Genesis 10:20

These are the sons of Ham after their families after their tongues in their countries and in their nations These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.

These are the sons of Ham, after their families ... tongues ... countries, and ... nations. Recent researches have furnished unexpected, but most interesting and important illustrations of this statement. The Cushite inhabitants of Southern Babylonia are said by Sir H. Rawlinson 'to have been of a cognate race with the primitive colonists of Arabia and the African Ethiopia;' and this view of their common origin he proves by the identity of their system of writing, which has the closest affinity with that of Egypt; by their language, which is unquestionably Cushite or Ethiopian; by the traditions of Babylon and Assyria, which point to an early connection between Ethiopia, Southern Arabia, and the cities of the Lower Euphrates; and by the name of Nimrod being the eponym of the Chaldean race, while those of the other sons of Cush mark the line of colonization along the southern and eastern shores of the Arabian peninsula, from the Red Sea to the mouth of the Euphrates (Rawlinson, 'Herodotus' 1:, p. 442) The same indefatigable ethnologist has established the Hamitic descent of the Canaanites, whom Bunsen pronounced to be Semites. 'All the Canaanites,' he says, 'were, I am satisfied, Scyths; and the inhabitants of Syria retained their distinctive ethnic character until quite a late period of history. According to the inscriptions, the Kheta, or Khatta - i:e., the Hittites-were the dominant Scythic race from the earliest times, and they gave way very slowly before the Aramaeans, Jews, and Phoenicians, who were the only extensive Semitic immigrants' ('Asiatic Journal,' 15:, p. 230).

Then as to Egypt, it is remarkable that in this list of Ham's descendants, Cush, representing Ethiopia, is first mentioned, and secondly Mizraim (the Old Egyptians) - a name which is put in the dual form (see the note at Genesis 10:6), to designate the two divisions of the Nile valley; and although Knobel rejects this reference to Upper and Lower Egypt, founding on Isaiah 11:11, where Pathros, Upper Egypt, seems to be separated from Mizraim, the lower part of the country, the use of the Hebrew dual in other analogous instances, as Jerusalem, warrants adherence to the common view, which considers Egypt as one.

The form of the original name, then, indicates that 'all the earliest layers of population, as well below the frontier island of Elephantine as throughout the present Nubia and Ethiopia, were originally homogeneous-a fact which is corroborated by Egyptian history, and in no wise inconsistent with modern discoveries. Moreover, with regard to the Coptic, or, with slight corrections, the Old Egyptian language, which Bunsen asserted to have its roots in the Hebrew - i:e., to be a Semitic language-it has been demonstrated to be connected with the Hamite or Scythic tongues. Uhlemann, Renan, and Jarrett of Cambridge have shown that instead of a relationship being traceable between Coptic and Hebrew, they belong to two distinct classes of languages' (Hardwick, 'Christ and other Masters,' vol. 2:, p. 439). 'It is impossible to say at what exact time the form of speech known as Hamitic originated. Probably its rise preceded the invention of letters; and there are reasons for assigning it to Egypt, where Ham took up his abode. From the Egyptians, the children of Mizraim, it naturally spread to the other Hamitic races-then perhaps dwelling in that land-and by them was carried in one line to Ethiopia, Southern Arabia, Babylonia, Susiana, and the adjoining coast; in another, to Philistia, Zidon, Tyre, and the country of the Hittites' (Rawlinson's 'Herodotus,' vol. 1:, Appendix).

Thus, the latest linguistic enquiries, by demonstrating that there was an ethnic connection between the Ethiopians, Egyptians, Canaanites, Southern Arabians, and the Chaldeans of Lower Babylonia, have led to a result in exact accordance with this Mosaic table, which declares Cush, Mizraim, and Canaan-the founders of these nations-to have been brothers.