On Genesis, Part 15: The Hamites


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On Genesis, Part 15: The Hamites

In our last presentation where we had discussed the opening verses of Genesis chapter 10 we described the nations which can be identified with the sons of Japheth as they may be found in Biblical, historical and archaeological records. Now we shall endeavor to do that same thing with the sons of Ham, and then of course with Shem. Then after presenting the data needed to connect these Genesis 10 patriarchs to historical nations, we hope to have a supplemental discussion concerning the ancient characteristics of many of those nations.

But before proceeding here we shall briefly discuss some false reports concerning certain of the tribes of the Japhethites. There are popular Jewish so-called historians, notably Arthur Koestler, who have identified certain of the Turkic and other tribes who migrated from Central Asia into Eastern Europe in the historical period with tribes of the ancient Japhethites. In his book, The Thirteenth Tribe, Koestler cites a letter which was allegedly written by one Joseph ben Aaron, who is said to have been a 10th century king of Khazaria and one of the kings who supposedly converted to Judaism, who had identified the Turkic tribes as having been descendants of the Biblical Togarmah. Among these tribes he mentions the Uigur, Dursu, Avars, Huns, Basilii, Tarniakh, Khazars, Zagora, Bulgars and Sabir [1]. In the same book, Koestler explains the term Ashkenazi as it relates to Jews and says in part that “the term is misleading, for the Hebrew word Ashkenaz was, in mediaeval rabbinical literature, applied to Germany”, however he also states that certain “learned Khazar Jews” who had emigrated into Poland from Khazaria in the east had also called themselves Ashkenazim [2]. These claims, which had all evidently originated from medieval Jewish rabbis, are unsubstantiated. The rabbis in various places throughout the medieval world had often identified the nations whom which they had intercourse with Biblical tribes in a rather arbitrary manner, with no other basis for the identifications but their own poor opinions. Without archaeological evidence, or any supporting body of early literature, the various identifications are all mere conjecture.

As a further digression, Koestler was not the first writer to describe the conversion of Khazars to Jewry in a manner which was quite flattering to Jews. Another so-called historian, the Jew Heinrich Graetz, had already done that in his History of the Jews, in Volume 3, which began to be published in the 1850’s. While I do not generally accept the narrative of the conversion of the Khazars as it is described by Graetz, or later by Koestler, since it is poorly documented, it is evident that Jews who were driven out of the Byzantine Empire in the 5th and 6th centuries had migrated to Khazaria, and most certainly acted in the same treacherous way in which they have always conducted themselves in any nation which would offer them hospitality. From both medieval and modern history, and even from recent events, it is obvious that as a cohesive group Jews focus on attaining political power, use that power to subvert and destroy host nations, and they rewrite the history of the host nations in a manner which is amenable to Jews, thereby concealing their crimes. Every nation which is not aware, or whose leaders turn a blind eye or are even partners in Jewish treachery, is bound to suffer such a destruction. While this is a peripheral discussion, it will arise periodically as we proceed through our commentary on Genesis. Especially since the nations of Ham were probably the foremost of the sons of Noah to suffer from such subversion and treachery.

[1 The Thirteenth Tribe, Arthur Koestler, Popular Library, 1976, p. 89; 2 ibid., p. 229]

Now as we commence with the nations of the sons of Ham, we must first state that Jewish and Christian Bible commentators usually associate Ham with Africa, and often even go so far as to extend the association to the black tribes of Sub-Saharan Africa. But the ancients did not even have the same perception of the continents in the manner in which we do today. As recently as the Roman period, Egypt was not considered simply as a part of Africa. In Book 1 of his Geography, Strabo of Cappadocia described both Egypt and Ethiopia as encompassing the Nile River valley, and each country to be divided by that river, with their western halves described as being in Libya and their eastern halves described as being in Asia [3]. Likewise, the Middle East and all of Arabia and the land of Egypt east of the Nile were all considered to be a part of Asia, as was Anatolia, of which the Romans later called the westernmost portion by the name of Asia.

[3 Strabo, Geography, 1.2.25-26]

So as we hope to elucidate here, only a small portion of the sons of Ham could be associated with Africa, or what the Greeks had always called Libya, and these were the pre-Phoenician tribes of the lands which had adjoined the Mediterranean coasts, the Red Sea and the Nile River. The larger portion of the tribes of Ham were in Asia, and the original land of Cush occupied parts of Mesopotamia and Arabia. None of these ever had anything to do with the blacks of Africa. But notably, because Moses wrote this account and in his early life he had been raised and educated as a prince in Egypt, concerning the Nubians of what is now Sudan, or any other black tribe of sub-Saharan Africa, who were indeed known to the Egyptians long before Moses was born, there is no mention in this chapter. That could not have been an oversight, and neither was it an omission. If any of Noah’s sons were black, Moses would have easily included the names of black tribes which we may be able to identify in history. The Nubians are first mentioned in Egyptian inscriptions in the Old Kingdom period, at least three hundred years before the time of Abraham, which is nearly eight hundred years before the time of Moses. In early Egyptian inscriptions which predate even Moses, the Nubians were not confused with Cush, or Ethiopians, but they were rather a distinct people. However Moses did not mention them, simply because none of the sons of Noah were black. But of course, the same could be said for the non-White oriental tribes of the Far East, who were also alien to the sons of Noah. If we find no demonstrably black nations among the sons of Noah, then it is simply because blacks never had a part in the Book of the Race of Adam, or in the Genesis creation of Yahweh.

So with this we shall commence with the Genesis chapter 10 account of the sons of Ham:

6 And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.

Cush is the first son of Ham. Before beginning a discussion of Cush (or Kush), it is quite important to acquire an understanding of the word “Ethiopian”, as the Greeks had called the Cushites. Ethiopia is how the Hebrew word כוש or kush is usually translated in our Bibles, although sometimes it is Cush, as it is here in this chapter. Of course, the name Ethiopia is still used to describe the ancient land of Cush in Africa today, but that was not all of the ancient land of Cush. Some modern Bible dictionaries define the Hebrew word כוש or kush (# 3568) to mean black, but that is not true. There are no Hebrew words to which kush may be associated which indicates that it may mean black. The original Strong’s Concordance does not define the word at all, saying only that it is “probably of foreign origin”. Neither did Gesenius define the word in his lexicon, but rather only said that it is “a people descended from Ham” and offered descriptions of the land named and its inhabitants after them from later Scriptures [4]. The word for Cush is not even defined in the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon, where only the land of Ethiopia is described [5]. So it is merely a brazen conjecture to define kush as black, or to imagine that it had ever referred to Nubians in ancient times.

[4 Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, translated by Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, Baker Books, 1979, p. 389; 5 The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Hendrickson Publishers, 2021, pp. 468-469.]

The word Ethiopian is from the Greek word Αἰθίοψ which properly means shining face, glowing face or even sunburnt face, and it was certainly not used by the earliest Greek writers to describe the naturally dark or black races. There are several words used to describe “black”, “swart”, “dark” etc. in Greek which are often applied to people, among which are μέλας [from which we have the word melanin], κελαινός, πελός and φαιός. Other words meaning “dark” but apparently not applied to people are σκότος, κνέφας, γνόφος, δνόφος, ζόφος and ζόφερος. But even Liddell & Scott have negro in their definition of Αἰθίοψ, which we must assert is an error, so we shall compare the meanings of some related terms [6].

A word akin to Αἰθίοψ is αἰθός, which the large 9th edition of the Liddell & Scott lexicon defines as “burnt...II. shining...red-brown…” [7]. The 1996 Revised Supplement to this edition inserts after burnt “perhaps black- or dark-complexioned”, and emends shining to bronze-coloured [8]. The black we must reject. Red-brown describes a sun-tanned Caucasian, and not a dark-skinned negro who only gets more black in the sun. But the older Intermediate Liddell & Scott lexicon only defines αἰθός as “a burning heat, fire”, citing the poet Euripides [9]. So it seems that the definition of these words have indeed, over time, been politically corrected to help convince us that negros were intended by the original use of the term Αἰθίοψ.

Other words related to Αἰθίοψ are: αἴθων, which Liddell & Scott define as “fiery, burning, blazing: of metal, flashing, glittering… ”, and αἴθω which is to “light up, kindle… to burn or blaze”, and also αἴθρη which is “clear sky, fair weather”, and then αἶθοψ, which is the closest, “fiery-looking, of metal, flashing… of wine, sparkling” but according to the Liddell & Scott lexicon, which is the source for all of these definitions [10], a writer from the 3rd century AD, Oppianus Anazarbensis (Halieutica, 1.133) and another found in the Greek Anthologies, which is a late and wide collection of Greek inscriptions and miscellaneous writings mostly dating as recently as the 6th century AD, used αἶθοψ as if it meant “swart, dark”. We do not have immediate access to those sources in order to examine the contexts, however this is clearly contrary to the true essence of the word’s meaning. Applied to Kush, a White man, or his to his White descendants, it could only mean sun-burnt as in bright red, or tanned or brassy-colored, which is something which happens only to Caucasians in the outdoors, and it is precisely how one may expect the Kushites in either Ethiopia or in Arabia to have appeared.

Something which is black, swart or dark cannot be described with a word which essentially means fiery, burning, flashing or sparkling, and even clear or fair. The problem is that these words related to Αἰθίοψ or Ethiopia originally described White people, but the descendants of Cush in Africa became mixed with the Nubians, on account of which they became black. Many centuries later, long after the original context of the word was lost, men imagine that the words must mean black because the people in the region are now black, but that was not originally the case.

[6 A Greek-English Lexicon Compiled by Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott… With a revised supplement 1996, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1940, 1996, p. 37; 7 ibid.; 8 ibid., Supplement, p. 11; 9 An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon Founded Upon the Seventh Edition of Liddell & Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford University Press, Clarendon, 1889, 1999, p. 20; 10 ibid.]

In his definition of the Hebrew word כוש or kush, Gesenius cited two previous scholars who placed the descendants of Cush partly in Arabia, and then he disputes with them. There he said that “Bochart has incautiously made the Cushites inhabitants of Arabia Felix; and the opinion of J.D. Michaëlis, who places the Cushites partly in Arabia, partly in Æthiopia, is not to be regarded”. Citing a third scholar, he says “as Schulthess has rightly remarked”, and in spite of various passages of Scripture, he argues that there is no reason to believe that Cushites “inhabited anywhere but in Africa”. Then after rather negligently dismissing four passages of Scripture with the statement that they “prove nothing” he seems to contradict himself by stating that “Genesis 2:13 would still mark an Asiatic Cush”, and it certainly does, as we shall see [11].

[11 Gesenius, p. 389.]

The first indication that the land of Cush was in Arabia is that passage in Genesis chapter 2, which Gesenius also admitted had indicated as much, where we read that the first river of Eden “compasseth the whole land of Havilah”. Havilah, a son of Cush, was said in later Scripture to have dwelt in Arabia, as we shall discuss where he is mentioned in subsequent verses of this chapter. As we shall also see in subsequent verses here, Nimrod was a son of Cush, and the beginning of his kingdom was in Mesopotamia, which is adjacent to Arabia. So it is readily evident that the first land of Cush must have consisted of at least portions of Mesopotamia and adjoining Arabia.

When Moses fled Egypt, as it is recorded in Exodus chapter 2, he encountered people of a tribe of the Midianites, who were descendants of Abraham and Keturah described in Genesis chapter 25 (25:1-2). From the family of Hobab, who was also called Jethro and who was identified as “the son of Raguel the Midianite” (Numbers 10:29), Moses had taken a wife during his exile in the land of Cush. That these Midianites had lived in Arabia can be discerned from all of the interactions of the Israelites with various tribes of the Midianites and later, with the family of Jethro which are recorded throughout the Book of Numbers, and also mentioned in the book of Judges. But much earlier than Moses, in Genesis chapter 25 it is described that Abraham had originally sent Midian and his other sons whom he had with Keturah “eastward, unto the east country” (25:6) and surely this “east country” is that land which was already called Kush, where Moses had later found his Midianite wife. But in the King James Version and other translations it is Ethiopia, as it is in Genesis 2:13, which causes much confusion today.

Nimrod, who was a son of Cush, is described later in this chapter as having founded the first Adamic empire (Genesis 10:8-12) which evidently seems to have spread beyond Mesopotamia and into adjoining areas. The Gihon River of Genesis 2:13 “that compasseth the whole land of Cush” in Moses' time seems to have been the Karun River to the east, if it was not some other lost river, since it is possible that the events which caused the flood of Noah may have changed some of the geography of the area. In any event, Moses certainly did not go to Ethiopia in Africa for his wife, and there are no Midianites who were ever mentioned as having dwelt in Ethiopia in Africa.

In Hesiod’s Theogony, which was probably written in the 7th century BC, Memnon, a legendary King of the Ethiopians, was the son of Eos, which means Light [12]. In the Aethiopis by Arctinus of Miletus, which was written as a sequel to Homer’s Iliad, Memnon the Ethiopian is said to have aided the Trojans in their war against the Greeks, only to be slain by Achilles. While Homer himself did not mention Memnon in the Iliad, in the Odyssey he did mention him once, where he was compared in appearance to another warrior, in words attributed to the title character Odysseus where he was speaking in Hades to the departed soul of the deceased Achilles in reference to his son Neoptolemus, and said in part: “I cannot name every single one of those whom he slew while fighting on the side of the Argives, but will only say how he killed that valiant hero Eurypylus son of Telephus, who was the handsomest man I ever saw except Memnon.” [13] In his own translation, Robert Fitzgerald has that last line to read “Memnon alone in splendor ever outshone him.” [14]

[12 Hesiod, Theogony, lines 984-985, published in Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica. Translated by H. G. Evelyn-White for the Loeb Classical Library, volume 57, Harvard University Press, 1914-2000, p. 153; 13 The Aethiopis, Arctinus of Miletus, fragment 1, ibid., p. 506; 12 The Odyssey, Book 11, translated by Samuel Butler, Provided by The Internet Classics Archive for http://classics.mit.edu//Homer/odyssey.html, accessed May 18th, 2023; 14 The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fitzgerald, Everyman’s Library, Knopf, 1992, p. 202.]

The 5th century BC historian Herodotus mentions the “Ethiopians of Asia” [15], and although he also described black and wooly-haired so-called “Ethiopians” [16], here we shall cite a latter historian of the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus, who supplied a much more complex and accurate description of them. Herodotus called Susa the “city of Memnon” [17]. Susa, which was in Persia, was a famed capital city of the Persian Empire, along with Persepolis and the Median city Ecbatana, and the Greeks believed that Memnon the Ethiopian had founded that city [18]. There being abundant proof that the Persians of the Greek histories were all White, it cannot be imagined that they would have esteemed Memnon to have been black. But even Herodotus was writing at an already late time in Ethiopian history, when the ancient nation below Egypt, as well as Egypt itself, had already been overrun with Nubians. Herodotus was only familiar with Egypt and Ethiopia long after they had been overrun in such a manner.

[15 The Histories, 3.94; 16 ibid., 3.101, 7.70; 17 ibid., 5.53-54; 18 Strabo, Geography, 15.3.2.]

Relating the tradition concerning Memnon, Diodorus Siculus described Ethiopia in Asia as having sent aid to the Trojans in their war against the Greeks, including “ten thousand Ethiopians and a like number of the men of Susiana along with two hundred chariots, having appointed as general Memnon the son of Tithonus” [19]. Although Diodorus also recorded the assertions of the Ethiopians of Africa, who claimed that place as the home of Memnon, their claim is fabulous, since Susa was a famous city in Persia. It may further be dismissed since later in his writings we read a more detailed account of the origins of Memnon, where Diodorus wrote that “To Erichthonius was born a son Tros, who called the people of the land Trojans, after his own name. To Tros were born three sons, Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymedes. Ilus founded in a plain a city which was the most renowned among the cities in the Troad, giving it after himself the name Ilium. And to Ilus was born a son Laomedon, who begat Tithonus and Priam; and Tithonus, after making a campaign against those parts of Asia which lay to the east of him and pushing as far as Ethiopia, begat by Eos, as the myths relate, Memnon, who came to the aid of the Trojans and was slain by Achilleus…” [20] Therefore the ancient Greeks imagined Memnon the Ethiopian to have been directly related to the Trojans, and therefore he certainly could not have been black.

Among other ancient writers, Apollodorus records the myth that Perseus, legendary founder of the Persians, had married Andromeda, daughter of the Ethiopian King Cepheus and his wife Cassiepea, after rescuing her from a sea monster, after which he took her to Argos [21]. Yet the Judaean historian Flavius Josephus discusses the same event and describes it as having taken place at Joppa in Palestine [22]. Josephus was not innovating, but rather, he is confirmed by Strabo who wrote nearly a hundred years earlier and said “And there are some who transfer Ethiopia also to our Phoenicia, and who say that the adventure of Andromeda took place in Joppa, though the story is surely not told in ignorance of its local setting.” [23]

Strabo seems to disagree with Josephus, but he is actually confirming him. Earlier in his Geography, where he wrote of Ethiopia, Strabo had criticized several of the much earlier writers who divided Ethiopia into two different places, one east, where the sun rose, and the other west, where the sun set, and instead he had imagined that the earliest of them may have only referred to the fact that Ethiopia in Africa was divided by the Nile River [24]. But so was Egypt, which never created such an issue or begged such a description. So we would assert that Strabo himself was confused on the matter, because in his own time, as he died around 25 AD, there was no longer any recognizable Ethiopia, or Cush, in Asia. The original tribes of Cush in Asia all seem to have lost their tribal identities long before the time of Strabo. Likewise, the translator of the Loeb Library edition of Diodorus Siculus provided notes which stated that perhaps Diodorus was confused where he mentioned Ethiopia in the east, and must have meant to refer to Assyria instead. But we would assert that Diodorus was not confused, and rather, it is simply not realized that the earliest Greek mentions of Ethiopia in the East were references to the same land in the east which the Scriptures refer to as Cush, which is the land of the sons of Cush in Mesopotamia and Arabia.

[19 Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 2.22.1-5; 20 ibid., 4.75.4; 21 Apollodorus, The Library, 2.4.3; 22 Josephus, Wars, 3.9.3 (3:420); 23 Strabo, Geography, 1.2.35; 24 ibid., 1.2.24-26.]

Diodorus Siculus had preceded Strabo by about 60 years. So the more ancient Greeks, which Diodorus had followed but which Strabo in this regard seems to have misunderstood, have many testimonies of an Ethiopia in Asia, in lands and cities known to have been inhabited by Caucasian peoples, and having taken part in some of the earliest events recorded by the poets of Europe, while the earliest Hebrew writers have Cush as the name of a land in Mesopotamia and Arabia which may be easily ascertained to be the same as that Ethiopia of the East which was described by the Greeks. Yet the Hebrew record is not much earlier than the events which the later Greeks were recounting where they mentioned the Ethiopia of the East. The Exodus account begins around 1450 BC, and the Trojan War is dated to around 1200 BC. The account of Memnon and his ten thousands of Ethiopians, and the presence of the name of Cush in the east to this very day, also suggest that Cush extended, or perhaps migrated, further east than the Scripture suggests, outside of Genesis 2:13.

In his book The Lost Tribes and The Saxons of the East and of the West, with New Views of Buddhism by Dr. George Moore, the author presents the viable theory that names similar to Kush which are found in southern Russia are derivative peoples of this Biblical patriarch: Kosa, Khoza, Khazars and even Cossacks. If that is true of all or only of some of them, it is plausible that the people had retained some form of their name into the historical period, and that the Hindu-Kush mountains also retain the name of Cush, which Moore himself further suggested [25]. With all of this being said, and while mainstream academics dismiss the association of the historical Kassites of Mesopotamia with Cush, we certainly would not make such a dismissal, but we should see the Kassites, who were also called Chaldaeans, as quite plausibly being of Cush. The Kassites are mentioned in surviving inscriptions dating to as early as the time of Samsuiluna, a king of Babylon in the 18th century BC. [26]

[25 The Lost Tribes and The Saxons of the East and of the West, with New Views of Buddhism by Dr. George Moore, London, Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1861, p. 148; 26 Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament, p. 271]

Now we shall further discuss the land of Cush, or Ethiopia, in Africa. In the first eleven chapters of his third book, Diodorus Siculus draws from much earlier historians (as he always did for whomever he wrote about) to describe the various peoples of African Ethiopia, and it is evident that those tribes contrast with one another quite starkly. The first Ethiopians he discussed are endowed with what we may consider to be a well-developed form of “western civilization”, where he had written that “they say that they were the first to be taught to honor the gods and to hold sacrifices and processions and festivals”. Diodorus also described how they quoted Homer in reference to themselves (referring to Iliad Book 1, lines 423-424), how they recounted the unsuccessful invasions into their country by Cambyses and Semiramis, and how they claimed that the Egyptians were originally colonists from Ethiopia who were led by Osiris. The two types of their writing (like Egypt), popular or demotic and sacred or hieroglyphic, are described, and it is said that the sacred is common among these Ethiopians. Their priests were much like the Egyptian. They believed that their kings gained sovereignty by Divine Providence, that their laws and punishments were from custom, and that they practiced the same flight of refuge which the Greeks did, which was also similar to the Hebrew Levitical cities of refuge. That the Ethiopian kings believed they had been granted their office by divine providence is also found in an inscription which was discovered at Gebel Barkal, and which is esteemed to date to the 6th century BC [27]. According to Diodorus, one Ethiopian king under Ptolemy was educated in Greece and studied Philosophy, and aside from a few odd customs, there is no reason to believe that these Ethiopians, whose physical characteristics were not mentioned, were anything but civilized, and not much different than the rest of the people of western society. [28]

[27 Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament 3rd edition, James Pritchard, editor, 1969, Harvard University Press, p. 447; 28 Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 3.1.1-3.7.3.]

But in stark contrast to those cultured Ethiopians which Diodorus first discussed, beginning with the eighth chapter of his third book, where it is also apparent that, like Egypt, Judaea and other labels, Ethiopia had become a mere geographical designation, rather than an ethnographical one, he wrote: “But there are also a great many other tribes of the Ethiopians, some of them dwelling in the land lying on both banks of the Nile and on the islands in the river, others inhabiting the neighboring country of Arabia [between the Nile and the Red Sea], and others residing in the interior of Libya [the rest of Africa, but more specifically Sudan here]. The majority of them, and especially those who dwell along the river, “are black in color and have flat noses and wooly hair.” Where population are homogenous, their physical characteristics did not have to be described. Where people like this are described, the others, who were not, must have been perceptibly homogeneous with the rest of the nations of the Greek world. Here it is evident that Diodorus is describing the Nubians and other wandering black tribes of the region. He continues: “As for their spirit they are entirely savage and display the nature of a wild beast… and are as far removed as possible from human kindness to one another… and cultivating none of the practices of civilized life… they present a striking contrast when considered in the light of our own customs.” [29]

[29 Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 3.8.1-3.]

So it is certainly apparent here, that if we do not have a White culture in Ethiopia in an era not long before Diodorus’ own, we certainly have at least the remnants of one. Ezekiel chapter 30 lists Ethiopia among “all the mingled people”, and all of this fits very well with the picture of a once Caucasian but now adulterated Kush in that region. Likewise, as we read in Jeremiah chapter 13 where Yahweh is admonishing the wicked for their sins: “23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.” This is a Hebrew parallelism, where the same meaning is repeated with consecutive clauses to stress the meaning and trnsmit a more complete meaning to the listener or reader. In ancient Egyptian inscriptions, such as the Carnarvon Tablet which is dated to no later than the 16th century BC, the words Cush and Nehsi, which is the Egyptian word for Nubian, are distinct and refer to different peoples. Cush was also the Egyptian name for Ethiopia. [30] But by the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, both Ethiopia and Egypt had already been overrun with Nubians, and were ruled by black kings for many decades. So according to those words in Jeremiah, the proclivity of the wicked to sin is as natural as the proclivity of the leopard to have skin both black and white, which the Ethiopian had also suffered.

The fact that Egypt and Ethiopia were overrun and then ruled over by the black hordes of Nubia is explained by Isaiah as having been the will of Yahweh. At a time when the children of Israel may have turned for help against the Assyrians they were prevented, as Egypt and Ethiopia had suffered that invasion of the Nubians. Because that was the will of Yahweh, so that Israel would indeed be taken into captivity, we read in Isaiah chapter 43: “3 For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. 4 Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.” Isaiah had written those verses just after the failed siege of Jerusalem which had ended about 701 BC, and therefore having said “I gave” Egypt, Ethiopia and Sheba, in the past tense, we see that the events had already happened. By popular chronologies, the black pharaohs of the 25th dynasty were established by 744 BC. [31]

[30 Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p.232; 31 Wikipedia, Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Dynasty_of_Egypt accessed May 18th, 2023.]

7 And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.

The name of כוש or Cush had lingered in Arabia as כושן or Cushan, a word for a district in Arabia which is only mentioned in Habakkuk 3:7, but also in the name of Chushanrishathaim, who was said to be a king of Mesopotamia in Judges chapter 3. The name is said to mean “twice-wicked Cushan”, so it is probably only what the Israelites had called him. The Arabian desert was not always a desert as we know the term. Even in Roman times, it was called Felix Arabia, which is most literally Fruitful Arabia or for that reason, Happy or Blessed Arabia, as the term is usually translated. This evokes the definition of a Hebrew word which is very similar to Cush, which is כושרה or cusharah (Strong’s # 3574), which means prosperity.

The Romans were not being sarcastic by giving Arabia such a name, and in even earlier times it was much more fertile. Arabia supported large flocks, many different tribes, and as we have seen discussing Genesis chapter 2, it was better hydrated, as now there are dried-up ancient riverbeds which have been discovered by geologists. But in Scripture, Arabia was never called Arabia until the time of King Solomon, in 1 Kings chapter 10 where there is a mention of the “spice merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia”. The Hebrew word ערב, ereb or arab, which means to commingle or to grow dark as a verb, dusky as an adjective and a mixture as a noun, among other related things (Strong #’s 6150 through 6154), evidently by the time of Solomon many tribes which inhabited the land which became known as Arabia, but which was formerly Cush, had commingled together and were therefore called Arabs.

Of some of these sons of Cush, Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, Sabtechah, and the sons of Raamah, Sheba and Dedan, not much will be said here. Some of these names, Sheba and Havilah, appear again among the sons of Joktan listed at Genesis 10:26-30, in both the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint, and this may cause some confusion in attempts to identify these tribes, but it should not. As we read in the closing verse of Genesis chapter 10: “32 These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.” But a little sooner than that we read “25 And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan.” So if the nations were divided in the days of Peleg, then ostensibly the families of the sons of Joktan would not yet have been sufficiently numerous to found nations of their own. Since, as we shall see, there are over five hundred years between the births of various of Noah’s immediate grandsons and the births of Peleg and Joktan, at which time the nations were divided, it is much more likely that these families of the sons of Cush were already long established and that Joktan had named some of his sons after them. Since the Hebrew word פלג or peleg (# 6389) means division, it is most certain that Peleg was named after an event which had already occurred, or that was at least already in the process of occurring, and therefore the land was divided before the sons of Joktan were born. Therefore we must reckon the nations which bear these names as having descended from the sons of Cush. Neither could they have descended from the sons of Abraham and Keturah nor from of Ishmael, some of whom also have similar names, as Moses is describing the nations which were divided at a time which was long before the call of Abraham.

The name סבא or Seba is spelled with a leading ס or samekh, while שבא or Sheba begins with a ש or shin character. The word seba is drunkard or imbiber in Deuteronomy chapter 21 and elsewhere. In the words of Solomon in the 72nd Psalm we read “10 The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.” It is Seba, and not Sheba, which was said to have been given up by Yahweh on behalf of the children of Israel, in Isaiah chapter 43. In his Geography, Strabo of Cappadocia wrote of Berenicê, “a Sabaean city”, together with Sabae, which he called “a good sized city”, which were on the side of the Red Sea towards Africa [32]. With that, it seems that since Cush and Mizraim also having been of Ham and on that same side of the Red Sea, that the Sabaeans mentioned by Strabo having been in that same location, they must have been the Seba of that prophecy in Isaiah.

[32 Strabo, Geography, 16.4.10]

As we have just proven, the Kingdom of Sheba which is often also mentioned later in Scripture, which may be roughly identified with modern Yemen, was of the Sheba of Cush and not of Joktan. We find further evidence in support of that assertion where Sheba is mentioned along with Seba in the 72nd Psalm, and that also agrees with and, in turn, helps to support the fact that Arabia had been called after Cush in the time of Moses. Arabia was called Cush because many of the sons of Cush actually lived and founded early nations there. But further confusing the issues, yet another Sheba, and another Dedan, were born of the sons which Abraham had with Keturah, as it is described in Genesis chapter 25 (25:3). However since the children of Keturah were sent by Abraham into the land of Cush, this may be interpreted to mean that, as Joktan had also apparently done, these sons were named by their father Jokshan after tribes which were already long established in the land of Cush.

The land of Havilah is identified in Genesis chapter 2, where it is evident that Moses was describing the area of the Garden of Eden in terms which the Israelites of his own time would understand. It is also identified as late as the time of Saul in 1 Samuel chapter 15 where we read that “7 … Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt.” There it is evident that the nation of Havilah in Arabia must have also been overrun by the Amalekites before that time. Amalek was a descendant of Esau, and all of the sons of Esau were also Canaanites. Dedan is also in Arabia, and its people must of also mingled with Edomites, as we read in a prophecy in Jeremiah chapter 49 that their destiny was tied to that of Esau: “8 Flee ye, turn back, dwell deep, O inhabitants of Dedan; for I will bring the calamity of Esau upon him, the time that I will visit him.” The other sons of Cush remain obscure, however Raamah is mentioned along with Sheba as having engaged in the trade of Tyre, in Ezekiel chapter 27.

Now we see the foundation of the so-called Ethiopia of the East, since Nimrod was also a son of Cush:

8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. 10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

The Hebrew word נמרוד or nimrod (# 5248) is not defined in Strong’s Concordance, but Gesenius defines it as rebel without supplying an etymology [33]. The Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon erpeats rebel, but finds this definition to be dubious, and connects the name Nimrod to that of Namra-uddu, whom they identify as a Babylonian star god, or, as they say, more plausibly, to Nazi-Maruttash [34], the name of a Kassite king of the late 14th century BC [35]. Of course, the name Nimrod here is very likely just a title by which the ancient Israelites remembered this individual, and could be related to these terms, but we would not make a direct association to either of them. This Nimrod, or as it is in the Septuagint, Nebrod, represents a historical person who probably lived near the end of the 4th millenium BC. While many so-called gods were named after great rulers or leaders, Nimrod was not a god, and he lived as long as two thousand years before Nazi-Maruttash ruled over the Kassites. In any event, we will not endeavor to identify Nimrod with any of the known kings or gods of Mesopotamia, and all such attempts to do so will are only conjecture which shall end in folly.

[33 Gesenius, p. 552; 34 Brown-Driver-Briggs, p. 650; 35 Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 219.]

Here it is apparent, that Nimrod had established the first Adamic empire, but it cannot really be said that it was entirely Adamic. The cities of ancient Sumer, which was the southern portion of Mesopotamia, and also many cities beyond Sumer, had been populated with Nephilim for many centuries before the flood of Noah, and Nephilim were present in those cities after the flood of Noah, a fact of which the Scripture also bears record in many places. Neither could Nimrod have founded a permanent empire, nor could he or his progeny have ruled over these cities for very long. The cities of Sumer and adjoining lands had typically functioned as independent city-states ruled over by a king, although the kings often made war with ruled over one or more of the neighboring cities.

The infamous Gilgamesh, who was said to be a giant, one of the Biblical Nephilim, is listed in the Sumerian King List as the ruler of Uruk, the city identified as Erech here in Genesis, and a city which Nimrod had ruled. According to a chronology which may be deduced from that inscription, Gilgamesh most likely ruled Uruk some time around the 26th century BC, which was at least 500 years after the flood of Noah, and therefore at least several centuries after Nimrod could have lived according to this passage. The city of Accad, or Akkad, was at a much later time a capital city of the Assyrians, and it supplies the name for their language, which in modern times is known as Akkadian. The city Calneh is mentioned as late as Amos chapter 6 in an oracle against Samaria, where it is named in a context whereby it may be identified as one of the places which the Assyrian empire had already conquered at that much later time. The land of Shinar was another name for Sumer, or perhaps the Hebrews had used the name in place of Sumer, which is otherwise not found in Scripture. The Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon connects the terms in other languages, although the connection is sometimes disputed [36].

As for Babel, wherever we see Babylon mentioned in the Old Testament the Hebrew word is always simply בבל or Babel (# 894). Like Strong, Gesenius defines babel as “confusion”, and provides a comparable Syriac cognate [37]. However in Scripture the word only appears as a name, Babylon or in the form of בבלי as Babylonia.

[36 Brown-Driver-Briggs, p. 1042; 37 Gesenius, p. 101.]

The Akkadian stem of the name for Babylon is transliterated as Babil, and the ending depends on the case of the noun. So in the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute, where it appears in the phrase “I surrounded Babylon” it is spelled Babila [38], in the phrase “to Babylon” it is spelled Babilim [39], in “from Babylon” it is spelled Babili [40], which in some contexts referring to people is translated as “Babylonian” [41], and these are only some of many possible examples. Some sources claim that the word Babilim means “gate of the gods”, however that form apparently only means “from Babil”, or “from Babylon”, although it is true that in Assyrian the word babu is a gate [42, 43].

[38 The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, published by the Oriental Institute in 1965, in Volume 2, p. 44; 39 ibid., pp. 52, 205; 40 ibid., p. 83; 41 ibid., p. 122, 125; 42 ibid., p. 14; 43 The Meaning of Babylon, Early Church History, https://earlychurchhistory.org/politics/the-meaning-of-babylon/, accessed May 19th, 2023.]

Both Gesenius and Strong’s link the Hebrew word בבל or babel to בלל as its root, which is balal (# 1101), which Gesenius explains is through another form of the verb, בלבל or belbel. This verb, belbel, was formed by reduplication of balal. Reduplication of verb stems is a linguistic feature found in both Hebrew and in Greek. The root verb balal is defined as a verb meaning to mix by Strong, but to pour over or to pour together, to confound, by Gesenius [44]. Likewise, there is an Akkadian word, balalu, which is defined in the Assyrian Dictionary as “to mix, to brew beer, to make an alloy, to knead… to be spotted, variegated, to mix up, confuse, to pollute…” [45] along with several other uses and variations of the spelling of the word. The definitions of this word in its many forms occupy ten columns of text, or about five full pages, in the dictionary.

[44 Gesenius, pp. 101, 122; 45 The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute, Volume 2, p. 39.]

In Volume 7 of The Assyrian Dictionary, for the letters I and J, the definition of ilu, or god, spans just over 13 pages, or 26 columns [46]. The phrase “gate of the gods” appears in at least two examples in this definition as bab-i-lu-ti, and i-lu-ti in other contexts in that same place [47]. Of course, the name Babylon is not found in these examples. Without replicating accents on certain vowels, the phrase “lot of the gods” is spelled as isiq i-li [48], “heed the words of the gods” as awat i-li usur [49], and “the abodes of the gods” as ilani sa alija [50]. But the form Babili appears only in the Genitive case, “from Babylon”, which is not consistent with this grammar if bab-i-li means “gate of the gods”, something which is often asserted. Therefore I am persuaded that the association is wrong, and it is based on a simplistic view that is not consistent with the Assyrian grammar. However I do not yet know enough about the Assyrian language to make an absolute conclusion. In any event, even if Babel meant “gate of the gods” to the Assyrians and Babylonians, that does not mean that Babel does not mean confusion in Hebrew.

[46 The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute, Volume 7, p. 91; 47 ibid., p. 105; 48 ibid., p. 92; 49 ibid., p. 99; 50 ibid., p. 106.]

Now after describing the empire of Nimrod, Moses himself offers a digression:

11 Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, 12 And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.

This seems to be a parenthetical statement, upon which we shall comment at greater length when we discuss Asshur where we encounter the name later in this chapter. Asshur was a son of Shem, and the eponymous patriarch of the later Assyrians. Nineveh was the capital city of the later Assyrian empire. Here the text does not necessarily imply that there was a personal relationship between Nimrod and Asshur, even if they were first cousins. But rather, because Moses chose to mention this here, perhaps it implies that some division of the sons of Noah began to occur at this early time and on account of Nimrod, even if the ultimate division which had been imposed by Yahweh which is described in Genesis chapter 11 did not come to pass for at least another five hundred years.

Finally, returning to the sons of Ham:

Mizraim is the second son of Ham: Perhaps with the exception of the original Ethiopians, never has has there been more confusion concerning the race of an ancient nation than that of the ancient Egyptians. This we may credit mostly to the Jewish encouragement of negro so-called scholars which began in the first half of the 20th century, with the promotion of negroes such as Marcus Garvey in the Jewish press. In the 1970's the belief that the cultures of northern Africa belonged to negroes began to be promoted in academic circles. Yet over 200 years of European archaeology and anthropology insisted that ancient Egypt was White, and the only question was: How White? So perhaps some of the blame may be placed on the ancient Egyptians themselves.

The name Egypt apparently has a Greek origin, and Mitsrayim, or Mizraim (Genesis 10:6) is the Old Testament Hebrew for Egypt everywhere. But Egypt, or Aegyptus, is the term used throughout Greek literature, and the land known as Egypt at that time was only the area around the Nile delta, and the Nile valley along both banks of the river as far south as Elephantine, or the fourth cataract of the Nile, below which was Cush or Ethiopia. The early Greeks seem to have written little about Egypt outside of Thebes and Heliopolis, until the time of Herodotus. It may not be a coincidence that the Greek word for Egypt being Αἰγύπτιος, it is quite similar to the Greek word for vulture, which is αἰγυπιός. The Greek word for the Nile River is Αἴγυπτος, a name shared by the mythical king from whom Egypt was believed by the Greeks to have been named.

There is much to be said about early Egypt that is beyond the scope of this discussion, but warrants at least some mention. First, early Egypt actually consisted of several disparate cultures, some of them which seem to have been alien in nature, and which were averse to one another and were eventually amalgamated by force. The earliest higher culture of Egypt was linked by archaeologists and anthropologists to the Levant, but it may not be said with any degree of certainty that it was Adamic. The pharaonic civilization in Egypt appeared later and rather suddenly, according to some sources as early as 3150 BC, which is consistent with the Septuagint chronology in reference to the flood of Noah even if we would insist that the early dynasties were Adamic. This is the earliest point at which the Egypt of Mizraim may have begun. In any event, the archaeology of those early dynasties reveals a people of high civilization and Caucasian characteristics. Statues of the pharaohs often reveal men who may not have looked out of place in Dublin or Hamburg, barring their clothing and their mode of dress. However once Upper and Lower Egypt were unified, and all of the disparate tribes brought under one government, Egyptian hymns include concepts of universalism, ecumenism, and even expressed the distinction of the races by color [51]. There is nothing new under the sun.

What follows are two views of race in ancient Egypt, the first of which is from an ancient Egyptian writing known as The Admonitions of Ipu-Wer, the original being dated to approximately 2300-2050 BC. There we find: “A man regards his son as his enemy.… A man of character goes in mourning because of what has happened in the land.… Foreigners have become people everywhere.… ” A footnote by the editors says: “The term “men, humans, people,” was used by Egyptians to designate themselves, in contrast to their foreign neighbors, who were not conceded to be real people.” [52]

Then, from a much later writing titled A Hymn to Amon-Re, the original dated to the Egyptian empire of approximately 1775-1575 BC, we read a line which states: “Atum, who made the people, Distinguished their nature, made their life, And separated colors, one from another…” [53] In an introductory note to the hymn the editors explain that: “Egypt's world position under her Empire produced strong tendencies toward centralization and unification of Egyptian religion, with universalism and with syncretism of the gods….” So in as little as 500 years, ancient Egyptians went from not even recognizing aliens as people, to being one big universalist ecumenical happy family. Rome, and now even America and Europe, have all followed the same path to hell.

[51 Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 365-367; 52 ibid., p. 441; 53 ibid., p. 365-366.]

Now the sons of Mizraim are listed:

13 And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, 14 And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim.

Some of these names of the sons of Mizraim are tribal names, while others only seem to reflect geographic areas within Egypt, and they are not necessarily taken from the names of individuals, nor are they all positively identifiable.

The לודי or Ludim are confused by many translators and commentators for the historical Lydians, which are actually the Shemitic Lud of Anatolia, and where we read Lydians in Jeremiah 46:9 and Lydia at Ezekiel 30:5, both passages should have Ludim instead, since these are descendants of Ham, and not of Shem. The Ludim of Ham are also mentioned at Ezekiel 27:10 in connection with the trade of ancient Tyre. It is possible that the reading here should have instead been לובי or Lubim. Elsewhere in Scripture, where we might expect to see Ludim, we see Lubim, such as in a prophecy found in Nahum chapter 3 where we read “9 Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers.” As we have said, Lubim, or Libya, is the name which the greeks gave to all of Africa outside of Egypt and Ethiopia. Put, or Phut, is the third son of Ham. There are no other references to these Ludim in Scripture, however in addition to Nahum, there are historical references to the Lubim in 2 Chronicles chapters 12 and 16, in company with other nations of Ham. So we would actually venture to correct Ludim to Lubim where it appears both here and in the copy of the genealogy found in 1 Chronicles chapter 1, and in the aforementioned passages of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

In an article titled New Light on Magan and Meluḫa which was written by W. F. Albright, the noted archaeologist described a cuneiform inscription of 8th century BC Assyrian king Sargon II who referred to the Lubim, Anami and Kaptor in a context which places them beyond the Mediterranean Sea, and Albright states in part that “In a cramped Assyrian hand there is no noticeable difference between [the cuneiform letters which represent] AZAG and ML. It is possible that Anami is the Anamim of Genesis 10, which may represent Cyrene, being followed by Lehabim, the Libyans of Marmarica. The Caphtorim of the next verse are naturally the people of Kaptara, or Crete.” [54] The name Caphtor is said to mean wreath or to refer to something shaped like a wreath, and while Crete does not look like a wreath, it is associated by historians and archaeologists with Caphtor. Marmarica is a name for an ancient area of Greek Libya which was located between Egypt and Cyrene.

Here in Genesis chapter 10 we read that the Philistim, or Philistines, had come from the Casluhim. However in Jeremiah chapter 47 (47:4) we are informed that the Philistines were “the remnant of the country of Caphtor”, and in Amos chapter 9 (9:7) we are once again informed that the Philistines were from Caphtor. Therefore it is evident that the Philistim, or Philistines, had dwelt in the land of Caphtor before their later migration to Palestine, and Caphtor was very probably in Egypt. In an inscription which dates to the 15th century BC titled The Hymn of Victory of Thut-mose III, we read in part: “I have come, that I may cause thee to trample down the western land; Keftiu and Isy are under the awe (of thee)”, and several lines later there is a separate reference to “those who are in the islands”, where Keftiu, or Caphtor, certainly seems to be west of Egypt, but not on an island. [55] However in the historical texts of that same pharaoh, where Keftiu was mentioned along with Byblos in a context which places it on the coast of Phoenicia, we read in a footnote that “Keftiu was Crete – or the eastern Mediterranean coast generally”, and we would agree with that last statement, but only because it seems to associate the Philistines with Caphtor, which was to the west of Egypt but not on an island. [56] Then for that reason mentioned along with Byblos the land which the Philistines occupiued in Palestine, which is the eastern Mediterranean coast, was also called Caphtor.

In relation to the Philistines we may also note an obscure remark by Herodotus where he wrote: “Hence they [the Egyptians] commonly call the pyramids after Philition, a shepherd who at that time fed his flocks about the place.” Some commentators must have supposed that this may be a memory of the ancient Philistines in Egypt, and the first “shepherd kings”, connected to the building of the Great Pyramid, since George Rawlinson disputed that idea in a footnote in his own edition of Herodotus. [57]

[54 New Light on Magan and Meluḫa, W. F. Albright, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1922, Volume 42, pp. 317-322; 55 Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 373-374; 56 ibid., p. 241; 57 Herodotus, The Histories, 2.128, translated by George Rawlinson, Everyman’s Library, Knopf, 1910, 1997, p. 192.]

The name Lehabim (# 3853) is the plural form of a word להב or lehab, which means flame. The Pathrusim were the Egyptians of Pathros, a place frequently mentioned in Scripture and described as being in Egypt in the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The word Pathros (6624) is said by Gesenius to refer to Upper Egypt, which was the inland portion or what we would call southern Egypt. [58] The word Casluhim (# 3695) is not defined in Strong’s Concordance, and the definition which Gesenius offers is nonsense which we shall not repeat [59]. The word Naphtuhim (# 5320) is also undefined by Strong’s, but comparing an apparently similar Egyptian word, Gesenius says that it refers to the people at “the extreme limit of the earth washed by the sea” [60]. Perhaps Moses was describing areas within Egypt populated by Egyptians, and not necessarily distinct tribes, that the children of Israel, having already had an experience in Egypt when these words were written after the Exodus, would certainly have recognized and been able to distinguish as being authentic Egyptians, and not incorporated aliens.

[58 Gesenius, p. 698; 59 ibid., p. 408; 60 ibid., p.560.]

Phut is the third son of Ham: Phut was associated with Libya, though it is difficult to discern exactly why that in both the King James Version and the Greek of the Septuagint it was translated in that manner in Ezekiel chapters 30 and 38 (30:5 and 38:5), and also in Jeremiah chapter 46 (46:9, which is 26:9 in the LXX). In each of those places, the Hebrew word for Phut was translated as Libyans, and the Hebrew term for the Ludim, which very likely should have been Lubim or Libyans, was translated to refer to Lydians. Sometimes unidentified groups, namely Chub (Ezekiel 30:5) and the Sukkiims (2 Chronicles 12:3) are mentioned with these Hamites of Africa, along with a reference to “all the mingled people”.

While it is difficult to locate Phut in history, it may indeed be identified with the Punt of Egyptian inscriptions. An inscription of Thutmose III mentions tribute collected from Punt [61], and the Hymn to Amon-Re describes the god as the ruler of Punt, among other things, in its opening lines [62]. In an inscription of Amenhotep III dating to the 15th century, the “countries of Punt” are mentioned in lines which closely follow mentions of Libya and the Nubians [63]. In a love song dated to the 12th or 13th centuries BC, there is a statement that “All the birds of Punt, they alight in Egypt”, so Phut here may certainly be identified with the Punt of the Egyptian inscriptions, and although its precise location cannot readily be determined it must have been in the vicinity of Libya. The Phoenician conquests of the 9th century BC and later had drastically shifted the Hamitic populations of the coasts of northern Africa.

[61 Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 238; 62 ibid., p.365; 63 ibid., p.376; 64 ibid., p.468.]

Diodorus Siculus wrote of Libyans dwelling on Africa’s northern coast, in cities, and friendly to Carthage. They were not necessarily of Lubim, since the word became a geographical term to the Greeks, which described all of Africa except for Egypt and Ethiopia. But then Diodorus also wrote of the nomadic “Libyans” of the interior, who were hostile to Carthage. [65] The Greek poet Hesiod, probably a contemporary of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, writing in his Catalogues of Women mentions both the “boundless black-skins and the Libyans” and says that from Epaphus, a son of Chronos, “sprang the dark Libyans and high-souled Ethiopians”, then also the “under-ground folk and feeble pygmies”. It is also apparent that by this time Libya was also little more than a geographical label and signified all of Africa except Egypt and Ethiopia. [66] There it is not evident that the Libyans themselves were black, but only that Hesiod is saying that a certain god, one of the Titans, had sired certain of the blacks found in Libya, which was all the rest of Africa to the Greeks. Surely a more reliable early source on the appearance of the Libyans may be the poet Aeschylus, a contemporary of Nehemiah and Ezra, who in his Suppliant Maidens lists a group of races and compares the likeness of their women to those of the Greek Danaans. Among those mentioned are Libyans, Egyptians and Amazons, very likely indicating a large degree of homogeneity among these peoples. Aeschylus was relating a parody of events which transpired a thousand years before his own time, which is the migration of Dan, or the Danaans, from Egypt to Greece. [67]

[65 Library of History, 20.55; 66 Hesiod, Catalogues of Women, fragment 40A, published in Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica. Translated by H. G. Evelyn-White for the Loeb Classical Library, volume 57, Harvard University Press, 1914-2000, p. 603; 67 Aeschylus, Suppliant Maidens, lines 277-290.]

In this age there has long been a mixed race, the Berbers, who mostly appear to be Caucasian, and who serve as evidence of a former White civilization in the north African interior, although the settlements of the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, the later Germanic invasion of Carthage, and then the rise of Mohammedanism and the subsequent arab conquest of northern Africa, all did much to further confound an already mingled African world. The historical Moors of Libya were also White descendants and most likely of Ham, but how long they were able to remain White after the Islamic conquests may only be conjectured.

When we return, we shall discuss Canaan, the youngest son of Ham, and the result of the curse of Canaan which Noah had uttered, which was recorded in Genesis chapter 9.

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