinds of spices and all precious stones and gold" (Ezek. 27:22). These were above all the products of Arabia Felix on the Persian Gulf.
The same two names, Sheba and Dedan, also appear later in Shem's family. Ezekiel helps sort out which is which.
Of Sheba and Dedan, sons of Raamah… this much may be noticed: in Ezekiel 27 Sheba occurs twice. First, with Raamah in verse 22, which fixes him as the Cushite in the same part of Arabia. Second, with Asshur and others in verse 23, which points to the Shemitic line. The different merchandise of each confirms it. In the same way the men of Dedan in Ezekiel 27:15 appear to be Cushites on the Persian Gulf… But verse 20 marks out a different Dedan. They seem to be Shemitic through Keturah.
Not every name yields that much. The trail runs cold at Sabteca.
Sabteca is the last-named of Cush's sons, and Scripture makes no mention of him beyond the genealogical list here and in 1 Chronicles 1. So we cannot say anything certain.
A reader may assume these peoples faded out with the ancient world. They do not.
The way God gives us history is not at all the way men give it… The names of the nations given here appear throughout the Bible, and they keep their characters through all of history right to the end. In Ezekiel, especially in Ezekiel 38 and 39, we find many of these names mentioned in connection with the very last days.
When Sheba and Dedan surface in that last scene, their old trading instinct is still on show.
Sheba, Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish would be ready to profit by the wickedness of Gog. They would either do business with the plunderer or loot in his wake. They did not have the power to rob Israel… But they were ready to profit from any circumstances that might turn out favourable.
- Source. Genesis 10, which this verse copies, is the one account anywhere of how the races and languages of earth began. Human research is out of its depth here.
- Order. The record puts Ham's branch before Shem's, just as it puts Ishmael before Isaac. The natural line comes first on the page; the chosen line comes first in God's thoughts.
- Trimming. Chronicles keeps the names and drops the territories. The borders in Genesis 10 do not serve the aim of this book.
- Reach. Seba gave his name to Meroë. Raamah and Sheba turn up in Ezekiel as spice traders. Names on a page became peoples on the ground.
- Result. The same names return in Ezekiel 38-39 in the last days. They keep their old character, ready to profit from another nation's ruin.
And Cush begot Nimrod he began to be mighty on the earth.
Chronicles opens with lists of bare names — son after son, family after family. Then it stops at one man in Ham's line and adds a comment. Nimrod is not just named. He is the first man on earth called mighty. Where did that greatness come from, and why does the list pause to record it?
Genesis tells the full story of this man. Chronicles keeps one line. One writer explains why.
Among the sons of Ham, Nimrod is only mentioned as the one who "began to be mighty on the earth." Genesis 10:9-12 shows how far his rule reached, in great detail. Genesis 10 is about how the nations spread over the earth, and those details would serve no purpose for the aim of the book we are now looking at.
The wording marks a beginning. What made it new was where the greatness came from.
But there is nothing mythical in the little that scripture says. Nimrod "began to be a mighty one in the earth." It had not been like that with Abel or Seth, with Enoch or Noah. What they enjoyed was God's gift. They looked for Him Who is coming. Nimrod sought great things for himself, like Cain, who built the first city in the earliest days. Nimrod built the first city after the flood, and he built again and again, on a large scale. Present power was his aim, and God let it look successful.
Genesis calls him a mighty hunter before the Lord, and commentators differ on how far to press it. Some take it plainly, as a reputation won in the field that later served him elsewhere.
We are further told that "he was a mighty hunter before Jehovah." There is no good reason to doubt that this is meant literally. It made a great impression on the people of his day, and his skill as a hunter became a byword... It clearly gave him the trained skill and strength that later moved into another field, far more serious and important.
Others read the hunting as a picture of what he did to people, and find the clue in his name.
This means more than that he hunted animals. His name means "we will rebel." He led the way in hunting the souls of men, to make them rebels. His kingdom began at Babel, where man was lifted up in defiance of God.
The phrase does not mean God approved of him. One reference work reads it as power claimed in God's presence but without God's authority. (Where these writers print "Jehovah," the ESV has "the LORD.")
He was 'mighty upon the earth' and 'a mighty hunter.' He used force and cunning to bring men as well as animals under his power. The words 'before the Lord' probably point to the drive of an empire-builder and to authority seized without right, independent of Jehovah. "The beginning of his kingdom was Babel" with other towns in the land of Shinar... So Nimrod and his descendants founded both Babylon and Nineveh.
One writer sets this first kingdom beside the kingdom God later set up.
So it was among the sons of Ham that the first kingdom among men was set up. God was not in any of Nimrod's thoughts. Nimrod did not seek Him, and He gave no direction at all in the matter. Nimrod planned it out of his own ambition, and carried it out by the force of his will... He took His servant David from the pasture, from following the sheep. He made him prince over His people Israel, to shepherd them. And He promised David that his house and his kingdom would stand firm forever before him.
Chronicles lists Ham's line before it comes back to Shem and Abraham. That order carries a lesson.
Man has become sinful. He fell as soon as he began. God has purposes of grace toward him, yet this fact stands: as a sinner he first fathers sons in his own image. Those sons have no part in God's counsels. They are the seed of a fallen and corrupted nature. If God in His mercy does not step in, man can only produce evil. So in these chapters the line of the flesh comes first, and the line of the Spirit second.
- First — Nimrod is the first great man after the flood, and his is the first kingdom among men. The verse marks a beginning, not just one man's story.
- Taken — earlier men in this chapter received what they had as God's gift. Nimrod sought greatness for himself and seized it.
- Hunted — commentators differ here. Some read a real hunter's skill that later ruled people. Others read a hunting of souls into rebellion. Either way, force and cunning brought men under him.
- Built — that self-made power built Babel and Nineveh, cities and rule set up without God.
- Answered — God's answer to the hunter-king was a shepherd-king. He took David from the sheep and promised his throne would stand forever.