The sons of Ham, and a misuse of the list

Says “The sons of Ham: Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan” (Gen 10:6). Canaan’s clans spread, and “the borders of Canaan extended from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza” (10:19). “These are the sons of Ham according to their clans, languages, lands, and nations” (10:20).

Early readers took these as peoples and lands. Pseudo-Jonathan names Ham’s “provinces, Arabia, and Mizraim, and Alichrok, and Kenaan”. Josephus says that “Canaan, the fourth son of Ham, inhabited the country now called Judea, and called it from his own name Canaan”, and that the Hebrews “call Egypt Mestre”. Augustine observes that there is “nothing in the name Egyptians to show that they are descended from Misraim, Ham’s son”, and holds that whatever a man’s “appearance … in color”, “no Christian can doubt that he springs from that one protoplast”. These are their views.

It is historically documented that Gen 10, read with 9:25, was used to rank races and to defend slavery and segregation. Implies The text gives that use no ground. The list is not racial: Canaan, a son of Ham, lives in Canaan (10:15–19), and Cush, Mizraim and Canaan are peoples and lands, not skin colors. All the nations come from one family (10:32), and every human bears God’s image (9:6). The use is rejected; see The misuse of Genesis 9:25 for racial slavery and Noah’s sons in early reading, and a misuse.