King James Bible Dictionary

Warm, hot, and hence the south; also an Egyptian word meaning "black", the youngest son of Noah (Genesis 5:32; comp. 9:22, 24). The curse pronounced by Noah against Ham, properly against Canaan his fourth son, was accomplished when the Jews subsequently exterminated the Canaanites.

One of the most important facts recorded in Genesis 10 is the foundation of the earliest monarchy in Babylonia by Nimrod the grandson of Ham (6, 8, 10). The primitive Babylonian empire was thus Hamitic, and of a cognate race with the primitive inhabitants of Arabia and of Ethiopia. (See ACCAD.)

The race of Ham were the most energetic of all the descendants of Noah in the early times of the post-diluvian world.

hot; heat; brown

1. Son of Noah

General references
Genesis 5:32; Genesis 9:18; Genesis 9:24; 1 Chronicles 1:4

Provokes his father's wrath and is cursed by him
Genesis 9:18-27

His children
Genesis 10:6-20; 1 Chronicles 1:8-16

2. Patronymic of the descendants of Ham
1 Chronicles 4:40; Psalms 78:51; Psalms 105:23; Psalms 105:27; Psalms 106:22

3. Place where Chedorlaomer smote the Zuzims
Genesis 14:5

(hot; sunburnt).

1. The name of one of the three sons of Noah, apparently the second in age. (B.C. 2448.) Of the history of Ham nothing is related except his irreverence to his father and the curse which that patriarch pronounced. The sons of Ham are stated, to have been "Cush and Mizraim and Phut and Canaan." (Genesis 10:6) comp. 1 Chronicles 1:8 Egypt is recognized as the "land of Ham" in the Bible. (Psalms 78:51; 105:23; 106:22) The other settlements of the sons of Ham are discussed under their respective names. The three most illustrious Hamite nations

   the Cushites, the Phoenicians and the Egyptians

   were greatly mixed with foreign peoples. Their architecture has a solid grandeur that we look for in vain elsewhere.

2. According to the present text, (Genesis 14:5) Chedorlaomer and his allies smote the Zuzim in a place called Ham, probably in the territory of the Ammonites (Gilead), east of the Jordan.

HAM, Sax.ham, a house, is our modern word home, G.heim. It is used in hamlet, and in the names of places, as in Walt-ham, wood-house, walt, a wood, and ham a house, [not Wal-tham, as it is often pronounced, ] Bucking-ham, Notting-ham, Wrent-ham, Dur-ham, etc.

HAM, noun The inner or hind part of the knee; the inner angle of the joint which unites the thigh and the leg of an animal. Hence,

1. The thigh of a beast, particularly of a hog, whether salted and cured or not. But the word is more generally understood to mean the thigh of a hog salted and dried in smoke.