1 Chronicles 1:8-16

THE SONS OF HAM, THE DARK-SKINNED OR SWARTHY (1 Chronicles 1:8-16).

(8) Cush.—The Greek Meroë, Assyrian Miluhha, or Kûsu, south of Egypt, in our Bibles often called Ethiopia (Isaiah 19:1). The Arabic gives Habesh, i.e., Ethiopia.

Mizraim.—The common Hebrew name of Egypt: strictly, “the two Miçrs”—i.e., Upper and Lower Egypt. But the name should rather be spelt Mizrim—the Egyptians; the form Mizraim being probably a mere fancy of the Jewish punctuators. The Assyrians wrote Muçum, Muçru, Muçur. The Inscription of Darius has Miçir. Maçôr was the name of the wall which protected Egypt on the north-east. Hence it gave its name to the whole of Lower Egypt.—Cush and Muçur are coupled together in the inscriptions of Esarhaddon and his son Assurbanipal.

Put.—Perhaps the Egyptian Punt, on the east coast of Africa. King Darius mentioned Pûta and Kûsu as subject to him (Behist, Inscr.). Comp. Nahum 3:9; Jeremiah 46:9; Ezekiel 30:5. The Arabic has Kibtu, i.e., Coptland.

Canaan.—There are many proofs of an early connection between Egypt and Canaan. The Philistines were colonists from the Delta (1 Chronicles 1:12), and Ramses II. (cir. 1350 or 1450 B.C. ) had wars and made alliance with the Hittites.

(9) Seba.—Capital of Meroë. The other names represent Arabian tribes and their districts.

Sheba.—The famous Sabaeans, whose language, the Himyaritic, has quite recently been deciphered from inscriptions.

(10) Cush begat Nimrod.—Micah (Micah 5:6) speaks of the “land of Nimrod” in connection with the “land of Asshur.” The land of Nimrod is plainly Babylonia; and some have supposed the primitive inhabitants of Babylonia—“the black-headed race” (zalmat qayqadi) as they styled themselves—to have been akin to the peoples of Muçur and Cush. At all events, Cush in this table of races appears as father of a series of mixed populations, ramifying from the north-west of the Persian Gulf in a southernly direction to the coast of Arabia. The Asiatic Cush represents that primitive Elamitic Sumerian race which occupied the north-west and north coast of the Persian Gulf; or rather that portion of it which attained to empire in Babylonia.

The name Nimrod appears to be identical with Merodach, the Accadian Amar-utu, or Amar-utuki, Assyrian Maruduk. Merodach was the tutelar deity of Babylon, as Asshur was of Assyria; and many Babylonian sovereigns bore his name. (Comp. Merodach-baladan, Isaiah 39:1.)

He began to be.—He was the first to become. Tradition made Nimrod the first founder of a great Oriental empire. The statement about his four cities (Genesis 10:10), the first of which was Babel (Babylon), is omitted here.

Mighty.—Literally, a hero, warrior (gibbôr); a title of Merodach.

(11, 12) The names in these verses are all in the masculine plural, and obviously designate nations. Mizraim, the two Egypts, is said to have begotten the chief races inhabiting those regions—a common Oriental metaphor. The Ludim are the Ludu, or Rudu, of the hieroglyphs (Prof. Sayce thinks, the Lydian mercenaries of the Egyptian sovereigns); the Anamim are perhaps the men of An (On, Genesis 41:50), Lehabim, the Lybians. The Naphtuhim seem to get their name from Noph, i.e., Memphis, and the god Ptah. Perhaps, however, the name is to be recognised in the town Napata.

(12) Pathrusim.—The men of the south (Egyptian, pe-ta-res, “the southland”), or Upper Egypt.

Casluhim . . . Caphthorim.—The men of Kaftûra, or the Delta. (See Amos 9:7 : “Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Mizraim? and the Philistines from Caphtor?” and comp. Deuteronomy 2:23.) The Caluhim may have been a leading division of the Caphthorim.