LESSON I.

Sin is any want of a conformity to the law of God. Man was created free from sin. He was placed under the government of laws adapted to his condition. But a want of conformity to any item of such law necessarily disorganized and deranged some portion of his original condition. Let us cast a hasty view at the operation of these laws. It is contrary to the law of God that a man should put his hand in the fire; when he does so, his condition is somewhat physically changed, and he is in trouble.

It is contrary to the law of God that a man should bear false testimony; he having done so, his condition is changed mentally, and his troubles increase.

It is contrary to the law of God that a man should remain ignorant; he doing so, is not in the condition of him who has multiplied and replenished his mental and physical capabilities: he is less capable, he has less power.

The law of God is all powerful, and will be executed. The punishment of its breach is certain. It is effect following cause. The whole of God’s creation is planned by this principle.

A want of conformity to the law operates as a poison, that spreads through the moral and physical man, sinking, forcing him down to trouble, pain, misery, ruin, and death.

The boy, intending to appropriate to himself, takes a pin. If there is naught that checks him, petty thefts push him on to deeper crimes, that end in death. The young gentleman drinks the social glass, nor thinks harm to himself; he feels strong, he fears nothing: but habit becomes excess; his physical appearance becomes sickly; his mind obtuse, his pleasures gross; his condition is changed; he is evidently tending downwards to the grave. And such are the course and progress of every other sin; for, whatever has a tendency to injure the character, health, mind, and body, is sin.

Speculators upon the holy writ may say what they will; yet it is certain, that act, called the eating the apple, was an act, whatever it may have been, that necessarily injured the character, health, mind, and body of man. It is certain, because it did so. It was the very birth of death itself. The wages of sin are death—the Lord God Almighty hath spoken it!! Another law of God, till then unknown to man, was brought instantly into operation. His wants were changed; the earth no longer produced spontaneously to them. In the emphatic language of that day, it was cursed, that he might have less leisure time and opportunity to continue in the downward course of sin to sudden destruction and death. He was in great mercy condemned to labour for the supply of his daily wants; he was made the slave to the necessities of animal life. Is it necessary to quote Scripture to show that it abounds with the doctrine that idleness is a wonderful promoter of sin? God in great mercy contrived that his hungry body and naked back should in some measure keep him from it.

“Therefore, the Lord sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.” Gen. iii. 23, “To till” is translated from ?????????la?abod la avod, to slave. It is the very word that means a slave; but is here used as a verb, and literally means to slave the ground. In this early instance of its use in holy writ, in relation to man, it is used as a verb, to show us, not that he had become the property of any other person, but a slave to his own necessities, and that the labour required was the labour of a slave.

Until man had become poisoned by sin there was no want of a law, of an institution to interpose between him and his sudden destruction and death.

This is the first degree of slavery among poor, fallen men, and upon which now depend their health, happiness, and continuance of life.

“But Cain was a tiller of the ground.” The word tiller is translated from the same word used as a noun, a slave of the ground, having reference to its cultivation for his support and sustenance. And here we see the peculiar propriety of the language of the Psalmist: “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth.” Ps. civ. 14. In this instance, “service” means slavery, and is translated from the same word, ???????????la?abodat la avodath. “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the slavery of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth.”

But we are directly informed that the Lord had no respect for the offering of Cain; that Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell; and the Lord reasoned with him and said, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door;” also promising him, if he would do well, he should have rule over his younger brother! All this shows that Cain’s progress in sin had become very considerable, notwithstanding the mild yet unavoidable slavery already imposed. But, like many other sinners, he ran his race rapidly, until his hands were dyed in his brother’s blood.

“When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength: a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.” Gen. iv. 12. Here tillest is also translated from the same word, and means “when thou slavest the ground,” showing most clearly that the slavery imposed on Adam was attached to Cain, with the additions, that the earth should not yield unto him her strength,—that he should be a fugitive and a vagabond,—and a mark was placed upon him. The expression that the ground should not yield unto him its strength, may be understood to mean that it should not be as productive, or, that some other person should enjoy a portion of the benefit of his labour, or in fact both: his labours were to be in some measure fruitless. And let us notice how this portion of his sentence compares with other announcements of Jehovah:

“Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, but righteousness delivereth from death.”

“The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish, but he casteth away the substance of the wicked.”

“The hand of the diligent shall bear rule, but the slothful shall be under tribute.”

“Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuses instruction, but he that regardeth reproof shall be honoured.”

“A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children, but the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.”

“The righteous eateth to the satisfying of his soul, but the belly of the wicked shall want.” Proverbs.

“He should be a fugitive and a vagabond.”

“The wicked flee when no man pursueth; but the righteous are bold as a lion.” Prov. xxviii. 1.

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly shall perish.” Ps. i.

And again: “Set thou a wicked man over him; and let Satan stand at his right hand. When he shall be judged, let him be condemned; and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few, and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. Let the iniquities of his fathers be remembered with the Lord, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.” Ps. cix. 6–14.

Such is the prospect of the desperately wicked: “The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just.” Prov. iii. 33.

But Cain had a mark set upon him. The word translated mark is ??????Ôt oth: it means a mark of a miraculous nature, whereby some future thing is of a certainty known, and may be something done or only said. Whatever it may have been, the object was to prevent him from being slain by any one meeting him, by its proclamation of the burden of the curses under which he laboured. It was, therefore, absolutely the mark of sin, sealing upon him and his race this secondary degree of slavery. The mark distinguished them as low and servile as well as wicked, and hence its protective influence.

But what was the mark of sin? What is it now? and what has it ever been? If one is accused of some vile offence, a little presumptive evidence will make us say, It is a very dark crime; it makes him look very black. This figure, if it be one, now so often applied, is so strongly used in Scripture, and in fact by all in every age, that the idea seems well warranted that the downward, humiliating course of sin has a direct tendency, by the Divine law, to even physically degrade, perhaps blacken and disbeautify, the animal man.

A similar doctrine was well known to the Greeks. Demosthenes says to the Athenians, “It is impossible for him who commits low, dishonourable, and wicked acts, not to possess a low, dirty intellect; for, as the person of a man receives, as it were, a colouring from his conduct, so does the mind take upon itself a clothing from the same acts.” See Second Olynthiac. So the Arabians: “God invited unto the dwelling of peace, and directed whom he pleaseth into the right way. They who do right shall receive a most excellent reward, and a superabundant addition; neither blackness nor shame shall cover their faces.” Koran, chap. x.

“On the day of the resurrection, thou shalt see the faces of those who have uttered lies concerning God, become black.” Koran, chap. xxxix.

So, the Mohammedan belief is that a man who has some good qualities may die; but, on the account of his wickedness, he will be sent to hell, and there tormented until his skin is black; but that if he shall ever be taken thence, by the mercy of God, he will be immersed in the river of life, and his skin become whiter than pearls; see Pocock, notis in part. Moris, p. 289 and 292; but that the faces of the wicked will ever remain black. See Yalkut Shemuni, part ii. fol. 86; also Sale, Prelim. Disc. p. 104, 105.

So the Mohammedan tradition, that the bad spirits, Monker and Nakir, who, upon the death of a man, come to examine him, are awful and black. See Prelim. Disc. p. 90. And hence the belief is that the wicked, even before judgment, will stand looking up to God with their faces obscured by blackness and disfigured by all the marks of sorrow and deformity. Idem, p. 99.

So also the fable, that a precious stone of paradise fell down to the earth to Adam, whiter than milk, but turned black by the touch of a wicked woman, or, as others say, by wickedness of mankind generally; but the story is that its blackness is only skin-deep, and hence the Arabians carefully preserved it in the Caaba at Mecca. Idem, p. 125. Also, Al Zamakh, &c. in Koran; and Ahmed Eben Yusef; and Pocock, Spec. p. 117.

Similar traditions and quotations may be gathered from all quarters of the world, and from all portions of time; but let us turn to the book that never lies nor misleads. “Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will show the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame.” Nahum, iii. 5.

The word here translated skirts, is ??????????ŠÛlayik shulaik. We believe that all scholars agree the Hebrew root of this word is borrowed from the Arabic ?????shaylun, of which the meaning is postremum cujusque rei; and, hence the idea skirt, the extreme of something hanging down, tending downward.

And from the same source we have the Hebrew word ???????ŠÔlal sholal, a captive, a thing captured, &c., because the captive is in an extreme condition; and thus ????ŠÛl shul is made to mean a hem or skirt, from its cognate and Arabic root, the extreme of something tending downwards. Thus ?????shala shaal, to be loose, to hang down. From these considerations, the word was often used to mean a prisoner, a captive. Thus, Job xii. 19: “He leadeth princes away spoiled,” ????????ŠÔlal sholal, captive, reduced to the lowest extremity, &c.

Therefore, although perhaps not as literal, the idea of the prophet would have been more exactly conveyed had it been translated, “And I will discover the low extremity of your condition upon your face;” and in this same sense the word is used in Jer. xiii. 22: “If thou say in thine heart, Wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts (???????????ŠÛlayik shulaik) discovered, and thy heels made bare.” Evidently proclaiming the doctrine, that a course of sin, through the Divine providence, will leave its mark.

“She is empty, and void, and waste, and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and much pain is in all loins, and the faces of them all gather blackness. Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord.” Nah. ii. 10, 13.

“At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt; and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her: as for her, a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity. Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt: and they shall know that I am the Lord.” Ezek. xxx. 18, 19.

“Our necks are under persecution: we labour and have no rest. We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread. Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities. Servants (??????????abadÎm abadim, slaves) have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand. We get our bread with the peril of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness. Our skin is black like an oven, because of the terrible famine.” Lam. v. 5–10.

“For the hurt of the daughter of my people I am hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me.” Jer. viii. 21.

“Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up.” Jer. xiv. 2.

“Her Nazarites were purer than snow; they were whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in body than rubies; their polishing was of sapphire. Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets.” Lam. iv. 7, 8.

“For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire; nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest.” Heb. xii. 18.

“Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.” Jude 13.

“For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God.” Jer. ii. 22.

“The show of their countenance doth witness against them.” Isa. iii. 9.

LESSON IV.

But experience proved that even this second degree of slavery was not a sufficient preventive of sin to preserve man upon the earth. “That the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man.” Gen. vi. 2, 3. The word translated “fair,” and applied to the daughters of men, is ???????obot to voth; it is in the feminine plural, and comes from ????ab tav, and cognate with the Syriac word ????? tov or tob; it merely means good, excellent, as the quality may exist in the mind of the person taking cognisance.

It implies no quality of virtue or complexion, but in its use is reflective back to the nominative. It is one of those words which we find in all languages, of which rather a loose use is made. We find it in Dan. ii. 32, (the 31st of the English text,) “excellent;” also Ezra v. 17, “good.” When it is said of Sarah, in Gen. xii. 11, that she was “fair,” meaning that she was of a light complexion, the word ?????yepa yephath, is used, and is the same with our Japheth, the son of Noah, and comes from ?????yapa yapha, and means to shine, to give light, and, as an adjective, well means lightness of complexion, fairness, and brilliancy of beauty. So in Esth. ii. 7, “and the maid was fair and beautiful,” ?????yepa yephath. 1 Sam. xvi. 12, “Now he was ruddy and of a fair countenance,” ?????yepa yepha. 1 Kings i. 4, “and the damsel was fair,” ??????yap yaphah.

It is true that in Solomon’s Song, i. 16, “Behold, thou art fair, my beloved,”—ii. 10, “My beloved spake and said unto me, Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away,”—iv. 1, “Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes,”—iv. 7, “Thou art fair, my love; there is no spot in thee,” and also v. 9, “O thou fairest among women,” the word ?????yapa yapha, in grammatical form, is used in the original, and that the term is applied to a black woman. But this whole song is written in hyperbole. In the description of Solomon’s person, it says, v. 11, “His head is as the most fine gold;” in the original, “His head is the most fine gold.” 14: “His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. 15: His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of gold: his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.”

Asiatic poetry always abounded in hyperbole. Thus an Arabian poet, speaking of his mistress, says—

It is not from such productions that we are to look for the simple, original, and radical meaning of terms; and probably even in the case of Canticles, the word ?????yapa yapha would not have been allowed by the rules of composition, had it not been first announced in a calm, initiatory manner, that she was a black woman, in order that no misconception might arise from such hyperbole.

Let us suppose ourselves in Arabia, and some poet announces that, for our evening entertainment and diversion, he will deliver a panegyric upon some black woman, and, among other things, says—

True, amid such hyperbole, we might have mistaken her colour, if he had not previously informed us on that subject. But, as it stands, there is no falsehood asserted; there is no liability to mistake. The poet merely means that, at least in his conception, she is as lovely, beautiful, and desirable as all those hyperboles would make her. And we think we have reason to contend, that the hyperbolic use of the word ?????yapa yapha, in Canticles, does not alter in any sense its real meaning, or, in any ordinary use of language, make it a term applicable to people of colour, or in any sense whatever a synonyme of the ????ab tav, or ??????obot to voth, as used in Genesis.

This explanation is thought necessary, since it is seen that we shall hereafter contend that the descendants of Cain were black.

LESSON V.

If we take the passage, Gen. vi. 2, 3, as it stands in connection, it seems to us an obvious deduction that the commingling of the races of Seth and Cain was obnoxious to the Lord.

It is placed in position as the cause why his Spirit should not always strive. He saw that such amalgamation would, did deteriorate and destroy the more holy race of Seth; and therefore determined, with grief in his heart, to destroy man from the earth. All were swept away, except Noah, his three sons, and their four wives. Yet sin found a residence among the sons of Noah, and Canaan was doomed to perpetual bondage, as it now exists upon the earth. “And he said, Cursed be Canaan: a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.” Gen. ix. 25–27.

The expression “servant of servants” is translated from the words ?????? ??????????ebed ?abadÎm ebed abadim, slave of slaves. The expression is idiomatic, and means the most abject slave.

In the passage quoted, the word servant, in all cases, is translated from ebed, and means slave. There was no master placed over Adam,—it is not certain there was over Cain,—but here the master is named and blessed; and the slave is named, and his slavery pronounced to be of the most abject kind. If we mistake not, it is an article of the Christian creed of most churches, that Adam was the federal head and representative of his race; that the covenant was made, not only with Adam, but also with his posterity; that the guilt of his sin was imputed to them; that each and every one of his posterity are depraved through his sin; that this, their original sin, is properly sin, and deserves God’s wrath and curse. If so, can we say less in the case of Cain? or that a new relation did intervene in the case of Ham?

LESSON VI.

Having traced the institution of slavery down to its third and final degree, and finding it firmly lodged in the family of Ham, let us now inquire what proof there may be that his descendants are also the descendants and race of Cain. This evidence is to be found in the fact, 1st. That the descendants of Ham were black, inheriting the mark of Cain. 2d. That the traditions and memorials of the family of Ham are also traditions and memorials of the family of Cain. 3d. That Naamah, of the family of Cain, is found to be kept in memory by the earlier descendants of Ham. 4th. That the characteristics of these families are the same, and that no facts are found to exist discordant to the proposition of their being one and the same race; but on the contrary, every vestige of them is in unison with such proposition.

In presenting the evidence touching the several facts of the inquiry, we cannot claim the most lucid or logical arrangement, nor that our remarks will be classed in the best methodical order for the subjects of consideration. But we present the proposition that aboriginal names are always significant terms: thus, Abram, the high father; Abraham, the father of a multitude; Jacob, holding by the heel, supplanting; Israel, one who wrestles with God; and Cain, one that has been purchased or bought: “And she bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.” Gen. iv. 1. The word Cain is from ?????qana? Cana, and means to buy, to purchase, and, as a noun, a thing bought; and the word “gotten,” ?????????qanÎtÎ canithi, terminating with its verbal formation, means, I have bought or purchased—his name signified one purchased.

There is an allusion to Cain in the Koran; and, although we do not present it as or for authority, yet it may not be out of place to notice what the ancient Arabians have said on the subject: “Verily, I (the prophet) am no other than a denouncer of threats, and a messenger of good tidings unto the people who believed. It is he who hath created you from one person and out of him produced his wife, that he might dwell with her; and when he had known her, she carried a light burden for a time, wherefore she walked easily therewith: but when it became more heavy, they called upon God their Lord, saying, If thou give us a child rightly shaped, we will surely be thankful. Yet when he had given them a child rightly shaped, they attributed companions unto him, for that which he had given them. But far be that from God, which they associated with him! Will they associate with him false gods, which create nothing, but are themselves created, and can neither give them assistance nor help themselves?” Koran, chap. vii.

The Arabian commentators, in explanation of this passage, relate a tradition among them. They say, when Eve was big with her first child, the devil came to frighten and fill her mind with apprehension. But he pretended to her that by his prayers to God he could persuade him to cause her to have a well-shaped child, a son, the likeness of Adam, and that she should be safely delivered of it, upon the condition that she should dedicate or name the child abed al hareth, the slave of the devil, instead of the name that Adam would give it, abed Allah, the slave of God; that Eve accepted the terms, and the child was born, &c. The legend is varied by the commentators, some saying the child died as soon as born, or that the devil applied to Adam instead of Eve, &c.; but they all agree that al hareth was the name the devil went by among the angels.

It is a little remarkable that the passage in Gen. iv. 2, “But Cain was a tiller of the ground,” Heb. obed adamah, the slave of the ground, would be, in Arabic, this phrase, abed al hareth, the cognate of the Hebrew word ????r? erets, the earth. And therefore the Arabic, abed al hareth, will be a translation of the Hebrew in Genesis. This legend will be found in Al Beidawi, Jallado' ddin, Zamakhshari, et al. See Sale’s Koran, vol. i. p. 360.

The discovery of the western continent by Columbus was the great and absorbing event of the age in which it happened. It was an event which, in consideration of the characteristics of men, would be held in commemoration: in all parts of the world it would be a matter of such record as literature made convenient, or the relative influence of the event rendered constant to the mind. And hence we find it referred to not only in books, but in the continent discovered; it is commemorated by the application of the name of the discoverer to its seas, lakes, rivers, mountains, districts of country, cities, towns, &c. Now, if at the time of the event, the world had not advanced to the achievement of literary records, it is evident that the latter mode of commemoration could have been the only one practicable; and history shows us that this mode of commemoration was adopted at the earliest ages, nor laid aside even at this day. This disposition to commemorate is one of the characteristics of the whole human family. Thus Eve commemorated some event, described as the purchase of her first-born of the Lord, by giving said first-born the name of “one purchased.”

“And the sons of Noah that went forth of the ark were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.” “And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.” “And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan.” Gen. ix. 18, 22, 24, 25. The things here recorded took place in quick succession from the removal of Noah’s family from the ark. Ham ultimately had four sons, the youngest of whom he named Canaan. Is there any evidence, at the time of these records, that any of the children of Ham were born, and especially his youngest?

It does appear to us that the word Canaan, as here used, does not mean any particular son of Ham. It is evidently used at a time before he had any sons. From the manner of the relation it seems probable the planting of the vineyard was among the first things Noah did after the flood. Two or three years was all the time required for the consummation of this event. In case Ham had married a female of the race of Cain, he had also identified himself with that race, and might well be called by his father, especially at a moment of displeasure, by a term emphatically showing, yea announcing prophetically, his degradation through all future time,—the degradation to which that connection had reduced him.

The ill-manners of Ham towards his father were not the great cause of the curse. The cause must have previously existed. The ill-manners only influence the time of its announcement. Even had it never been announced, the consequences would have been the same. The sentence of the law is only declaratory of the relation in which one has placed himself. The cause of the curse or degradation here pronounced must have been something adequate, to have produced it. The ill-manners could have no so great effect. And let us inquire, where are we to find an adequate cause for the immediate degradation of an unborn race, unless we find it in intermarriage. His intermarriage, then, could have been with no other than the race of Cain? When Noah spoke to Ham, and said, “Cursed be Canaan,” he had no reference to any particular descendant of Ham, but included them all, as the race of Cain, and, in reproof and disparagement to his son, reproaching the connection. Suppose, even at this day, a descendant of Japheth should choose to amalgamate with the Negro, could not his father readily foretell the future destiny of the offspring,—their standing among the rest of his family? The term Canaan, thus spoken and applied to Ham, was significant of the character his conduct had created, by identifying himself with the race of Cain. It was a new name, deeply and degradingly distinguishing him from the rest of his father’s family. Jacob was called Israel, after having wrestled with God; but an honourable cognomen would be made known and used, whereas one of reverse character might or might not.

It cannot be expected, at this late day, to account for the anomalies of the ancient Hebrew. Terms applied as proper names, whether significant or not, are in all languages, and in all ages, subject sometimes to strange and even oblique alterations. Thus, in the family of Benjamin, “Ard,” of Genesis and Numbers, is changed into Addar in Chronicles; and thus Colon of Genoa was converted into Columbus in the western continent.

Thus, Muppim and Huppim, in Genesis, are changed into Shupham and Hupham in Numbers, and into Shephupham and Huram in Chronicles. See Gen. xlvi. 21, Num. xxvi. 39, and 1 Chron. viii. 5. The Kenites, Kennizites, and Canaanites of Gen. xv. 19; the Kenaz, xxxvi. 11 and 42; the Kenite and Kenites of Num. xxiv. 21; the Kenites of 1 Sam. xxvii. 10, xv. 5, 6; Judges iv. 11–17; and the city called “Cain,” ????????haqqyin ha Kain, Josh. xv. 57, also Kinah, ???????qÎn idem 22,—are all legitimately derived and descended from the name given to the first-born of mankind. Doubtless a critical search would find many more; but in all these instances the derivative is used for and by the descendants of Ham. But no instance is found where any such derivative is in use by the unmixed posterity of Shem or Japheth. We surely need not point in the direction of the cause of these facts.

In Judges iv. 11, we have, “Now, Heber the Kenite, ??????????haqqÊniy ha Keni,) which was of the children of Hobab, (the Jethro of Genesis,) the father-in-law of Moses.” We shall hereafter have occasion to show that the father-in-law of Moses was a descendant of Misraim, the second son of Ham; that he dwelt in the mountains of Midian, and, when spoken of in regard to his country, was called a Midianite; but his daughter, when spoken of in regard to her colour, was called an Ethiopian; but now, when he is spoken of in regard to his race, he is called a Cainite, Kenite.

In Josh. xv. 17, we have a derivative in common origin of the foregoing, in “Kenaz,” the brother of Caleb; but upon examining 1 Chron. ii., we shall find a sufficient reason in the blood of that family; and in all instances where such derivative is found, we shall find the same cause to warrant its use.

LESSON VII.

Such evidence as there may be that Ham did take to wife some particular female of the race of Cain, will also be the most positive evidence that their descendants are one and the same.

Let it be noticed that, immediately preceding the account of the flood, and the causes which led to that judgment upon the earth, we are presented with the genealogical tables of the families of Cain and Seth, down to that period; and that these tables terminate with Ham, in that of Seth, and in the female Naamah, the daughter of Lamech, in the genealogy of Cain. Ham and Naamah are thus placed upon a parallel, so far as it regards these tables.

It surely is not difficult to perceive the cause why, in the table of Seth, the genealogical line ending in the family of Noah was selected; but, if the entire race of Cain were to be destroyed by the flood, why was the particular line ending in Naamah chosen? Why was any such table of his race required? Beside Eve, the two wives of Lamech and this Naamah are the only females whose names are given before the flood? If the entire race of Cain was destroyed, how was the name of Naamah of more importance for us to know than that of thousands of the same race? Why has God sent these facts down to us? Has he ever revealed to us any thing unnecessary for us to know? Is it consistent with his character to do so? There have been, through all time since the deluge, traditions and legends among the Arabians, and many other Asiatic tribes, that this Naamah and her posterity continued upon the earth subsequent to that period. We give in substance a tale of traditionary lore among the Eastern nations, found in the Book Zohar, and referred to by Sale, page 87. They believe that at an extremely ancient time, there was an inferior race of beings, whom they call “jin,” (query, a cognate of ???ynh yana or jana, to cast down, destroyed, used in a bad sense, to cast away;) that this race was created from, by, or someway connected with fire, heat, &c., either in their original state or in an acquired condition; that they eat, drink, propagate, and die, and are subjects of salvation or reprobation, like men; that they inhabited the world for ages before Adam was created; that they fell at length into general corruption; that, therefore, Eblis (one of the names of the devil) drove them into a remote part of the earth, and confined them there; but, however, some of their race remained; and that Tahmunah, (the Noah of the Hebrew Scriptures,) one of the ancient kings of Persia, drove them into the mountains of KÂf.

Another version of the same legend is, that this race of beings was begotten by Aza with Naamah, the daughter of Lamech. (Let us here note, ????z? aza is a Chaldaic word, meaning heat, to grow hot, &c., and as such is used in Dan. iii. 22,—therefore a synonyme with Ham, as applied to the son of Noah.) But some have it that the race is the joint offspring, or from the double paternity, of Aza and Azael. (Let us also notice, that this monstrosity of paternity is reduced to a single personage by the fact, that the Hebrew suffix el merely gives quality, even by repetition, as thus,—Aza the mighty Aza.) But this version of the legend denominates the race “Shedim,” the plural of shed, a word sometimes used to express idols, but more often used to mean desolation, destruction, &c.; and because the nursing breast is often exhausted, or from the notion that such exhaustion is akin to a thing destroyed, this word is applied to the female breast; and hence a posterity strongly marked by natural peculiarities would very readily take some name expressive of such fact. Even at this day, in reference to such peculiarities, we say, they took it from the “breast.”

We deem it unnecessary to enter into a critical history of the word shed or shedim, as used by the Arabians, the “sed” of the Hebrews; but we may be permitted to remark that, from its conveying the idea of destruction, desolation, so strongly, the Hebrews applied it also to mean a “field,” or country, in a destroyed or desolate or uncultivated condition; and it is thus used in many places. See Genesis iii. 1.; and is thus the word we call Sodom. It always carries with it the idea opposite to improvement; and, governed by the same leading idea, writers have applied it, perhaps rather figuratively, to any living existence found wandering over waste and solitary districts. We might pursue the subject of this tradition, and from the analogy of language, as well as from ancient associations, at least find some evidence that Zahmurah was no other than Noah; that the affix “el” with Aza arose from the acknowledged superiority of the race of Seth to that of Cain, in consequence of which they were sometimes described as “the sons of God,” Gen. vi. 4; and that the tradition points to the race of Ham, and their humble condition in the world.

Traces of this legend will not only be found as above, but also in Gemara, in Hagiga, and Igrat Baale Hayyin, c. 15.

If it be a fact that the Negro race are the descendants of Ham and Naamah, the daughter of Lamech, of the race of Cain, it might be thought there would still be existing some traditions of such an extraordinary fact. As such we present the legend: not that we attach to it any undue importance, and especially not to be received as evidence at all, in contradiction of one word found in the holy books. But if a legend of ancient time shall be found, when sifted from the ignorance of fable or the fraud of design, to coincide with facts as related in the holy books, we may be permitted to consider the same as a circumstance not altogether unworthy of consideration.

But, we repeat, unless Naamah was to survive the destruction of the deluge, why was her name, why was her genealogy recorded and sent down to future time?

We think it certain that if she did survive the flood, she must have done so as the wife of one of Noah’s sons. Now, as it is evident that the intermixture of the two races was regarded by Jehovah as a sin, it is not probable that either Shem or Japheth took her to wife, since they were both most honourably distinguished by a public blessing immediately after the flood.

But again: Noah had been preaching the then impending ruin near a hundred years. Lamech might well have had some glimpses of the subdiluvian world, and certainly saw the consequential ruin to young Ham, of the holy family of Noah, from such a connection with his daughter, Naamah. It could not otherwise than operate as a moral death to all the high hopes of him and his posterity. In case such connection was formed, and Lamech was forward in aiding or influencing it, then well might his troubled soul exclaim to his two wives as related.

But in case Ham did take to wife this daughter of Lamech, we might expect her name also to be held in remembrance by her posterity, as we have seen to some extent was that of Cain; and if we find such fact to exist in regard to her, it will be to our mind strong additional proof, that the descendants of Ham were in common the descendants of Cain. We notice here the fact, which we may hereafter deem necessary to prove, that, of the children of Ham, Cush originally settled in Arabia and the southwestern parts of Asia generally, Misraim in Egypt, Phut in the northern parts of Africa and southward indefinitely, and Canaan in Palestine.

When this latter country came to be conquered by Joshua, he found a city by the name of “Naamah,” situated in that portion which was given to the tribe of Judah. See Josh. xv. 41. But we shall directly see that there must have also been another city by the name of “Naamah,” situated probably in the region originally occupied by Cush. The book of Job is supposed to have been written as early as the days of Abraham. One of the men named in it is Zophar the “Naamathite.” See Job ii. 11; also xi. 1.; also xlii. 9. He was an inhabitant of “Naamah,” at a much more ancient period than the time of Joshua. Job is represented as of the land of “Uz,” far distant from the land of Canaan, in the eastern parts of Arabia. His intimate friends and acquaintances cannot be expected to have been of so distant a country as was the land of Judea. The evidence is then that there must have been a city in the land of Cush by the same name. But in Gen. x. 7, one of the sons of Cush is called Raamah: we think those who will examine the subject will find this term a mere alteration or adulteration of Naamah, as there are many others, a tedious explanation of which might not be excused at our hand. Suffice it then to say that among the Cushites at a very early period one whole tribe were called “Naamathites,” distinct from the Naamathites that lived in the city of Naamah conquered by Joshua. Another variation of this word will be found in the word “Hamathites,” Gen. xvi. 18. This word is used, differently varied, in Num. xiii. 21, xxvi. 40; Judges iii. 3; 1 Kings x. 65, xiv. 21–31; 2 Kings v. 1–27; 2 Sam. viii. 9; 1 Chron. viii. 4, 7; 2 Chron. viii. 3, xii. 13; Isa. x. 9, also xi. 11, also xvii. 10; Ezek. xlvii. 16, 20, also xlviii. 1, and perhaps many other places; and in all cases in reference to individuals, the people and country of the Canaanites, and no doubt in memory of their great female progenitor, Naamah, the daughter of Lamech, of the race of Cain.

LESSON VIII.

Before we close this branch of our inquiry, let us examine into the significancy and composition of the name “Naamah,” as applied to the daughter of Lamech: and we take occasion here to say how deeply we are indebted to the labours of the Rev. Dr. Lee, the regius professor of Hebrew in the University of Cambridge, England, and whom we have no question in believing to be among the most penetrating oriental scholars of the age. By an intimate knowledge of the Asiatic languages, he discovered that in many instances where, in a cognate case, the Heemanti would be used in Hebrew, in them the word was supplied with a particle, changing or influencing the sense. Upon full research, he determined that the Heemanti, in Hebrew, were the fragments of ancient or obsolete particles, still influencing the significance as would have done the particles themselves. Let us take an example in our own language: able implies fulness of power; add to it the prefix un, and you reverse the sense wholly. Yet we do not perceive, without reflection, that the prefix really is a contraction of something similar to “I am not,” &c.

With this door open to a constitutional knowledge of the language, let us take the word ???m am. The terminating aspirate of the word Naamah will be readily formed from this by the usual feminine, as a fragment of the ?????bÛt later ????bat bath. And for the prefix nun, we beg leave to quote from Lee’s Lectures, pages 123 and 124:

“We come now to propose a conjecture on the prefix nun, and on the modification of sense which primitive words undergo in consequence of its influence. If then we take this (?n) as the defective form of some primitive word, appearing sometimes in the form of ??hn, at other times as ?n only, we may suppose it to have been derived from the (Arabic) root, which, had it been preserved in Hebrew, might have been written ??????han hanah, ??????an anah, or ??????ana? ana. The senses attributed to it by Castell (in his Arabic Lexicon) are, among others, ‘ad extremum perfectionis terminum pervenit—assecutus fuit, seu percepit—retinuit, detinuit, coercuit,—lenitate, modestia et patientia usus fuit,’ &c. Supposing this word, or some defective form of it, to be construed with any other, the sense of both taken together would, in general, give the force of the forms thus compounded. And as this form of compound is often in the leading word of one of the conjugations, it becomes the more important to ascertain its properties. Primitive words receiving this particle will have a sort of passive sense, or will exhibit subjection to the action implied by the primitive accidentally, but not habitually. Words receiving this augment, subjecting them to the action implied by the primitive word, may, when the context requires it, also be construed as having a reciprocal sense, or as implying possibility,” &c.

Now then, let us present examples of the influence of this particular Heemanti: —????????sakkÛr sakur, a hireling, one whose habit is to be hired, one whose occupation is that of being hired by others. Add ?n nun, and we have ????????????niskarÛ niskkaru, as in 1 Sam. ii. 5, and translated thus: “They that were full have hired out themselves for bread.” The idea in Hebrew is: They who were habitually full, from the force of the circumstances influencing the case, have been compelled to hire themselves to others for bread. The sakur is a hireling from habit, from constitution, from custom, &c., and which idea enters into the meaning of the word. But the prefix of the proposed Heemanti at once destroys all idea of habit, fitness, constitution, or custom; but yet the individual is a “hireling,” but only as the force of circumstances influencing the case compelled him to be so. Thus this Heemanti gives a reflective quality, reflecting back upon the agent or actor, as thus: ??????Šamar shamar, he guards, ????????niŠmar nishmar, he guards himself; that is, under the force of circumstances affecting the case, he was compelled to guard himself. Thus ????kmr chemar is sometimes used to express the idea black, as a constant, habitual quality. In Lam. v. 10, we find it with this Heemanti, thus, ??????????nikmarÛ nichemaru, “our skin was black;” not that their skin was naturally and habitually black, but made so by the facts of the case: and this same word, with this Heemanti, is used in Gen. xliii. 30, and translated, by attempting to express a Hebrew cognate idea, into “yearn.” The idea is, his bowels did not habitually “yearn,” but the action was forced upon him by the facts of the case; and the same again in 1 Kings iii. 26. In Hosea xi. 8, we find it again translated “my repentings are kindled:” because his people were bent on backsliding, which would cause the Assyrian to be their king, and war to be in their cities continually, and their bad counsels themselves to be destroyed, his repentings were forced to be “kindled.” See the passage.

This particle then prefixed to the word ???m am, with its feminine termination, makes the word ????n?mh Naamah, with the meaning, under the condition of things, she was to become a people distinct to herself; not that she would be a people absolutely, by the habitual action of constituent ability, but she would be a people distinct to herself, only as the peculiar influencing causes made her so,—showing also that these causes gave distinction and character to her posterity. Thus her very name shadowed forth the condition of her race. A Frenchman goes to England, or vice versa: a generation passes and nationality is lost. Not so with the Ethiopian. For “though thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God.” Jer. ii. 22.

A form of the word “Naamah” is used in character of a masculine plural, in Isa. xvii. 10, and translated “pleasant,” as if from ???n?m nam. Forced to differ from this translation, we beg leave to place the whole passage before the scholars of the day:

It is translated thus: “Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants and shalt set it with strange slips.”

We beg to inquire whether there is not a material defect in the latter clause of this translation? The verb “to plant,” in Hebrew, governs two accusatives, to wit, the plantation and the thing planted. In English, we are compelled to render one of the names as governed by a preposition. Thus, he planted a field with corn, or he planted corn in a field. The word ???????zemora zemorath, is often translated a song, as “The Lord Jehovah is my strength and song.” See Ps. cxviii. 14 and Isa. xii. 2. But the idea is more comprehensive than is our idea expressed by the term “song.” It includes the result of a course of conduct. Thus the result of a devout worship of God is that Jehovah becomes the “Zemorath” of the worshipper; and we doubt not our term result, although imperfect, will give a better view of the prophet’s idea in this place than the song. In this sense this word is used in Gen. xliii. 11, and translated “fruits:” thus, “take of the best fruits of the land,” that is, the best results of our cultivation. The prophet informs his people that they intermix and amalgamate with the Naamathites because they have forgot God, and that the result is the two last words in the passage, to wit, the “zar” and “tizera-ennu” that is, a “stranger.” See Exod. xxx. 33; Levit. xxii. 10, 12, 13, where “zar” is translated “stranger;” also, Job xix. 15, 17; also, Prov. v. 10, 17, and 20; and many other places, surely enough to determine its meaning here. The original sense of the last word in the passage was to sow seed, hence to scatter and destroy. The result of such amalgamation then is, their posterity will be a deteriorated race, and the pure Hebrew stock sown to the winds, scattered, wasted away and destroyed.

In these highly excited and poetic effusions of the prophet, we are to notice the chain of thought and mode of expression by which he reaches the object in view. This chapter commences with the information that Damascus shall cease to be a city; that Aroer shall be forsaken, and Ephraim be without a fortress to protect her; and finally that Jacob shall be made thin, like a few scattering grapes found by the gleaner, or a few berries of the olive left in the top of the bough, and the house of Jacob become desolate. In the passage under consideration the causes of this condition of Jacob are announced. If our view of the word “Naamah” be correct, in the masculine plural, as here used, it will be quite analogous to Ethiopians. But we have no one word of its meaning; perhaps the idea will be more correctly expressed by Naamathites. Evidently the idea intended to be conveyed by the prophet by the word ????????????na?amanÎm Naamanim, is, a people whose cultivation would be abortive as to them and injurious to the cultivator; that is, a people with whom intermarriage will produce nothing but injury and destruction to the house of Jacob.

By the use of some such paraphrasis the idea of the prophet will be brought to mind: “Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou (or therefore dost thou) plant Naamathites,” (that is, amalgamate with the descendants of Ham and Naamah,) “and the fruits of the land shall be a stranger” (that is, their adulterated posterity will be heathen) “scattering thee away;” that is, wasting away not only the purity of the Hebrew blood, but their worship also.

Repeat: “Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength.” Therefore dost thou cohabit with the heathen, and thy posterity, O Jacob, shall be an enemy, and thou scattered away and destroyed! Such is the announcement of the prophet.

One of the most bitter specimens of irony contained in the Scriptures is the answer of Job to the Naamathite: “No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.” The passage needs no comment.

The view we take of the word “Naamanim,” as used by Isaiah, we think warranted by the succeeding sentence, which we ask the scholar to notice.

“For a day thou shalt make thy plant to grow, for a morning thou shalt make thy seed to flourish, but the harvest shall be a heap” (a burden unbearable) “in the days of grief and desperate sorrow.” And such has ever been the lot of the white parent who has amalgamated with the negro; as to posterity, it is ruin.

The prophet borrowed his figure from agriculture. His intention was to present to the mind the abortiveness of such a course of sin, by presenting a bold and distinct view of the mental and moral character of the descendants of Naamah; and is on a par with—“Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord.” Amos ix. 7.

By referring to the instances where we allege are to be found variations of the names Cain and Naamah, it will be at once noticed that some of them are quite remarkable. Shall we be excused for a few remarks in explanation, by way of example, of other lingual changes? Queen Elizabeth lived but yesterday; and her history has not advanced through a very great variety of languages, yet we find, in commemoration of her, one place named Elizabeth, Elizabeth City, Elizabethtown, Elizabethville, Elizabethburg, and another, even Betsey’s Wash-tub, and because she was never married, one is called Virgin Queen, and another Virginia.

Now, we all know that at a very ancient period, the worship of the sun and of fire was introduced into the British Isles. Is there nothing left at this day in commemoration of that fact? The sun became an object of great and absorbing consideration. The ancient Celtic word grian meant the sun; from the application of this word and its variations, we have a proof, not only of how words are made to change, but also of the fact that the people of that country were once addicted to the worship of the sun or fire. Hence Apollo, who was the sun personified, was called GrynÆus. At once we find a singular change in the name of the Druidical idol Crom-Cruach, often called Cean Groith, the head of the sun. This was the image or idol god to whom the ancient inhabitants of Ireland offered infants and young children a sacrifice. It was in fact the same as the Moloch of the ancient Hamitic occupants of Palestine, and was so firmly established in the superstitions of the world, that whatever race had the ascendency in Ireland, it continued to be thus worshipped, giving the name of the “Plains of slaughter” to the place of its location, until St. Patrick had the success to destroy the image and its worship; and hence also the names Knoc-greine and Tuam-greine, hills where the sun was worshipped, and other places in Ireland, even now keep in memory that worship: Cairn-Grainey, the sun’s heap, Granniss’ bed, corrupted from Grian-Beacht, the sun’s circle. A point of land near Wexford is called Grenor, the sun’s fire, and the town of Granaid, because the sun was worshipped there. And we may notice a still greater variation in Carig-Croith, the rock of the sun—and even our present word grange, from the almost obsolete idea, a place enclosed, separate and distinct, but open to the sun, now used as a synonyme of farm.

Let us take our word fire, and we shall perceive remarkable changes through all the languages from the Chaldaic down. Gen. xi. 28, “Ur” is translated from ?????Ûr which means fire. Abraham was a native of Chaldea, and from a place where they worshipped fire, or the sun. It was used to mean the sun, Job xxxviii. 12; also, in the plural, Isa. xxiv. 15: “Wherefore glorify ye the Lord in the fires?” It is here ??????ruym urim. Because fire emitted light, it became used to mean light. The words urim and thummim meant lights or fires, and truth: among the fire-worshippers the same term meant fire and sun. The Copts called their kings suns. Hence from this term they took the word ouro, to mean the idea of royalty; their article pi, made piouro, the sun or the king, which being carried back to the Hebrews, they made it Pharaoh; but the sun was regarded as a god, and hence the Egyptian kings came to be called gods; but the Chaldaic and Hebrew ?????Ûr, when applied to fire or the sun by the Copts, as an object of worship, was distinguished from the idea of royalty by the term ra and re, with the particle pira and pire, generally written phra and phre. Hence the Greek p??, pur, to mean fire, and hence pyrites, which means a fire-stone, a stone well burned, or a stone containing fire, &c.

And hence also the Hebrew word ???r?y rai, a mirror, vision, the god of vision, and by figure a conspicuous or illustrious person. But according to Butman, the Sanscrit root Raja is the original of the obsolete Greek word, ?a, ?a?a, ?a??, and if so, possibly of the Chaldaic word under view. But however that may be, it is evident that the Greek radios is at least derived through the channel indicated; and we now use the term ray to mean an emanation from great power. Our word regent is also from the same source, through the Latin rex, and may be found, slightly modified, through all the European dialects. And it may be remarked that, cognate therewith, we have the Arabic word raiheh, or raygeh, to mean fragrancy; the poetic minds of the Arabians uniformly applying this image to legitimate rule and government.

And if we take a view of the filiations of languages, even as they are now found, such changes cannot be deemed unusual, especially if we take into consideration the inevitable variation words are found to undergo in their progress through different countries and ages of time; and more especially, if we notice the precise manner in which lingual variations are found to operate.

Changes of language sometimes take place upon a single word apparently by caprice, among different tribes of people,—sometimes by the transposition of the consonant or vowel sound; by the insertion of a letter or letters for the sake of euphony; by the contraction or abbreviation of letters for the sake of despatch; by the reduplication of a letter or syllable on the account of some real or fancied importance or emphasis attached to it; and by the deletion or addition of a letter or syllable at the commencement or end of a word, for a real or supposed more felicitous enunciation of certain sounds in succession; and hence alterations, slight at first, are liable to become quite remarkable.

Thus ??f? in Greek, becomes formÆ in Latin; regnum becomes reign; coelum, ciel; ultra jectum, Utrecht; and ????bd ebed, eved, as variously pronounced, meaning a slave, becomes obediens, obedienter, obedio, obedientia, in Latin, and obey, obedient, &c., in English. The Celtic ros becomes horse, and the English grass becomes garse. Consonants of the same order are interchanged; p becomes b, and b v, d t, g k and sometimes n,—f becomes ph or f, d or t becomes th, and g or c gh. It is therefore impossible that such changes should not have taken place, and therefore they give proof of the genuineness of the history they may develop.

LESSON X.

WE have heretofore remarked that such names as are derived from Cain or Naamah are never found in the holy books, except among and applied to the descendants of Ham. But there are some few instances of the application of these terms in the family of the Benjamites. It is therefore our design now to prove, so far as may be, that such instances, in the family of Benjamin, are wholly confined to those cases where the Benjamite was a mixed-blooded person, and a descendant of Ham, as well as of the youngest son of Jacob. The holy books do give evidence that individuals of the race of Shem did sometimes commingle with the descendants of Ham.

From the proximity of the Israelite tribes to those of Ham; from their co-habitation of Palestine itself, it was natural to expect among the low and vulgar, as well as among those whose morals hung loosely about them, that such intermixture should take place. “Now Sheshan had no sons, but daughters. And Sheshan had a servant, (?????eved ebed, a slave,) an Egyptian, (????????mi?rÎ Mitsri, a Misraimite, a descendant of the second son of Ham,) whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant, (??????ebed ebed, slave) to wife.” 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35. Proving the wisdom and truth of the saying of Solomon, “He that delicately bringeth up his servant (??????ebed ebed, slave) from a child, shall have him become his son at length.” Prov. xxix. 21.

“Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign; and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord did choose out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there: and his mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess.” 1 Kings xiv. 21, 31.

“For Rehoboam was one-and-forty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there, and his mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess.” 2 Chron. xii. 13.

“But King Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh; women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you.” 1 Kings xi. 1, 2.

By thus personally amalgamating with the various nations over whom he ruled, Solomon, no doubt, expected more firmly to establish his throne. This led to the selection of the son of this woman for his successor.

A vast majority of the tribes over whom his reign extended were the descendants of Ham.

But this very act, which he thought to be political wisdom, although contrary to the laws of God, brought ruin to the permanency of his dynasty. The great majority of his Jewish subjects, hunting up, as was natural, plausible excuses, rejected with scorn the contamination of the royal house.

And we see such manifestation of Divine providence even at the present day: even among ourselves, men whose talents and patriotism might authorize them to look to any station, are forced back by public sentiment, degraded by a notorious amalgamation with the descendants of Ham.

We shall hereafter see some proof that this “Naamah,” the mother of Rehoboam, was the individual whose praises are celebrated in the book of Canticles: at any rate, she was an Ammonitess, a descendant of Ham, and the prophet Hanani includes the Ammonites among those whom he calls Ethiopians. See 2 Chron. xvi. 8.

If then it be true that Naamah, the daughter of Lamech, was the great female progenitor of the race of Ham, we should expect to find some testimony of her remembrance even among her mingled offspring. And since the unmixed race of Ham have generally, at all times of the world, been too degraded to even leave behind them any written memorials, it is to the mixed race, and their connection with the races of Shem and Japheth, that we are principally to look for any particular fact concerning them; and it is reasonable to conclude, as we find this kind of memorial among the mixed race, that the same kind of memorial existed much more frequently among the unmixed races of Ham.

“And the sons of Benjamin were Belah, and Becher, and Ashbel, Gera, and Naaman, Ehi, and Rosh, Muppim, and Huppim, and Ard.” Gen. xlvi. 21.

“The sons of Benjamin after their families of Bela, the family of the Belaites; of Ashbel, the family of the Ashbelites; of Ahiram, the family of the Ahiramites; of Shupham, the family of the Shuphamites; of Hupham, the family of the Huphamites. And the sons of Bela were Ard and Naaman; of Ard, the family of Ardites, and of Naaman, the family of Naamanites.” Num. xxvi. 38–40.

“Now Benjamin begat Bela his first-born, Ashbel the second, and Ahirah the third, Nohah the fourth, and Rapha the fifth. And the sons of Bela were Addar, and Gera, and Abihud, and Abishua, and Naaman, and Ahoah, and Gera, and Shephuphan, and Huram. And these are the sons of Ehud: these are the heads of the fathers of the inhabitants of Geba, and they removed them to Manahath. And Naaman, and Ahiah, and Gera, he removed them, and begat Uzra and Abihud. And Shaharaim begat children in the country of Moab, after he had sent them away.” 1 Chron. viii. 1–8.

The hurried reader might well apprehend these three different accounts of the same matter to be somewhat contradictory. We think otherwise. We had, in fact, prepared several sheets, elucidating these genealogies of Benjamin, but upon a review we found much irrelevant to the subject of our present inquiry: we deem only a few remarks necessary.

Our object is to show that these genealogies prove that some portion of the family named were coloured people, descended from Ham, and that Naaman is distinguished most clearly to be of that class.

It will be readily perceived that Muppim ?????????mippuyim, in Genesis, is formed from ???moph Moph, and thus used in Hos. ix. 6: “Memphis (????moap Moph) shall bury them.” Our word is a Hebraism of the Coptic word ???nop Noph, the Nod of Genesis, the No of the prophets Ezekiel and Nahum, and finally confounded with Memphis.

It is here used after the form of a Hebrew masculine plural, and as a caput, to aid in the classification of the descendants of Benjamin; and clearly designates, whatever may have been their blood, that one class were Memphites.

So the word huppim ???????huppÎm is formed from the quite ancient word ???hap haph, which means innocence, purity; whence also the word ?????hap haphah, covered, shielded, protected; and hence, ??????hupp hupah, bride-chamber, the marriage-bed, and marriage itself. In this sense the word is used in Joel ii. 16, and in several other places, where the translator has so paraphrased the idea as to make it imperceptible to the English reader.

Nor is it an unworthy consideration in the etymology of this word, that from the idea purity, the Arabians borrowed from it their word ???jar hhar, to mean white, which was quickly introduced into Hebrew in the word ????hÛr hur, and ????hÔr hor, to mean white also. Hence, Mount ????hawr Hor, “the white mountain;” and from which branch of the derivation the corresponding words in Numbers and Chronicles have taken their origin. Here, then, we have another word used in the same manner, to designate another class of the descendants of Benjamin, as of the pure stock, legitimate and white.

The word ???????????wa?o?rd va ard or ared in Genesis, and ?????????ard ard or ared in Numbers, is changed by dagesh and transposition into ???????addar addar in Chronicles. It is unnecessary to go into an explanation of Hebrew peculiarities. It is probable that we never have had the true pronunciation of any of these words. But however that may be, the analogy of language seems to show that this word is a cognate of the Arabic ?????ghara? gharadh, and the Syrian ??????dharadh dharadh, and from whence ??????arad harad or arad; yet there is nothing more common than for aleph and ghain to interchange in one and the same word. They are ever regarded as cognates. But again, the word is not of Hebrew origin, and with the latter spelling, we find it in Num. xxi. 1, xxxiii. 40, Josh. xii. 14, and Judges i. 16, as the name of a Canaanitish city. The Arabic is more guttural than Hebrew, and it has two ghains, one more guttural than the other, distinguished by ???????rebÎa? revia, a resting upon; thus, in translating Arabic into Hebrew, the one will take the Hebrew ghain, but the Arabic ghain with which this word is spelled is at once converted into the Hebrew aleph; so that while we thus find the very word, we find it with the evidence of a Canaanitish admixture.

Its application in Hebrew seems to be mostly confined to the wild ass, (see Dan. v. 21;) but the Syriac gives it effrÆnatus, effrÆnis fuit, and the Arabic, durus fuit, fugit. Such, then, being its signification in these languages, we may well perceive its adaptedness to the wild ass. We all know that the wild Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael; now a true synonyme in Hebrew of this word was applied to him: “He shall be a wild man;” he was illegitimate, mixed-blooded. The term can apply to no other than such a race as that of Ishmael,—wild, illegitimate, and of impure blood.

In Numbers we find Shupham, and in Chronicles Shephuphan, substituted for the Muppim in Genesis; both being the same word in different forms. The root is ??????shephi shephi, a high situation; hence ?????shaphat shaphat, a judge, and its derivatives are applied to the person or thing adjudged. Hence ????????Šip? shiphehhahh, a female slave; (See Gen. xvi. 16; i. 2, 3; also xx. 14; also xxxii. 22;) and hence, also the Syrian ????? shafefa, a serpent, because the serpent had been adjudged, condemned. Whence the Hebrew shephiphim, poetically used to mean a serpent, as, “Dan shall judge his people; Dan shall be a serpent by the way.” Gen. xlix. 16. In this passage in Hebrew, there is a beautiful paronomasia in the word Dan, which also means a judge, judge and the serpent. But the serpent is called ??????????shephiphno shephiphon, only as it had been adjudged; and it is to be noticed, as here used, it has the same points and accents as in Chronicles, and is substantially the same word,—not, as here, borrowed from the Syriac, to mean a serpent, but used to mean the adjudged, condemned to some condition or degradation. “And they removed them to Manahath.” Manahath was a district of country near the Dead Sea, near the ancient city Zoar; and it is a little remarkable that Zoar was by the Canaanites called Bela, the very name of the son of Benjamin. The whole country was called by the general term Moab. The fact that it was a custom to send persons of a certain description there, seems to be alluded to by the prophet: “Let mine outcasts dwell with thee, O Moab!” Isa. xvi. 4.

But, who were sent there? “Naaman, Ahia, and Gera, he removed them. * * * And Shaharaim begat children in the land of Moab after he had sent them away.” This explains the whole matter. Shaharaim is a plural formation of Shihor, and means black. “And these blacks begat children in the land of Moab after he had sent them away,”—that is, Naaman, Ahia, and Gera; further establishing the fact that the word Naamah is kept in remembrance only by the descendants of Ham. One class of the race of Benjamin is described in Genesis as Memphites; in fact, that whole genealogy substantially divides them into those who were white, and of pure descent, and into those who were not white, and of impure descent. Numbers and Chronicles confirm and warrant the same distinction.

The seventh Psalm commences thus:—“Shiggaion of David, which he sang unto the Lord, concerning the words of Cush, the Benjamite.” It would have been more readily understood, and more decidedly a translation thus: A song of lamentation of David, which he sang unto the Lord, concerning the words of an Ethiopian, a Benjamite.

The word “Cush,” as often elsewhere, is here used to designate a descendant of Ham by his colour. But it clearly proves an amalgamation, to some extent, of the race of Ham, in the family of Benjamin.

Indeed, the race of Benjamin had become deeply intermixed with the descendants of Ham; and this fact well accounts why they did, upon an occasion, behave like as the Sodomites to Lot; and why the other tribes of Israel so readily joined in league to utterly destroy and annihilate this tribe, and did put to death fifty thousand warriors in one day, and every man, woman, and child of the whole tribe, except a few hundred men, who hid in the rock Rimmon. See Judges xix. xx.

LESSON XI.

It remains now to examine what proof there exists that the descendants of Ham were black. We wish to impress upon the mind the fact, that among all aboriginal nations, and in all primitive languages, proper names are always significant terms. Such is the fact among the Indian tongues of America at this day. The holy books give ample proof that such was eminently the case among the ancient Hebrews. Every name that Adam bestowed was the consequence of some cause that operated on his mind. And if we examine minutely into the influences operating even among ourselves, in such cases, we shall be unable to deny that such is the universal law. There is a cause for every thing.

“And the sons of Ham (were) Cush and Misraim, and Phut and Canaan.” Gen. x. 6.

It will not be denied that the word Ethiopian, as used in Scripture, means a black man. “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots.” Jer. xiii. 23. The word “Ethiopian,” in this passage from Jeremiah, is translated from ?????????kÛŠiy Cushi, the very name of the oldest son of Ham. And we shall find in every instance where in the Old Testament the word Ethiopia or Ethiopian is used, that it is translated from the same word, varied in termination according to the position in which it is used, and as applied to country or people. “Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians (???????????kuŠiyyÎm Cushiim) unto me?” Amos ix. 7. It became and was used as a general term, by which all descendants of Ham were designated by their colour, in the same manner as we now use the Latin word negro to designate the same thing. “And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.” Num. xii. 1. And we deem these facts alone sufficient to establish the truth of the proposition that that branch of Ham’s family were black.

In the examination of what evidence may now be found that the family of Misraim were black, we beg to notice a fact which we suppose no scholar will dispute—that he settled in Egypt, and, in fact, gave his name to that country. As Cush gave his name to all Ethiopia and its inhabitants, as Canaan gave his name to the land of Canaan, and Canaanites to its inhabitants, so Misraim gave his name to Egypt and its inhabitants. Whenever we find the word Egypt or Egyptian in our English version, we never fail to find ????????mi?raym Mitsraim in the Hebrew text. His descendants took upon them the particular appellation Misraimites, as in Gen. xvi. 1: “And she had a handmaid, (?????????Šip? shiphehhah, a female slave,) an Egyptian, (?????????mi?rÎt Mitsrith a descendant of Misraim,) whose name was Hagar.” She was a Misraim, a descendant from the second son of Ham. The word is translated “Egyptian.” A family feud growing up upon the occasion of her having a son by her master Abraham, she and her son were sent away to the wilderness of Paran; where, when the son was grown, she took him a wife of her own race, from the land of Egypt. See Gen. xxi. 21. The descendants of Ishmael, therefore, were three-fourths of Misraimitish blood, and are known and distinguished as of his race, by the particular name of Ishmaelites.

Midian was a district of country lying near to and including Mount Sinai. The people, in reference to the country, were called Midianites, but without any reference to their descent or race. From the position of the district of country called Midian, it would be reasonable to suppose the inhabitants in after times to be descended from Ishmael; and in fact, whenever we find any allusion made to the whole country of the Ishmaelites, we shall find it to include Midian. But it may be proper to remark, that from a notable mountain called Gilead, situated in this region, the whole country was sometimes called by that name, and one of the cities in it also called Gilead.

We are all acquainted with that most beautiful and pathetic history of Joseph; but let us read a passage—and we pray you to notice with distinctness the language:

“And they lifted up their eyes and looked, and behold a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. * * * And Judah said, * * * Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him. * * * And his brethren were content. Then there passed by Midianites, merchantmen, and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites; and the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar. And Joseph was brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmaelites which had brought him down thither.” Gen. xxxvii. 25–36, and xxxix. 1. Is it not positive and clear that the Ishmaelites and the Midianites were one and the same people?

But again, there was, during the days of the judges, a destructive war between the Israelites and the Midianites. “And the Midianites and the Amalekites, and all the children of the east, lay along in the valley, like grasshoppers for multitude. * * * And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream. * * * And when Zeba and Zalmunna fled, he pursued after them, and took the two kings of Midian, Zeba and Zalmunna, and discomfited all the host.

“And Gideon the son of Joash returned from the battle before the sun was up. * * * Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou and thy son, and thy son’s son also, for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian. And Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you, that you would give me every man the ear-rings of his prey. (For they had golden ear-rings, because they were Ishmaelites.)” See Judg. vii. 12–14, also viii. 12–24.

Here then is another instance where the Midianites and the Ishmaelites are announced to be the same people. “At the mouth of two witnesses shall the matter be established.” See Deut. xix. 15; also 2 Cor. xiii. 1. “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian.” Exod. iii. 1.

“When Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, and that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt, then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, (after he had sent her back,) and her two sons.” Exod. xviii. 1, 2, 3.

“And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses, because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married, for he had married an Ethiopian woman.” Num. xii. 1.

Even in the poetic strain of the prophet, there is a vestige that goes to prove the sameness between the Midianites and the Ethiopians. “I saw the tents of Cushan (????????kÛŠan Ethiopians) in affliction, and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.” Hab. iii. 7.

Are these facts no proof that the descendants of Misraim were black?

Let us then proceed to the same inquiry concerning the descendants of Phut.

In the Antiquities of Josephus, book i. 6, we find the following: “The children of Ham possessed the land from Syria and Amanus and the mountains of Lybanus; seizing upon all that was upon the seacoasts and as far as the ocean, and keeping it as their own. Some, indeed, of its names are utterly vanished away; others of them being changed, and another sound given, hardly to be discovered; yet a few there are, which kept their denominations entire. For of the four sons of Ham, time has not at all hurt the name of Chus; for the Ethiopians, over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves and by all men of Asia, called Chusites.” “The memory also of the Mesraites is preserved in their name, for we who inhabit this country (Judea) call Egypt Mestra, and the Egyptians Mestreans. Phut also was the founder of Lybia, and called the inhabitants Phutites, from himself. There is also a river in the country of the Moors which bears that name, whence it is that we may see the greatest part of the Grecian historiographers mention that river, and the adjoining country, by the appellation of Phut. But the name it has now has been by change given it from one of the sons of Mestraim, who was called Lybios.” His name, in the English version of Genesis, is Ludim. From him the Lybian desert has taken its name, and the country now called Lybia. Thus we discover from Josephus that the memorials of the nephew had obliterated those of Phut, his uncle. As Phut was the founder of Lybia, which was at one time called by his name, it may be well to inquire as to the extent of that region, that we may know where the descendants of Phut have resided from the time of their progenitor till now.

In order to form a tolerably correct idea of what was the country once called Phut, we have to examine how far the son of Misraim extended his name in superseding him. We quote from the Melpomene of Herodotus, where he compares the extent of Lybia, Asia, and Europe. Concerning Lybia, he says—

“Except in that particular part which is contiguous to Asia, the whole of Lybia is surrounded by the sea. The first person who has proved this was, as far as we are able to judge, Necho, king of Egypt: when he had desisted from his attempt to join, by a canal, the Nile with the Arabian Gulf, he despatched some vessels, under the conduct of Phoenicians, with directions to pass the columns of Hercules, and, after penetrating the Northern Ocean, to return to Egypt.

“These Phoenicians, taking their course from the Red Sea, entered into the Southern Ocean. On the approach of autumn they landed in Lybia, and planted some corn in the place where they happened to find themselves. When this was ripe, and they had cut it down, they again departed.

“Having thus consumed two years, they in the third doubled the columns of Hercules and returned to Egypt. Their relation may obtain attention from others, but to me it seems incredible; for they affirm that, having sailed round Lybia, they had the sun on their right hand. Thus was Lybia for the first time known.”

Hanno, a Carthaginian, was sent, about 600 years before our era, with 30,000 of his countrymen, to found colonies on what is now the western coast of Africa. His account commences—“The voyage of Hanno, commander of the Carthaginians, round the parts of Lybia, which lie beyond the pillars of Hercules.”

In the body of the work he says—“When we had passed the pillars on our voyage, and sailed beyond them two days, we founded the first city, which we named Thurmiaterium. Below it lay an extensive plain. Proceeding thence towards the west, we came to Solous, a promontory of Lybia.”

Having proceeded on with his voyage, he says—“We came to the great Lixus, which flows from Lybia; on its banks the LixitÆ, a shepherd tribe, were feeding their flocks, among whom we continued several days, on friendly terms. Beyond the LixitÆ dwell the inhospitable Ethiopians.”

Herodotus, immediately preceding our quotation of him, says—“Lybia commences where Egypt ends; about Egypt the country is narrow; one hundred thousand orgiÆ, or one thousand stadia, comprehend the space between this and the Red Sea. Here the country expands and takes the name of Lybia.”

Africa, to an indefinite extent, was the country of Phut.

The result of the inquiry thus far is, that the tribes of Phut amalgamated with the descendants of Misraim, until all family memorials of them became extinct. But let us examine what memorials of Phut are to be found in the holy books. “Ethiopia and Egypt were thy strength, Put and Lubim were thy helpers.” Nahum iii. 9.

Put is the same Phut; in the text the letter is dagheshed, which takes away the aspirate sound. We here notice that Put and Lubim are associated together.

“They of Persia, and of Lud, and of Phut, were in thine army, thy men of war.” Ezek. xxvii. 10.

“Persia, Ethiopia, and Lybia with them: all of them with shield and helmet.” Ezek. xxxviii. 5.

In this instance the word Lybia is translated from Phut. We take this as proof that the country of the son of Misraim and Phut was the same, and the two families amalgamated.

“Come up, ye horses, and rage, ye chariots: and let the mighty men come forth, the Ethiopians and the Lybians that handle the shield.” Jer. xlvi. 9. Lybians is also here translated from Phut.

“Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host?” 2 Chron. xvi. 8. There Phut is lost in that of Lubim, as accounted for by Josephus. The families were wholly amalgamated, the nephew carrying off the trophy of remembrance.

The proof that the family of Phut were black is rather inferential than positive; but can the mind fail to determine that it is certain?

But again, Phut, as an appellative, signifies scattered. Thus Num. x. 30. “Let thine enemies be scattered,” (???????pu??Û phutsu.) In Genesis x. 18, it is used with the same Heemanti, and with the same effect, which we have noticed in the word Naamah, thus: “And afterwards were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad,” ????????napo?Û naphotsu. The idea is, by the influence of the circumstances attending them, they were scattered. The condition is involuntary, the action implied is reflective. A similar use of the word occurs in 2 Samuel xviii. 8: “The battle was scattered,” ??????????napoi?ewt naphotseth; that is, it was scattered only as it was forced to be by the circumstances attending it. The distinctive appellation thus of the family of Phut, means a scattered people. The phonetic synonyme of Phut means scattered, in all the Shemitic tongues.

Thus in Arabic, ??????fa?s phats, and its variations, put down, abiit, peregrinatus fuit in terra, &c. In Coptic, ??? fet phet has the same meaning; but in the hieroglyphical writings of the Copts, found in Egypt, the idea scattered is represented by an arrow. But an arrow is called phet, because it is shot away, scattered. And the country or people of the Phutites is represented by a bow, segment of a globe, nine arrows, and an undulating surface. Those who have made researches in such matters say, the phonetic power of this is nephaiat. It will be perceived to be quite analogous to the Heemanti prefixed to the root. The people who have been compelled to be exceedingly scattered.

When Jonathan wished in an emphatic manner to signify to his friend David that he should depart, go off from his family, &c., he shot an arrow beyond him. Was not the arrow emblematical of what was supposed his only safe condition?

These explanations as to the significance of the word Phut will enable us better to understand Zephaniah iii. 10. “From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, my suppliants, even the daughter of my dispersed, (?????????????bat-pÛ?ay bath Putsa, the descendants of Phut,) shall bring mine offering.” Unknown and scattered as they are over the trackless wastes of Africa, yet even to them shall come the knowledge of the true God. They shall, at one day, come to the knowledge of the truth.

The hieroglyphical record relating to the Phutites is considered, by those versed in such matters, to point to a period of at least 2000 years anterior to our era. The inference, to our mind, is clear, that the family of Phut at an exceedingly ancient period was wholly absorbed and lost sight of among the other families of Ham, especially in that of Ludim, the oldest son of Mitsraim: that they were of the same colour and other family distinctions, unless it may be they differed in a deeper degradation: that for numberless ages the mass of the descent are alone to be found in the most barbarous portions of Africa.

In the inquiry, What evidence have we that the Canaanites were black? we may find it necessary to refer to various facts which have come down to us, connecting their history with that of the Israelitish people.

Perhaps no fact could be better established than that Abraham lived on the most friendly terms with the Canaanites. He was a confederate with their kings. When they lost a battle, he retrieved it. They treated him with the utmost regard, and he them with a generous liberality. Could he not have wedded his son among them, to whom he chose?

“And Abraham said unto the eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell.” Gen. xxiv. 2, 3.

Under the circumstances of the case, what could have influenced such a determination?

“And Rebecca said unto Isaac, I am weary of my life, because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as those which are the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me? And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan.” Gen. xxvii. 46, xxviii. 1.

On what rational ground are we to account for this extraordinary repugnance?

The conduct of the sons of Jacob does not determine them to have been very sincerely religious. The soul of Shechem, a prince of the country, clave unto Dinah their sister; he was rich, and offered ever so much dowry for an honourable marriage with her; and to show his sincerity, even abandoned his old, and adopted their religion. There must have been some other deep and unalterable cause for their unchangeable aversion to that proposed marriage of their sister.

“When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;

“And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them:

“Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.” Deut. vii. 1, 2, 3.

The laws of God are always predicated upon some sufficient cause: in such cases we may ever notice a tendency towards the prevention of deterioration.

“Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.” Ex. xxii. 19.

The terms Japhet, Laban, Hor, and their derivatives in significancy ever include the idea white, of a light colour. These terms are applied among the descendants of Japheth and Shem, as the appellatives of their races and individual names, and as adjectives in description of their personal appearance, too frequently to permit a doubt of these families belonging to the white race.

There is but a single case in all the holy books, where any of these terms is applied to a person of colour, and which we trust we have explained; and if our view be correct, how came the poet to require its use there, unless to elevate the character he celebrates! Do we use any term to signify that a person is white in a country where there are none but white people? Whatever evidence then there may be that the families of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were white people, is also just as positive testimony that the Canaanites were black. See Gen. xxvi. 34, 35.

But in Judges i. 16, we find that the family of the race of Ishmael out of which Moses took his wife are denominated Kenites. We think that we have abundantly proved that they were black. From this connection of Moses, the Israelites seem to have felt some regard for that race. Now it appears that some of that descent were afterwards residing in the cities of Amalek; for we find in 1 Samuel xv. 6, that “Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get ye down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them, for ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed.” How should it be a fact, since they were black, that he could not distinguish them from the Amalekites, unless the Amalekites were black also?

The Amalekites were Canaanites, notwithstanding they claimed Esau in their ancestry. “Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan. Adah the daughter of Ebon the Hittite; * * * and Adah bore to Esau, Eliphaz; * * * and Timna was concubine to Eliphaz, Esau’s son; and she bore to Eliphaz, Amalek.” Gen. xxxvi. 2, 4, 12.

The Amalekites were one of those tribes, that the Israelites were particularly commanded to destroy from off the earth; and in them, he who amalgamates with the daughters of Ham may see his own prospect as to posterity.

LESSON XIII.

There are circumstances in evidence that the descendants of Ham were black, more properly referable to the whole family than to either particular branch.

Among this class of circumstances, we might mention the tradition so universal through the world, that we know no age of time or portion of the globe that can be named in exception, that the descendants of Ham were black; and that the fact announced by that tradition is made exceedingly more probable by the corresponding tradition, that the descendants of Japheth and Shem were white.

The holy books provide proof that Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, were white. Their descendants sojourned in Egypt in a state of bondage about four hundred years, in the course of which time there was a law that all the male Hebrew children should be put to death at their birth. When the mother of Moses put him in the ark of bulrushes, she would have disguised his birth as much as possible, for the safety of his life. Yet no sooner had the daughter of Pharaoh beheld the infant than she proclaimed it to be a Hebrew child. If there was no difference of colour, from whence this quick decision as to the nationality of an infant three months old?

But during the residence of the Israelites in Egypt, it is to be apprehended there was more or less commixture between the two races; and, if the two races were of different colour, that there would have been left us some allusion to such offspring; and so we find the fact.

“And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot, that were men, besides children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them.” Exod. xii. 37, 38. The word “mixed” is translated from ??????arab ereb, arab. The word means of mixed-blood, that is, the mixture of the white man with the black; and in consequence thereof is often used to mean black itself, and is universally applied as the appellative, and has become the established name of the mixed-blooded people of Arabia, the Arabs; and because it became a common term to express the idea black, a dark colour, &c., it was applied to the raven; and even at this day, who can tell whether Elijah was fed by the ravens or the Arabs, because the one word was used to mean both or either. And a multitude of persons of colour, of Hebrew and black parentage, went up also with them.

This word is used to express the idea of a mulatto race, in Num. xi. 4, and the “mixed multitude;” also Neh. xiii. 3, “They separated from Israel all the mixed multitude;” also Jer. xxv. 20, 24, thus: “And all the mingled people,” mixed-blooded, “and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people,” mixed-blooded people. By the expression mixed multitude, it is clear Moses included the offspring of the Hebrew with the race of Ham. But would there have been such distinction if there was no difference of colour? It will be recollected that the children of Ishmael were three-fourths of Misraimitish blood, consequently quite dark. It will also be recollected that when Esau perceived how extremely offensive to his father and mother was his connection with the Canaanitish women, that he took wives of the house of Ishmael. It should also be recollected that Ishmael named one of his sons Kedar. As we shall hereafter refer to this word, we propose to examine its meaning and formation. It is of Arabic derivation, Arab. ???dura, Hebrew ????dar dar, and in this form is used Esth. i. 6, and translated black marble. With the prefix of the Hebrew koph it becomes ?????qedar Kedar, and is equivalent to “the black.” It is used in Hebrew to mean black, in 1 Kings xviii. 45; Job vi. 16, 30, 28; Isa lx. 3; Jer. iv. 28; Ezek. xxxii. 7, 8, and many other places. The very name of the son of Ishmael was tantamount to “the black.”

In the poem called Solomon’s Song, the female whose praises are therein celebrated, says, “I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me because I am black; because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me, they made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyards have I not kept.” Cant. i. 5, 6.

The word black, which twice occurred in the text, is translated from ?????Ša?ar shahar, with many variations. The words mean abstractly the idea black. Examples of its use will be found in Lev. xiii. 31, 37, thus: “And there is no black hair in it.” “And there is black hair grown up therein.” Job xxx. 30: “My skin is black upon me.” Zech. vi. 2, 6: “And in the second chariots black horses. The black horses that are therein.” Lam. iv. 8: “Their visage is blacker than a coal.” Cant. v. 11: “His locks are bushy and black as a raven.” There is no mistake about the meaning of this word; she was surely black, and she says that she is as black as the tents of Kedar.

The inquiry, then, now is, who was she? When we take into consideration the Asiatic mode of expression, from the term “because the sun hath looked upon me,” we are forced to understand that she was from a more southern region. That she was not a native of Palestine, or especially of Jerusalem. Figures of somewhat analogous import are occasionally found among the Roman poets. But we suppose, no one will undertake the argument that she was black, merely because she had been exposed to the sun!

In vii. 1 of the Hebrew text, she is called Shulamite. Some suppose this is a formation of the Gentile term ???????ŠÛnem Shunem, because they say the lamda was sometimes introduced. In that case it would be the synonyme of Shunamite, and would locate her in the tribe of Issacar. But we see no necessity of a forced construction, when a very easy and natural one is more obvious. We omit the dagesh. ??????????ŠÛlamÎt Shulammith is readily formed as the feminine of ????????Šelomo Shelomoh, Solomon, after the Arabic form ?????????shuleyman Suleiman, and, so used, would be quite analogous to what is now quite common—to apply the husband’s name as an appellative of the wife. Upon the occasion of her consecration into Solomon’s household, she well might, even at that age, be called by a term that would imply such consecration, especially in the poem celebrating her nuptials. And we may remark that the use of this word is in strict conformity to the usage of the Hebrew and Arabic poets, because it creates an implied paronomasia, derived from ?????ŠÛl, signifying that she was a captive by her love to Solomon, and if she stood in any such relation to him politically, the beauty of the figure would at that age have been considered very greatly increased. The poets, at that age of time, in compositions of the character of this poem, appear to have been ever on the search for an occasion to introduce figures of this class; and the more fanciful and extreme, the more highly relished. We fail therefore to derive any knowledge of her origin from this term. We have dwelt upon this particular thus long, merely because commentators have been so desirous to find out a clue to the history of the poem. Some commentators of elevated character, suppose this subject of their epithalamium to have been the daughter of Pharaoh, simply because she was black, and is addressed: “O prince’s daughter!” Undoubtedly she was the daughter of some prince or king. But the question now, is of what one? There is no probability that the kings of Egypt, nor even the nobility of that kingdom, had been of the race of Ham for many ages. Egypt had been conquered by the Shemites as early as the days of Abraham, and there is no proof that the descendants of Ham ever again ascended the throne; although, perhaps, their religion had been adopted by their successors from motives of policy, the great mass of the population being of the old stock.

In fact, the mixed-blooded races, and indeed the Shemites of pure blood, have, from time immemorial, shown a disposition to settle in Egypt. The Persians and the Greeks have also, for a very long time, aided in the amalgamation of the Egypt of the middle ages of the world.

But she is made to say that she is “the rose of Sharon;” as much as to say, the most excellent of her country. This district of country will be found to embrace the Ammonites, and perhaps some other of the ancient tribes of the family of Ham, at that time under the government of Solomon. And, iv. 8, we find Sharon called by its Ammonitish name, amid a cluster of figures having relation to the locality and productions of that country.

In short, the whole body of this extraordinary poem points to the region of the Ammonites for her native place of abode. Now, since Solomon had an Ammonitess by the name of Naamah for a wife, and since he selected her son to succeed him on the throne, it seems at least quite probable she was the person it commemorates; and that fact will make quite intelligible the allusion to her having been elevated from a servile condition. But, nevertheless, if it shall be thought not sufficiently proved that she was the mother of Rehoboam, yet she surely was of some one of the Canaanitish or Hamitic tribes, and was as surely black; and so far is in direct proof that the descendants of Ham generally were black also.

There are incidents of this poem which it would seem cannot be explained on other ground than that this marriage was one of state policy on the part of Solomon; and the queen upon this occasion selected was from some one of the heathen nations of the descendants of Ham, whom he had subjected to his government. It will be recollected that these nations, whom the Israelites had failed to destroy, had omitted no occasion to make war on the Hebrews, from the time of Joshua down to that of David; and that they occasionally had them in subjection.

Solomon had no guarantee how long his rule over them would prove quiet, or how far they would yield obedience to his successor. What could induce him to marry an Ammonite princess, and place her son upon his throne, if not to effect this purpose? Even at the time of the nuptials a reference to this political union might well find a place in the songs to which it gave birth. We introduce one of the incidents to which we allude: we select the close of the sixth strain. This poem is written in the form of a dialogue, mostly between the bride and groom.

Solomon. Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee.

Naamah. What will ye see in the Shulamite?

Solomon. As it were the company of two armies.

This surely needs no comment. The poem had already recited every mental and personal quality; was it then unnatural delicately to allude to her political importance? The art of the poet, however, to cover the allusion, recommences a view of her personal charms, changes his order, and commences with her feet.

Much learning has come to many untenable conclusions concerning this poem, among which, that of the Targum may be placed in the lead.

We have heretofore noticed how, in 2 Chron. xvi. 8, the name Phut is lost in that of Lubim, as accounted for by Josephus. But it should be recollected that the prophet Hanani most distinctly refers to one of the wars between the black tribes and the Jewish people, of which there had been a long series from the exodus down.

We propose to adduce an argument from the language used in the description of these wars.

In the time of King Asa, the invading army is described thus: “And there came out against them Zerah, the Ethiopian, with a host of a thousand thousand and three hundred chariots. And Asa cried unto the Lord his God; so the Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah, and the Ethiopians fled: and Asa, and the people that were with him, pursued them unto Gerar, and the Ethiopians were overthrown.” These people the prophet calls Ethiopians and Lubims. This term proves that many of them were from Lybia. Now is it to be presumed that so vast an army, one million of men and three hundred chariots, was not composed of all the tribes between the remotest location of any named and the place of attack?

But this battle was commenced in the valley of Zephathah, in Philistia, and pursued to Gerar, a city of the same country. “And they smote all the cities round about Gerar. For the fear of the Lord came upon them, and they spoiled all the cities, for there was exceeding much spoil in them. They smote all the tents of cattle, and carried away sheep and camels in abundance, and returned to Jerusalem.” See 2 Chron. xiv. 14, 15.

These facts could not have existed had not the Philistines composed a part of the army.

Yet they are all Ethiopians. Is this no evidence that the tribes of Ham generally were black?

But again, with the view to arrive at a greater certainty as to what races did compose these armies, we propose to examine that which invaded Jerusalem during the reign of Rehoboam.

“And it came to pass when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself, he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him; and it came to pass in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem, because they had transgressed against the Lord, with twelve hundred chariots and threescore thousand horsemen; and the people were without number that came with him out of Egypt, the Lubims, the Sukkims, and the Ethiopians; and he took the fenced cities, which pertain to Judah, and came to Jerusalem.” 2 Chron. xii. 1–10. “And the people were without number that came with him out of Egypt, the Lubims, the Sukkims, and the Ethiopians.” The Hebrew construction of the latter clause of this is thus: ???????????? ???????? ??????????? ????????????mimmi?rayim lÛbÎm sukkiyyÎm wekÛŠiaym Mim-mits-raim, Lubim, Sukkiyyim ve Cushim. We suggest a slight error in the translation of these words. The prefix ?m mem preceding Mitsraim, we read a preposition, out of, from, &c., influencing and governing the two following words also; as, from Egypt, from Lybia, from Succoth. It will be noticed that Cushim is preceded by the prefix ?v vav. Grammarians have written much upon this particle: we cannot enter into an argument on Hebrew grammar, but, with all the learning that has been expended on this particle, the Hebrew scholar must find the fact to be, that it is sometimes used to designate a result; and we take occasion here to say that, in our opinion, Professor Gibbs has given a more definite and philosophical description of the Hebrew use of this particle, than any lexicographer of modern research.

Suppose an ancient Hebrew physician wished to teach that certain diseases were incurable, that they ended in death, might he not have said, ?????????? ???????? ??????? ???????miŠa?epet qadda?at ?anÛŠ wemÛ mish shahhepheth kaddahhath anish vemuth,—from consumption, burning fever, the mortal sickness, termination is death? Or, allow our Hebrew not to be so classical, could he not have expressed the idea after this form? “The army was without number, from Egypt, from Lybia, from the Nomads, all Ethiopians.” And we here suggest the query, whether this is not the true reading? We do not propose that this prefixed ??w vav has the power of an adjective or a verb, although it might require the one or the other to give the idea in English. What we say is, that it is the sign of the thing which is the result of the preceding nouns. If it had been used here as a connective particle, then the two preceding nouns would also have had it for a prefix. Such was the Hebrew idiom. It would then have read, “And the people were,” &c., from Egypt, and from Lybia, and from the Nomads, and from Ethiopia, as the translator seems to have supposed. But, as it is, it determines them all to have been Ethiopians. This will be in strict conformity with the description of the army at the time of Asa. The invading army, at that time, was denominated Ethiopian, although it is evident that many of the Hamitic tribes composed it.

The real cause of all these wars was the contest whether Palestine should be held by the Hamitic race, or by the Shemitic, who were bearing rule. Keeping this in mind, let us note how perfectly natural is this description of those who composed the army under Shishak. The troops first collected would be from among his own immediate people, the Egyptians. The next, those who lived beyond him from the point of attack, to wit, the Lubims, who lived to the west of Egypt. These being collected together, they would commence their march, and the Nomads be added to the list of the army after they joined it; but none other than those governed by the same impulses would attach themselves to it. Suffer us to illustrate this description of Shishak’s army by supposing a somewhat analogous case, in much more modern times:—That during the reign of Elizabeth, King Philip of Spain had made war on England, upon the issue of whether the Protestant or Catholic faith should prevail in that country. Philip would have first collected troops in Spain. He may be supposed to collect large numbers in Portugal. These Spanish and Portuguese troops may be supposed to march through France, and his army vastly increased there; and, when upon the coast of England, some Froissart would have said, that the people who came with Philip were without number, Spaniards, Portuguese, French, all Catholics. The manner of such description would be in exact similitude with this description of Shishak’s army. Any one who is acquainted with the history of the Crusades will readily see how a similar description would have in truth fitted the army of the Cross. We think it proof conclusive that the descendants of Ham were black. But we might add some proof from sketches of profane history. In the 22d section of Euterpe, Herodotus says that the natives on the Nile are universally black. In the 32d section, giving an account of a party of Neesamonians, who in Africa were out upon an excursion, he says—“While they were thus employed, seven men, of dwarfish stature, came where they were, seized their persons, and carried them away. They were mutually ignorant of each others’ language. But the Neesamonians were conducted over marshy grounds to a city, in which all the inhabitants were of diminutive appearance and of a black colour.”

In the 57th section, he gives an account of an Egyptian priestess who was brought among the Threspoti. He says that “the circumstance of her being black explains to us her Egyptian origin.”

In the 104th section, he says—“The Cholchians certainly appear to be of Egyptian origin, which indeed, before I had conversed with any one on the subject, I had always believed. But as I was desirous of being satisfied, I interrogated the people of both countries. The result was, that the Cholchians seemed to have a better remembrance of the Egyptians, than the Egyptians of the Cholchians. The Egyptians were of the opinion that the Cholchians were descended of a part of the troops of Sesostris: to this I myself was also inclined, because they are black, and have their hair short and curling.”

Cambyses fought the black tribes of Egypt and Africa under Amasis, in the western parts of Arabia. Herodotus says, (Thalia, section 12th,) “The bones of those who fell in the engagement were soon afterwards collected, and separated into two distinct heaps. It was observed of the Persians, that their heads were so extremely soft as to yield to the slight impression even of a pebble. Those of the Egyptians, on the contrary, were so firm that the blow of a large stone could hardly break them. * * * I saw the very same fact at Papremis, after examining the bones of those who, under the conduct of AchÆmenes, son of Darius, were defeated by Inaius the African.”

Herodotus notices the distinction between the Arabs and the Negroes, but calls them all Ethiopians. In the 70th section of Polymnia, he says—“Those Ethiopians who came from the most eastern part of their country, served with the Indians. These differed from the former in nothing but their language and their hair. The Oriental Ethiopians have their hair straight: those of Africa have their hair more crisp and curling than other men.”

Herodotus lived and wrote about five hundred years before our era. We have quoted him through a translation, but not without examining the original.

We shall close our evidence on this point with a single quotation from Judg. iii. 8 and 10. The children of Israel intermarried with the Canaanites: the writer says, “Therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Chusan rishathaim,” the wicked Ethiopians. Whereas it is as well known as any other fact of biblical history, that these “wicked Ethiopians” were none other than the Philistines and other aboriginal tribes of the land of Canaan.

Upon the conquest of Palestine by the Israelites, portions of the Canaanites overspread the approachable parts of Africa, where numerous hordes of their race were already in possession. For ages, there is said to have stood near Tangier, a monument with inscriptions signifying that it was built in commemoration of the people who fled from the face of Joshua the robber. From the presumption of this being a fact, and from a collection of other facts connected with early commerce, Moore, in the first volume of his History of Ireland, has strongly suggested that the ancient Irish are partially indebted to the ancient Canaanites for their origin; whereas we think we have sufficiently proved that they were black. We hope the impulsive sons of the Emerald Isle will repel the insult. But, if what Moore says be true, it only proves another portion of our theory; for, as sin sinks to all moral and physical degradation and slavery, so virtue and holiness elevate to freedom and all animal and mental perfections; and since Iern was for ages regarded as an island of saints, Moore may have the benefit of the argument, if he chooses, whereby to account for the high-toned feeling and personal perfections of the modern Irish.

In conclusion, from the history of the family of man, we may all know that the descendants of Japheth and Shem, when free from amalgamation with the black tribes, are white people. Unless then the descendants of Ham were black, how are we to account for the phenomena of the existence of that colour among men? Philosophy has been in search, and history has been on the watch; facts upon facts have been recorded touching every matter; but have you ever heard of the uncontaminated descendants of Japheth, living in the extreme, or in the central zone, exhibiting the woolly crown of the sons of Ham?

We suggest some origin, some complexion of thought, from whence may have emanated the word “Ham,” and its derivatives, as found to have existed in the days of the prophets; and we may here state that the Shemitic languages seem to exist all in a cluster, like so many grapes; nor are we able to say which stands nearest the vine. Doubts may be raised as to the priority of any one named; yet we might adduce some proof that the Coptic is younger, as we could that the Greek is younger still.

The Arabic word ???ma ma corresponds with the Syriac ???ma ma, and the Hebrew ???m mah, and has been translated into the Latin quid, as an interrogatory, used in all languages very elliptically. Thus, Gen. iv. 10: ???? ?????????me ?asÎta “What have you done?” If the ?????????asÎta had been omitted, the ????me would have expressed the whole idea.

It was an interrogatory expression of exclamation and astonishment, to one who had committed a heinous offence. So when Laban pursued, Jacob said, ???m mah, What is my trespass? &c., as if in derision,—What is my horrid crime? Ever since the days of Cain some have manifested wicked acts, as though they were operated on by some strong desire, some coveting overwhelming to reason,—as if the action was in total disregard of the consequences that must follow it. This state of mind seems to have been expressed, in some measure, by the particular use of this particle. Let us conceive that such a state of mind must be a heated, a disturbed state of mind, as was that of Cain, and as must have been that of Jacob, had he stolen the goods of Laban. The word thus incidentally expressive of such an idea, by being preceded or influenced by a particle implying particularity, giving it definiteness and boundary, must necessarily be converted into an action or actor, implying some portion of the primitive idea; and hence we find ???????hemm and ????hamm and ?????hammi ham and hami in Arabic, ??? ham in Syriac, to mean a cognate idea, i. e. to grow hot, &c., to boil, rage, &c., sometimes tumult, &c., &c. And we now ask, these being facts, is it difficult to point in the direction of the origin of the word Ham? Nor is it a matter of any importance, if the relationship exists, whether the noun and verb have descended from such exclamatory particle, or the reverse; yet we can easily imagine, in the early condition of things, that the mind, taking cognisance of some horrid act, would impel some such exclamation, and that it would become the progenitor of the name of the act or actor.

However this may be, each Hebrew scholar will inform us that the word ???ham is an irregular Hebrew word. Grammarians have usually arranged words of this peculiar class among the Heemanti and augmented words, and they have accurately noticed that the punctuatists have always preceded the ?m mem by a (?_T) Kamets, or a (??Ô) Kholem. This circumstance has induced Hiller to suppose that the ?m mem, as a Heemanti, was a particle, while the adjunct was either ???hem or ?????Ôm; but all agree that the form of these nouns shows that they are intensive in their signification.

If then ???ham ham is a particle of ?????ham hamah, which carries with it the ideas before named, it may be less difficult to conceive how the particle, when added to other nouns, will make them intensive also, while the particle itself would be used alone to express some intensity in an emphatic manner, more particularly of its root.

But we find the word ?????am ham, as applied to the son of Noah, from the root ?????ham hammah, or ??????ema and used in Hebrew thus: In Josh. ix. 12, “This our bread we took hot ?????am for our provision,” &c. Job xxxvii. 17, and vi. 17: “How thy garments warm (?????????ammÎm hammin, hot) when he quieteth the earth by the south wind.” “What time they wax warm, they vanish when it is hot,” ???????????be?ummÔ behummo, in the heat. So Gen. viii. 22: “While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat ??????wa?om, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease.” Gen. xviii. 1: “And he sat in the tent door in the heat ???????be?om of the day.” 1 Sam. xi. 9–11: “To-morrow, by the time the sun is hot, (???????be?om be hom, in heat.) And slew the Ammonites until the heat of the day,” ???????ad?om ad hom, until the hot. xxi. 7 (the 6th of the English text): “To put hot, ?????om hot in the day,” &c. 2 Sam. iv. 5: “And came about the heat of the day,” ???????ke?om ke hom, at the hot. Isa. xxiii. 4: “Like a clear heat ??????ke?om upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat ???????be?om of harvest.” Hag. i. 6: “Ye clothe you, but there is none warm,” ??????le?om be hom, not hot. Jer. li. 39: “In their heats,” ?????????be?ummam be hummon, in their heats, &c.

But in Hebrew, as in some other languages, the phonetic power expressing the idea hot, heat, &c. was cognate with rage, stubbornness, anger, wickedness, &c. &c., and hence we say hell is hot, and hence, in Dan. iii. 13, 19: “Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage,” ???????emao? hama, heat, hot. “Therefore shall he go forth with great fury,” ???????????be?imma? be hama, heat, rage, fury, &c.

Should it be said, the words in their declination, or rather the affixed and suffixed particles, differ, and are marked with different vowel points, we answer by quoting Lee’s Heb. Lex. p. 205: “This variety in the vowels may be ascribed either to the punctuatists or the copyists, and is of no moment. But as the word ????am ham was thus applied in Hebrew to the original idea of active caloric, as emanating from the sun, so it will agree with its homophone in Arabic and Syriac; for let it be noticed, that the Arabic word ?????ham ham or haman, means to be hot, as of the sun. So the Syriac ???? hama means oestus, calor, &c. But in Deut. xxxii. 24, 33, it is translated poison; thus, poison of serpents, and ‘the poison of dragons,’ from the notion that great heat, rage, anger, &c. are cognate with poison.”

This word occurs in Zeph. ii. 12. The received version is, “Ye Ethiopians also, ye shall be slain by my sword.” The original is, ???????????? ?????????? ???????? ????????? ???????gam-?attem kÛŠÎm ?allÊ ?arbÎ hemmÂ, and has been subject to much investigation. Gesenius considers the word ??????hem a pronoun in the second person, and Lee seems to side with him, but says, “the truth is, the place is inverted and abrupt, and should read thus: ???????????? ???????? ????????? ?????????? ???????gam-?attem ?allÊ ?arbÎ kÛŠÎm hemmÂ,” and which he translates thus—“Even ye (are) (the) wounded of my sword,—they are Cushites.” We do not perceive how he has made the passage more plain. Let us, for a moment, examine how the Hebrews used this form ??????em or ????em, that we may the better comprehend its sense in the present instance. Jer. v. 22: “Though they roar,” ????????wehamÛ ve hamu, rage, &c., “yet can they not pass over it!” vi. 23: “Their voice roareth like the sea,” ????????yeheme rageth, &c. xxxi. 35; “Which divideth the sea, when the waves thereof roar,” ???????????wayehemÛ say ye, hemen, rage, &c. li. 15: “When her waves do roar (????????wehamÛ ve hamu se, rage, &c.) like great waters.” Isa. li. 13: “But I am the Lord thy God that divided the sea, whose waves roared,” raged. li. 13: “Because of the fury (???????amat rage, &c.) of the oppressor,” “and where is the fury (???????amat hamath, rage, &c.) of the oppressor?” li. 15: “whose waves roared,” ???????????wayehemÛ raged, &c. Ps. xlvi. 4 (the 3d of the English text): “Though the waters thereof roar (?????????yehemÛ rage, &c.) and be troubled,” ??????????ye?merÛ great agitation, rage, &c.

But let us take a more particular view of this word, as used in the passage from Zephaniah. The Septuagint has translated this passage in ?a? ?e?? ?????pe? t?a?at?a? ??fa?a? ?? ?st?, which is very much like our received version.

But it should be noticed that it has translated the Hebrew word ?????????allÎ into t?a?at?a?; t?a?a would imply the injury, wounds, carnage, or slaughter of a whole nation, army, or body of people; but t?a?at?a? implies individuality, and reaches no farther than the person or persons named. The prophet had been uttering denunciations against many nations, but in this passage emphatically selects the Ethiopians as individuals; and the Greek translator evidently discovered there was in this denunciation something peculiarly personal as applied to the Ethiopians.

The Hebrew conveys the idea of reducing, subjecting, or bringing low, as by force, to cause to sink in character as in Ps. lxxxix. 40 (39th of the English text): “Thou hast made void the covenant of thy servant: thou hast ????????????illalta wounded, subjected, or reduced his crown to the earth.” Ezek. xxii. 26: “Her priests have violated my law, and have ??????????allelÛ (wounded, subjected, lowered the character of) my holy things.”

But the word ?????????allelÊ is here used in the construct state, showing that the idea imposed by this word was brought about by the following term, ?????????adbiy, which the Septuagint translates rhomphaias, which properly means the Thracian spear; but ????????arby means any weapon, a goad harpoon as well as a sword. The fact is, neither of these words were the usual Hebrew or Greek term to mean a sword. The Greeks would have called a sword ??a??a, and the Hebrews ???????anÎt or ?????do?am or ???????kidÔn, or perhaps ????skh; and Dr. Lee has given ??p? as the Greek translation of ?????????arbÎ, which means a sickle, a goad for driving elephants, &c. It was a thing to inflict wounds by which to enforce subjection, and the idea is that the Ethiopians are covered by wounds by their being reduced by it, or that they shall be. When Jeremiah announced captivity and slavery to the Egyptians and the adjacent tribes, he used this word as the instrument of its execution. Thus Jer. xlvi. 14: “Declare ye in Egypt, and publish in Migdol, and publish in Noph, and in Taphanhes; say ye, Stand fast, and prepare thee, for the sword ???????ereb shall devour round about thee.” 16: “Arise and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our nativity, from the oppressing sword,” ???????ereb. Many such instances might be cited, showing the fact that, in poetic strain, this was the instrument usually named, as in the hand of him subjecting others to bondage; and much in the same manner, even at this day, we use the term “whip,” in the hand of the master, in reference to the enforcement of his authority over his slave.

In a further view of the word ???????emmÂ, as used in this passage, we deem it proper to state that Gibbs considers it a pronoun of the third person plural, masculine, they, and adds, “sometimes” (probably an incorrectness drawn from the language of common life) “used in reference to women,” and quotes Zech. v. 10; Cant. vi. 8; Ruth i. 22. And he further adds, “It is used for the substantive verb in the third person plural, 1 Kings viii. 40, ix. 20; Gen. xxv. 16; also for the substantive verb in the second person, Zeph. ii. 12: ‘Also, ye Cushites ???????? ????????? ????????allÊ ?arbÎ hemm shall be slain by my sword.’” Gibbs’s Lex. p. 175. In Stuart’s Grammar, p. 193, he says, “Personal pronouns of the third person sometimes stand simply in the place of the verb of existence;” e. g. he cites Gen. ix. 3, Zech. i. 9, and says, “Plainer still is the principle in such cases, as follows: Zeph. ii. 12, ‘Ye Cushites, victims of my sword ??????? ????????attem hemm are ye.’”

The fact is, the verb of existence, called the verb “to be,” and the verb substantive, in Hebrew, as in all other languages, is often not expressed, but understood. This circumstance is well explained in Gessenius’ Hebrew Grammar, revised by Rodiger, and translated by Conant, p. 225, thus, “When a personal pronoun is the subject of a sentence, like a noun in the same position, it does not require for its union with the predicate a distinct word for the copula, when this consists simply in the verb ‘to be,’ ????????? ??????????anokÎ haro?e ‘I (am) the seer,’ 1 Sam. ix. 19.” And again: “The pronoun of the third person frequently serves to convert the subject and predicate, and is then a sort of substitute for the copula of the verb to be, e. g. Gen. xli. 26: ‘The seven good cows, ??????? ???????? ???????Šeba? ŠanÎm henn seven years (are) they.’” To say in English, “The seven good cows, seven years they,” would be thought too elliptical; but we do not perceive how the expression converts “they” into the verb “to be.”

But again, the same author says, p. 261: “The union of the substantive or pronoun, which forms the subject of the sentence, with another substantive or adjective, as its predicate, is most commonly expressed by simply writing them together without any copula. 1 Kings xxiii. 21: ??????? ????????????yhwh ha?elohÎm ‘Jehovah (is) the true God.’” The idiom of the language then does not necessarily convert ??????hemm in the passage before us into the verb “to be.” And here let us repeat the sentence, ???????????? ?????????? ????????? ????????? ???????gam-?attem kÛŠÎm ?allÊ ?arbÎ hemm Zeph. ii. 12. It will be perceived that ????????????gam-?attem are connected by Makkaph. Hebrew scholars do not agree as to how far this character is effective as an accent. But the rules for its use are—“Makkaph is inserted in the following cases: 1. Particles, which, from their nature, can never have any distinctive accent, are mostly connected with other words by the mark Makkaph: ???????????????gam-le?Ίah even to her husband; ???????????????betom-lebabÎ in the integrity of my heart. Gen. xx. 5, &c. 2. When words are to be construed together, &c., as ????????????zar?Ô-bÔ its seed (is) within itself. Gen. i. 11,” &c.—Lee’s Lectures, p. 61.

But Stuart, seeing no way to translate the sentence without making ???????himm the verb “to be,” 3d person plural, “are,” takes ????????attem the personal pronoun, 2d person plural, equivalent to ye or you, away from ????gam, to which it is attached by Makkaph, and carries it down to precede ??????hemm in the sentence, and thus reads “are ye,” while he supplies another ????????attem as understood to precede ????????kÛŠÎm, and reads, “ye Cushites, victims of my sword are ye.” We consider this as quite as objectionable as Dr. Lee’s—“Even ye (are) (the) wounded of my sword,—they are Cushites.”

But permit us now to inquire into the probability of ??????hemm being even a pronoun. ???????ankΠa-no-khi is not believed to be a Hebrew word. It is a homophone of the Coptic word ????, and used by the Egyptians, who spoke Coptic, as the personal pronoun I. This word is believed to have been borrowed by the Hebrews at the time they were in bondage in Egypt, and the habit of it so strongly established during their four hundred years of servitude, that neither the literature of the age of Moses nor the genius of the people could ever eradicate it. Their original personal pronoun was probably totally lost; nothing analogous to this Coptic term can be found in any other of the Shemitic tongues. But Lee says that Gessenius has found it in Punic, and quotes Lehrege-baude, note, p. 200. In Chaldaic, the personal pronoun, first person singular, is ??????an a-nah, and its phonetic cognates are found in all the other sister dialects. We may then well suggest that the lost Hebrew term was ??????ana? a-na, or quite analogous thereto.

Such then being the facts, let us inquire into the origin, composition, and signification of this Coptic pronoun. It will be agreed that some language must have had precedence in the world, and it is usually yielded to the Hebrew. That such precedence was the property of some one of the Asiatic dialects all agree; and the nearer the subsequent language exists to its precedent, the more plainly will its descent be manifest. If the Hebrew was such precedent, or any other of its immediate sisters, the Coptic, existing in their immediate neighbourhood, must have been originally very analogous to them.

It is immaterial whether our suggestion be right or wrong as to what particularly was the lost Hebrew pronoun; let us take the Chaldaic, which, of all these dialects, was the most nearly like the Hebrew—the personal pronoun ??????an I, I am, and the word ????kÎ ki, which means a mark as a stigma, indelibly fixed, as burned in, a mark intended pointedly to indicate something; and hence it became a particle attached to a word often by Makkaph, whence the attention was to be particularly called, as, mark me, mark ye, are just, &c. &c. Isa. iii. 24: pm tr1 he '???? ????? ??????' 'kÎ ta?at ywpÎ' a burned mark of stigma, instead of beauty. Some have doubted the accuracy of the Hebrew in this instance, and the fact is, no doubt, that it is rather an Arabicism; but that in no way affects our deduction; it matters not whether the Coptic borrowed from Chaldean, Hebrew, or Arabic. These two words are beyond question the origin, the compound of the Coptic pronoun, meaning and including the individuality of the first person singular, and originally expressing also the fact, that such person was marked as a stigma indelibly, as burned in, &c. Anoki, I, a marked one; I, one deformed as if branded, &c.; I, one that carry the mark of, &c. &c., was the original idea expressed by this Coptic term of individuality. Thus it expressed the fact that the person was a successor in the curses of Ham and Cain, and in no other manner can the extraordinary appearance of ???hem and sometimes ??????hemm in the third person of the pronoun be accounted for. It is evidently from a new and other source, the same or cognate with the term applied to the son of Noah.

These adjective associations of the pronoun, through the lapse of ages, would naturally be forgotten by the Copts themselves, and were probably unknown to the Hebrews; just as we ourselves have forgotten that our word obedient still expresses some of the qualities of the Hebrew word ??????ebed ebed and abed, from which it has been derived through the Latin.

This pronoun ?????????onkÎ I, &c. was often contracted by the Hebrews into ???????anÎ ani, and in its declination stood thus:

Here we find the word in question, if a pronoun. The feminine of the third person is ?????hiy?, and plural ???nÂ, and yet ???????hepp is used in Canticles in a condition evidently feminine; and yet in Zeph. ii. 12, it is said it must be in the second person plural. But can any one believe that these words, thus arranged in the declination of this pronoun, could ever have had a common origin? The fact is, no original language was ever formed from rules; the rules are merely its description after it is formed. Language, in the infancy of its formation, resents restraint and all laws, except such as apply to its incipient state. Suppose a soldier for life should persist in calling his infant son soldier, either playfully or mournfully; the child would associate the term “soldier” with his individuality, and say soldier am sleepy, &c. In case the soldier’s family was isolated from the rest of the world, in the land of Nod, or elsewhere, then the family of languages would be quite apt to have a new term as a personal pronoun.

More pertinent examples would explain our idea perhaps more fully. There never was a language upon this earth, of which any thing is known, that does not show an extraordinary irregularity in the formation of its personal pronouns,—often giving proof that the different cases and persons have been formed from different roots. Webster says—“I, the pronoun of the first person, the word which expresses one’s self, or that by which a speaker or writer denotes himself.” “In the plural, we use we and us, which appear to be words radically distinct from I.” Under we, he says, “From plural of I, or rather a different word, denoting,” &c. Does any one imagine that I, you, me, and us are from the same root? Webster noticed the discrepancy; we could have hoped that he would have given the world a history of the personal pronoun of all languages: we know of no intellect more capable. Such a history would develop many curious things in the history of man, but would be attended with great labour; and human life has too few days for such a man.

Thus we may, hypothetically at least, point out the class of operating causes whereby the Copts introduced ???em or occasionally ??????hemm as a person of the pronoun, with the signification that the person to whom it was applied was a descendant of the son of Noah; and the pronoun so introduced derived from the noun ????am Ham. For, can we suppose the first person singular ?????????anoki a-no-ki, and its third person plural ????hem hem, occasionally ???????hemm hemmah, have the same root, or are of the same origin? This ???hem and the word ????am the son of Noah, are identical, except the son of Noah is generally written with a heth, instead of a he; but all know, who have studied the matter, these characters very often interchange, and that copyists have often inadvertently placed the one for the other. That which would seem the pronoun is used in Gen. xiv. 5, and the Septuagint has translated it as a pronoun; but our received version has no doubt restored the true reading. The passage ???????beham is translated “in Ham,” i. e. the land occupied by the descendants of Ham, the son of Noah. The change of Kamets into Tsere, is really of no moment. These characters were never invented until after the language ceased to be spoken, and was long since dead. The points, in reality, are no part of the language. The word in Genesis is indisputably a noun, preceded and governed by the preposition ???b.

Perhaps no one has ever yet succeeded to satisfy himself and others in the translation of this passage of Zephaniah; all, or others for them, find it full of difficulty: but let us consider ??????hemm a noun of the same order as the ???ham of xiv. 5 of Genesis,—in some respect in apposition to ????????kÛŠÎm, but more emphatic, as the affix of ?h would seem to indicate, by its increase of the intensity, as well as its accounting for the dagesh of the ?m mem, or its duplication. Let us consider it to mean the descendants of Ham,—to express the idea, with great intensity, that the Cushites were Hamites. True, it is not in the usual form of a patronymic. But we know not who will account, by grammatical rules, for all the anomalies found in Hebrew, a language so full of ellipses that some have thought it a mere skeleton language. With this view of the subject it will read elliptically, thus: So ye Ethiopians wounded of the sword, Hamites—with the meaning, that the Ethiopians were subject to bondage, and at the same time putting them in mind that the curse of slavery, as to the posterity of Ham, was unalterable.

The meaning of the prophet is—So ye Ethiopians, reduced to a condition of bondage, remember ye are the inheritors of the curse of Ham!

The arrangement of the language to us clearly indicates that sense. Besides, we must take into consideration the peculiar meaning of the words ????????allÊ and ??????????arbΗ that the prophet is writing in a highly figurative and poetic strain; and we would also compare what this prophet says to the Ethiopians with what the other prophets have said of the same people. ?????????kÛŠÎm is here applicable to all the tribes of Ham, as in Amos ix. 7: “Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me? O children of Israel, saith the Lord.” It may be well here to notice also that the word “Ethiopian” is of Greek origin, and associates with the idea blackness, like that of Ham. Thus, ?????p?, Aithiops, sun-burnt, swarthy as Ethiopians; a????, warmth, heat, fire, ardent, blazing like fire, blackened by fire, black, dark; a???p?, burning fiery, blazing, burned, darkened by fire, dark-coloured, consuming, destroying. Donnegan p. 34. But Isaiah speaks of the descendants of Ham perhaps in a more figurative language, and in a more elevated and poetical strain:

The denouncements of Jehovah against the children of Ham are more plainly expressed in the promises of God to these of the true worship, his peculiar people:

So Jeremiah: “Declare ye in Egypt, and publish it in Migdol, and publish in Noph and in Taphanhes; say ye, Stand fast, and prepare thee; for the sword shall devour round about thee.

“O thou daughter dwelling in Egypt, furnish thyself to go into captivity: for Noph shall be waste and desolate, without an inhabitant.

“The daughter of Egypt shall be confounded; she shall be delivered into the hands of the people of the north.” Jer. xlvi. 1, 19, 24.

“And the sword shall come upon Egypt, and great pain shall be in Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt, and they shall take away her multitudes, and her foundations shall be broken down.

“Ethiopia, and Lybia, and Lydia, and all the mingled (mixed-blooded) people, Chub and the men of the land that is in league, shall fall with them by the sword.

“In that day shall messengers go forth from me in ships to make the careless Ethiopians afraid, and great pain shall come upon them, as in the day of Egypt: for, lo, it cometh.

“The young men of Aven and of Pibeseth shall fall by the sword: and these cities shall go into captivity.

“At Taphanhes also the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt: and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her: as for her, a cloud shall cover her; and her daughters shall go into captivity.

“And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them among the countries, and they shall know that I am the Lord.” Ezek. xxx. 4, 5, 9, 17, 18, 26.

“And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people afar off: for the Lord hath spoken it.” Joel iii. 8.

It may be we have occupied too much time, in remarks too obscure and indistinct for biblical criticism, upon this passage of Zephaniah; and it may be that, in the judgment of some, we have thus made ourselves obnoxious to the satire of the reverend and witty commentator upon the words:

But we were sure the passage had been greatly misunderstood, and were, perhaps, too much emboldened by the hope, that the providence of the All-wise might yet again issue forth the truth from the tongue of the feeble.

LESSON XVI.

From the root ????hmh has also been derived the Arabic word ????????haman haman, and the Syriac ?????' haman, and adopted by the Hebrews in the word ??????aman haman, which Castell translates “images,” dedicated to the worship of the sun, the worship of fire, heat, &c.

The Hebrew use of this word will be found in a plural form in Lev. xxvi. 30, thus: “And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images,” hammanekem. 2 Chron. xiv. 3 (the fourth of the Hebrew text:) “And brake down the images,” ??????????amanÎm hammanim; also xxxiv. 4, 7: “And the images, (??????????ammanÎm hammanim) that were on high above them, he cut down,” “and had beaten the graven images (??????????amanÎm hammanim) into powder.” Isa. xvii. 8: “Either the groves or the images,” ??????????amanÎm hammanim; also xxvii. 9: “The groves and images (??????????amanÎm hammanim) shall not stand up.” Ezek. vi. 4, 6: “Your altars shall be desolate, and your images (??????????????ammanÊkem hammanekem) shall be broken,” “and your images (??????????????ammanÊkem hammanekem) may be cut down.” We have no possible word to express literally this term, but the hammanekens, or little HAMS, or fire-houses, the objects of religious adoration, were conical towers, from fifty to one hundred feet high, and fifteen to twenty feet in diameter at the base, and gradually decreasing upward, with a small door or opening fifteen or twenty feet above the base, and four smaller ones near the apex, looking towards the cardinal points.

The moderns have no certain knowledge of their particular use, yet all believe that in them was attempted to be kept the perpetual or holy fire, and perhaps into them was thrust the infant sacrificed to the god. May we not suppose that Daniel and his brethren would have informed us, had it been necessary for us to know more? Spencer, Heb. Laws, lib. ii. cap. 25, § 3, says of these edifices: “They were of a conical form and of a black colour.” It seems to us this identifies these edifices with the round towers of Persia and elsewhere, remains of many of which were anciently found in Ireland. The curious about this matter are referred to Gesenius’s Thesaurus, p. 489; also Lee’s Lex. p. 297, where he quotes Henrici Arentii Hamaker Miscellanea Phoenicia, pp. 49, 54; also Diatribe Philologico-Critica aliquot monumentorum Punicorum; Selden, de Diis Syris, ii. cap. 8, and the authors severally cited by them. Upon a full consideration of the subject, Dr. Lee says—“Upon the whole, I am disposed to believe that the term ???ham (haman) is rather derived from ???ham Ham, the father of Canaan, of Mitsraim, &c., Gen. x. 6–20; and hence by the latter worshipped as presiding angel of the sun, under the title of ????, Greek ??? (Ammon), which is probably our very word.” If so, then his very name became significant of the worship of fire, and even expressive of the fire-temples themselves.

By some fanciful relation, not relevant to our subject, between the fire or sun worshippers and astronomy, when the sun was in aries (the ram), the god Ham, Ammon, Hammon, or Jupiter Hammon, was represented with a ram’s head for his crest; with this crest became associated the idea of the god, and hence chonchologists, even to this day, call certain shells, that are fancied to resemble the ram’s horn, Ammonites, giving further evidence, even now, of how deeply seated was the association between the earlier descendants of Ham and the fire worship of their day.

The long and fanciful story of Io, changed by Jupiter into a white cow; of her flight from the fifty sons of Egyptus; of her becoming the progenitor of the Ionians; the Egyptians claiming her under the name of Isis; of her marriage with Osiris, who became at length Apis and Serapis, worshipped in the image of a black bull with a white spot in his forehead, and many such tales, are all legitimately descended from his family peculiarities, their relative condition in the world, and the fact that Ham became the imaginary deity of his descendants.

Much evidence may be had proving that Ham became inseparably associated with, and in fact the very father of, idolatry, and of all those enormities growing out of it; enormities with which idolatry has ever been attended, and which time and the history of man for ever give proof to be a total preventive of all physical and moral elevation and improvement; and which, like other breaches against the laws of God, have, at all times, among all men, for ever been accompanied by both physical and moral degradation. But the descendants of Ham gave his name to their country. ???? Chemi was the Coptic name for Egypt, which the Septuagint translates into ?a Cham. Plutarch styles Egypt ???a Chemia, from the Coptic ???? Chemi, and, as if he wished to give some account of its origin, adds, ?e?? ??? ?st?? ?a? ???a, “for it is hot and humid;” showing that the ???? Chemi of the Copts signified the same as the Ham of the Hebrews. But the Coptic word ???? Chemi, ??? and ??e of Plutarch, also signified the adjective black. See Gibbs’s Hebrew Lexicon, under the word ????am Ham; and with this signification the word Ham is used in Ps. lxxviii. 51: “The chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham:” Septuagint, ?a, Cham, from the Coptic ???? chemi, black. cv. 23: “And Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham,” ????am Ham: Septuagint, ?a, Cham, from the Coptic ???? chemi, black. 27: “And wonders in the land of Ham:” Septuagint, ?a Cham, from the Coptic ???? chemi, black. cvi. 22: “Wondrous works in the land of Ham:” Septuagint, ?a Cham, from the Coptic ???? chemi, black. The idea is, the land of the black people.

In this sense also the word is used in Gen. xiv. 5: “And smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham.” The Septuagint translates this passage into ?a? ???? ?s???? ?a a?t???, as though the ???????beham be Ham was a pronoun, and which seems to have been the view of several ancient translators. But such certainly was not the view of the translators of the received version; nor of Martindale, and others from whom he compiled. He says of this passage—“2. Ham, crafty, or heat; the country of the Zuzims, the situation of which is not known:” p. 326. We certainly agree with the Septuagint that ???????zÛzÎm Zuzim was a significant term, and perhaps well enough explained by ???? ?s????, for which a suitable translation would seem to be wicked, perverse, strong, numerous, or stubborn heathen. They were probably the ??????????zamzumaym Zamzummims of Deut. ii. 20.

The word ???????beham be Ham, unless a pronoun as above, against which much can be said, is evidently used as in the Psalms quoted. In all these cases Ham is used somewhat as a synonyme of ??????kÛŠ Cush; and when applied to a country generally, meant whatever country was occupied by the descendants of Ham. The sense of the sentence, and Zuzims in Ham, will then be, and the stubborn heathen in Ethiopia, or, the perverse tribes of Cush, or the wicked nations of Ham; all meaning the black tribes, descendants of Ham, or some one of them, when particularity is intended, as probably in this case; and let it be noticed, that Martindale, p. 241, gives “blackness” as his first definition of Cush. The descendants of Ham applying his name to themselves and country, they being black, it necessarily became significant of that colour. We have Germans, Swedes, English; but if we say “Negroes,” or if we say Africans, we mean black men, because those words, as now used, mean men of colour; and in a sense analogous, the word Ham seems to have been used in the passages quoted.

This view of the word Ham we think elucidates the history of Esther and that of Haman ??????haman the son of Hamadatha—Agagite, ha Agagi. The word is a patronymic of ??????agag Agag,—hence he was an Amalekite: “Agag, the king of Amalek”—“Agag, the king of the Amalekites.” 1 Sam. xv. 20, 32. “Now there was one Haman, the son of Amadatha, by birth an Amalekite.” Josephus, book ii. cap. vi. 5. This shows the cause of the extraordinary hatred that existed between her people and his. His very name shows that he was a descendant of Ham, and we think also proves that the Amalekites were black; and which fact is confirmed by 1 Sam. xv. 6: “And Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart; get ye down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them,”—evincing the fact that by mere inspection he could not distinguish the one from the other. We have before shown that the Kenites were black. The argument follows, that the Amalekites were also.

The word Ham is also used in 1 Chron.iv. 40, in the same manner as it is in Psalms and Genesis, thus: “For they of Ham ?????am had dwelt there of old.” This is said of Gedar, “even unto the east side of the valley.” Now Gedar was in the mountains of Judea, (see Josh. xv. 48–60,) or in the valley, (see Josh. xv. 36;) and as that account of the country of Judea closes (see idem, 63) by informing us whom the inhabitants of Judah could not drive out, and as the inhabitants of Gedar are not included in such list, it is to be presumed that the inhabitants of Gedar were so driven out at the time of Joshua; and leaves us nothing else to conclude than that, whoever they were, they who are spoken of in this passage, as having dwelt there of old, were the people driven out by him. But Josh. xii. 7, 8 informs us who the people were on the west side of Jordan, both in the mountains and valleys, and names them as Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites; and from the 9th to the 24th gives us an account of their kings, among whom is named the king of Gedar, who was smitten and driven out. It is immaterial which of the tribes they were. They were inhabitants of Palestine, (see 2 Chron. xxviii. 18 and 1 Chron. xxvii. 28,) of the land of Canaan, not of south, east, nor of northern Arabia, nor of Egypt or any part of Africa; yet they are emphatically spoken of as of Ham, clearly having reference to their descent and colour. Here we have an additional key whereby to unlock the meaning of this word as used in Psalms and Genesis. There can be no doubt these primitive inhabitants of Gedar were the descendants of Canaan. Yet they are described by the same term which in other places is used to describe the descendants of Cush and Mitsraim; a term which most unquestionably determines them to have been black.

But the Coptic word chemi, which we have seen had the same significancy as ????am ham in Hebrew, opens to the view the real meaning of a few Hebrio-Coptic words that grew into common use among the Hebrews subsequent to their bondage in Egypt. We allude solely to the derivatives of ???? Chemi. ??????komer Chemar is thus derived, and occasionally used by the holy writers to signify black; thus, Lam. v. 10: “Our skin was black” ??????????nikmarÛ ni chemaru. True, some have disputed the accuracy of this translation. They take a cognate meaning, and say our skin was hot, &c. We hope to be excused for adopting the received version. But either meaning proves the origin of the word from the Coptic ???? chemi, the same as the ham of the Hebrews. The fact is, the cognate meaning, sometimes, necessarily forces itself into an English translation, as in Gen. xliii. 30: “For his bowels did yearn,” ?????????nikmerÛ grew hot, warmed, became agitated, &c. 1 Kings iii. 26: “Her bowels yearned,” ?????????nikmerÛ grew hot, troubled, &c.; and also Hosea xi. 8: “My repentings are kindled,” ?????????nekmerÛ became hot, &c.

But in all these instances the figure of speech is more particularly Asiatic, and more obscure than is well suited to our modern dialect, as we think will be seen by comparing them with Job iii. 5, “Let the blackness of the day terrify it.”

From this Coptic name of Ham has also been derived the appellative term of the Moabitish and Ammonitish god ?????????kemoÛŠ Chemosh. The Syrians applied this term to the fancied being who oppresses mankind during the dark hours of their sleeping, and hence distressing dreams, incubus, &c. Chemosh is ranked with the god of destruction among the Hindoos, Muha Deva. The worshippers of this god are in Scripture called ?????????????am-kemÔŠ am Chemosh, the people of Chemosh, particularly the Moabites and Ammonites. The image of this god was a black stone.

The term applied to the priesthood in this worship among the black tribes is also derivative from the same Coptic word to which we have often added in translation the word “idolatrous.” Thus, 2 Kings xxiii. 5, “and he put down the idolatrous priests ???????????hakkemarÎm ha chemarim.” Hosea x. 5, “And the priests thereof” ?????????ke?marayw. Zeph. i. 4, “And the name of the Chemarims,” ???????????hakkemarÎm ha Chemarim, i. e. the priests of the Hamitic fire-worshippers, &c. Some commentators, not connecting these words with the Coptic, and the priest, as the term applies, with the black families of Ham, have conceived that the idea blackness, as associated with these idolatrous priests, had reference to their apparel. Hence they conceive that these priests always wore black apparel; whereas the fact is they were black men, and, as such, are described by a term indicating that fact, as well as that of their idolatry and descent; and here we find the foundation of that modern and common prejudice, that the appropriate dress of the clergy is black.

But we find another derivative from the word Ham, Gen. xxxviii. 13: “And it was told Tamar, saying, Behold thy father-in-law ????????amÎk goeth up.” 25: “She sent to her father-in-law,” he????????amÎha So also 1 Sam. iv. 19: “And that her father-in-law was dead.” 21. “And because of her father-in-law,” ?????????amÎha. This word is used in the feminine in Micah, vii. 6, thus: “Against her mother-in-law,” ??????????????ba?amoatah la hamtha. We notice the word is preceded by the word ???????kallÂ, which word, in Gen. xxxviii. 11, is applied to Tamar, and in Jer. ii. 32, evidently to a “bride” taken from the heathen, which was forbid; and is also used in Cant. iv. 8, for the “spouse,” who is made to declare herself a black woman, giving evidence that the word in Micah is used in character.

This word is also used in the feminine in Ruth i. 14: “And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law,” ??????????????la?amÔtah la hamotha. ii. 11: “All that thou hast done unto thy mother-in-law,” ??????????amÔtek hamothek. 18: “And her mother-in-law saw what she had done,” hamotha. 19: “And her mother in-law (hamotha) said unto her;” “and she showed her mother-in-law,” la hamotha. 23: “And dwelt with her mother-in-law,” hamotha. iii. 1: “Then Naomi her mother-in-law,” hamotha. 6: “All her mother-in-law bade her,” hamotha. 16: “And when she came to her mother-in-law,” hamotha. This is certainly not the most usual word in Hebrew to express the idea of parent-in-law.

But these instances of its use are too frequent, its declination too varied, and in both genders, to admit the idea that they are the result of error or casualty, although some lexicographers seem to reject it. It may be noticed that the individual holding the junior position was a female—that in each case the parent-in-law was most unquestionably of pure Shemitic race.

But suspicion may at least be allowed to such purity in these young females. Tamar’s husbands were half of Canaanitish blood. It would be expected that she was of that race, but if not, her intermarriage with those sons of Judah placed her in that rank. The sons of Eli were notoriously wicked and licentious, and although the widow of Phinehas appears to have been of a devout cast, yet God had determined to destroy the house of Eli on their account, and to wrest the priesthood from the family. The suspicion as to her race grows out of these facts and the character of her husband. Ruth was declaredly a Moabitess, and Orpah was of that country.

Much might be said in favour of the position that in these cases the parents-in-law on the husband’s side were of pure Shemitic blood, and the reverse as to the daughters-in-law. Now as this peculiar term is nowhere else used in the holy books, are we not to suppose that this peculiar state of facts is nowhere else thus described? In Gen. xviii., when the father-in-law of Moses is named, this term is not used, but the more usual one; and the reason is because the position of the parties is changed. Had the father or mother of Moses been spoken of as the parent-in-law of Zippora, then we may presume this peculiar term would have been used and expressed the fact as to the distinction of races; that he would have been called ?????????amÎha, and she her ?????????amÔtÂ. And we now present the inquiry, how came the name of Ham to be thus compounded and used to express this particular position of relationship and distinction of race, unless from the fact that he had placed his parents in a similar position, liable to have been called by these peculiar terms?

LESSON XVII.

Having thus, at some length, passed these subjects in review, we present our reflections to the impartial mind.

But there are grown up upon this earth some men who would seem to be so holy and pure that even the providences of God are defective in their sight, and by their conduct seem to evince their opinion to be that Jehovah could not well manage the government of the world without their especial counsel and aid. And do such really mean to condemn God, unless his government shall comport with their views? In kindness of heart, and for the benefit of such poor fallen ones, we propose to close this our present Study by reading to them the thirty-third chapter of Ecclesiasticus, omitting the five verses irrelevant to the subject.

“There shall no evil happen unto him that feareth the Lord, but in temptation even again he will deliver him. A wise man hateth not the law; but he that is a hypocrite therein is as a ship in the storm. A man of understanding trusteth in the law; and the law is faithful unto him as an oracle. Prepare what to say, and so thou shalt be heard; and bind up instruction, and then make answer.” “Why doth one day excel another, where as all the light of every day in the year is of the sun? By the knowledge of the Lord they were distinguished: and he altered seasons and feasts. Some of them hath he made high days, and hallowed them, and some of them hath he made ordinary days. And all men are from the ground, and Adam was created of earth. In much knowledge the Lord hath divided them, and made their ways diverse. Some of them hath he blessed and exalted, and some of them hath he sanctified, and set near himself: but some of them hath he cursed and brought low, and turned them out of their places. As the clay is in the potter’s hand, to fashion it at his pleasure, so is man in the hand of him that made him, to render to them as liketh him best. Good is set against evil, and life against death: so is the godly against the sinner, and the sinner against the godly. So look upon all the works of the Most High; and there are two and two, one against another. I awaked up last of all, as one that gathereth after the grape-gatherers; by the blessing of God I profited, and filled my wine-press, like a gatherer of grapes. Consider that I laboured not for myself only, but for all them that seek learning. Hear me, O ye great men of the people, and hearken with your ears, ye rulers of the congregation.” “In all thy works keep to thyself the pre-eminence; leave not a stain on thy honour. At the time when thou shalt end thy days, and finish thy life, distribute thine inheritance. Fodder, a wand and burdens, are for the ass; and bread, correction, and work, for a servant. If thou set thy servant to labour, thou shalt find rest, but if thou let him go idle, he shall seek liberty. A yoke and a collar to bow the neck, so are tortures and torments for an evil servant. Send him to labour, that he be not idle; for idleness teacheth much evil. Set him to work, as is fit for him; if he be not obedient, put on more fetters. But be not excessive toward any, and without discretion do nothing. If thou have a servant, let him be unto thee as thyself, because thou hast bought him with a price. If thou have a servant, entreat him as a brother: for thou hast need of him as thine own soul: if thou entreat him evil, and he run from thee, which way wilt thou go to seek him.”

The doctrine is, that man is not exempt from the general law, that governs the animal world; that among all the animated races upon this earth, certain causes produce deterioration; and that it may take a longer course of time for the restoration of a degenerate race, under the controlling influences of opposite causes, than even that occupied in a downward direction. “Quickly is the descent made to hell; but to recover from the fall, and regain our former standing, is a labour, a task indeed.” Virgil. In short, that sin has a tendency forcing downward to moral and physical ruin; to deteriorate the mental powers, to rot, to blast, as with a mildew, all animal perfections; to fill life with disease and pain, and its hours with misery and wo, and that it never willingly ceases its iron hold until it can shake hands with death. That God, in mercy, by the wisdom of his providence, has contrived as it were a shield, sheltering poor fallen man from the action of such portion of this deadly poison as would have destroyed every hope of intercession, and for ever excluded from our view, perhaps, even the advent of a Saviour. When the patient is dead, the physician is not called. The law which produced the deluge and destruction of the antediluvian world was a law established from all eternity, meet for just such a case as the moral and physical condition of man then was. For the sake of ten, Sodom would not have been destroyed; but it was less than ten for whom the Ark was provided; and we are to remember that quick upon the promise that all flesh were not again to be cast off, the lowest grade of slavery was promulgated, and its subjects ordered into the protection of the master; and may we not hence infer that slavery is intended, to some extent, as a preventive, as a shield against sin? And do we not notice that this shield is more or less weighty, more or less heavy to be borne, as the safety of the individual bearing it may require; and that it is so cunningly contrived, that its weight and burden are diminished in proportion as the danger abates?

“He poureth contempt upon princes, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way; yet setteth he the poor on high from affliction, and maketh him families like a flock. The righteous shall see it and rejoice, and all iniquity shall stop her mouth. Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord.” Ps. cvii. 40–43.

In close, we may everywhere notice that some among the family of man have become so poisoned with sin, so destroyed, that they are no longer safe guardians to themselves, even under the general interdict, that animal wants enslave us all. That for such God provides, as the general safety may seem to require. That, in the history of man, some races have become so deteriorated by a continued action in opposition to the laws of God, that he has seen fit to care for them, by placing them under the control of others; or by placing them, in mercy, under the guidance of a less deteriorated race, whom, no doubt, he holds responsible for the good he intends them. And may we be permitted of the humble Christian to inquire, if this position presents any thing contrary to the general law of benevolence of the Deity,—contrary to the welfare of man on earth, or his hopes of heaven? Will you reject the doctrine, saying the biblical proofs are too scattered, too deeply buried under the dust of time? or, because a prophet has not appeared, or one arisen from the dead? The geologist, from a few fragments of bone, now dug from the deep bowels of the earth, is able to set up the osseous frame, to clothe with muscle and sinew, and give character to the animals of ancient time. And shall it not be recollected by you, who are striving to make your descendants the very princes of intellect and talent, that similar researches may be made in the moral history of man?

We submit the foregoing, confident, although there may be obscurity and darkness yet surrounding the subject, which we have not the ability to dispel, that the time will come, when it will be made plain to the understanding of all. We therefore resign the subject, touching the colour of the descendants of Ham, of their relationship with the family of Cain, and the ordinances of God influencing their condition in the world, to those more learned, more critical, and of more mental power, and into the hands of those whose lips have been touched by a more living coal from the altar of the prophet.