Ham (in ), according to the Table of Nations in the Book of Genesis, was the second son of Noah and the father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan.
Ham's descendants are interpreted by Josephus and others as having populated Africa and adjoining parts of Asia. The Bible refers to Egypt as "the land of Ham" in Psalm 78:51; 105:23, 27; 106:22; 1 Chronicles 4:40.
Etymology
Since the 17th century, a number of suggestions have been made that relate the name Ham to a Hebrew word for "burnt", "black" or "hot", to the Egyptian word ḥm for "servant" or the word ḥm for "majesty" or the Egyptian word kmt for "Egypt". A 2004 review of David Goldenberg's The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam (2003) states that Goldenberg "argues persuasively that the biblical name Ham bears no relationship at all to the notion of blackness and as of now is of unknown etymology."
In the Bible
indicates that Noah became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth at the age of 500 years old, but does not list in detail their specific years. (Noah was 600 years old at the time of the flood in Genesis 7.) An incident involving Ham is related in :
And Noah began to be an husbandman, and planted a vineyard: and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the , the God of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant. God enlarge Japheth, And let him dwell in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant. —Revised Version
Curse of Canaan
What is commonly known as "The Curse of Ham" was not bestowed upon Ham himself; rather, Noah indirectly cursed him via his son Canaan.
The Talmud deduces two possible explanations, one attributed to Rabbi Abba Arikha and one to Rabbi Samuel, for what Ham did to Noah to warrant the curse.
According to Abba Arika, Ham castrated Noah on the basis that, since Noah cursed Ham by his fourth son Canaan, Ham must have injured Noah with respect to a fourth son. Emasculating him thus deprived Noah of the possibility of a fourth son.
According to Samuel, Ham sodomized Noah, a judgment that he based on analogy with another biblical incident in which the phrase "and he saw" is used. In it reads, "And when Shechem the son of Hamor saw her (Dinah), he took her and lay with her and defiled her." With regard to Ham and Noah, Genesis 9 reads, "[22] And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. [23] And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness." According to this argument, similar abuse must have happened each time that the Bible uses the same language. The Talmud concludes that, in fact, "both indignities were perpetrated."
Although the story can be taken literally, in more recent times, some scholars have suggested that Ham may have had intercourse with his father's wife. Under this interpretation, Canaan is cursed as the "product of Ham's illicit union."
Jubilees
The chronological scheme of the pseudepigraphal Book of Jubilees has Ham born in the year 1209 Anno Mundi (A.M.) – two years after Shem, three before Japheth, and 99 before the flood. It gives the name of his wife who also survived the flood as Na'eltama'uk. After his youngest son Canaan was cursed in 1321 A.M., he left Mount Ararat and built a city named for his wife on the south side of the mountain. In 1569 A.M., he received a third division of the earth along with his two brothers for his inheritance: everything west of the Nile River, and to the south of Gadir. In 1639 A.M. when the nations were scattered following the failure of the Tower of Babel, Ham and his children journeyed to their allotment, with the exception of Canaan, who settled in Shem's territory, thus receiving another curse.
According to Jubilees 10:29–34, this second curse is attributed to Canaan's steadfast refusal to join his elder brothers in Ham's allotment beyond the Nile, and instead "squatting" within the inheritance of Shem, on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, the region later promised to Abraham: