HAM, THEY OF on-p; sept. 'EK 1-1.73v Xfig ; Vulg., De stirpe 'Cham), are mentioned in Chron. iv. 40—in one of those historical frag ments for which the early chapters of these Chron icles are so valuable, as illustrating the private enterprise and valour of certain sections of the Hebrew nation. On the present occasion a con siderable portion of the tribe of Simeon, consisting of thirteen princes and their clansmen, in the reign of Hezekiah, sought to extend their territories (which from the beginning seemed to be too narrow for their numbers) by migrating to the entrance of Gedor even unto the east side of the valley, to seek' pasture for their flocks.' Finding here a quiet, and, as it would seem, a se cure and defenceless population of Hamites (the meaning of Chron. iv. 4o receives illustration from Judg. xviii. 7, 2S) the Simeonites attacked them with a vigour that reminds us of the times of Joshua, and took permanent possession of the district, which was well adapted for pastoral pur poses. The Gedor here mentioned cannot be the Gedor of Josh. xv. 58 [GED0R]. There is strong ground, however, for supposing that it may be the Gederah of ver. 36 [GEDERAH] ; or, if we follow the LXX. rendering, 1-'4,:tpa, and read for nni, it would bc the well-known Gerar. This last would, of course if the name could be relied on, fit extremely well ; in its vicinity the patriarchs of old had sojourned and fed their flocks and herds (see Gen. xx. 14, 15 ; xxvi. 1, 6, 14, and espe cially vers. 17-2o). Bertheau (die B. der Chronik) on this passage, and Ewald (Gesch. des Volkes Israel [ed. 2], i. 322) accept the reading of the LXX., and place the Simeonite conquest in the valley of Gerar (in Williams, Holy City [ed. 2] vol. i. pp. 463-46S, thcre is an interesting note, contributed by the Rev. J. Rowlands, on the Southern Border of Palestine, and containing an account of his discovery of the ancient Gerar [called Khirbet-el Gerar, the ruins of Gemr]; see also, for a confirmation of the ac count,' Van de Velde, Memoir, etc., p. 314). In the determination of the ultimate question, with which this article is concerned, it matters but little which of these two localities we accept as the resi dence of those children of Ham whom the S imeon ites dispossessed. Both are within the precincts of the land of the Philistines : the latter perhaps may be regarded as on the border of the district which we assigned in the p receding article to the Cus/uhim; in either case thgof Ham,' of whom we arc writini", in Chron. iv. 40, must be regarded as descended from Elam through his second son Mizraim.—P. H.
HAM [Ci:1, with He], in Gen. xiv. 5, if a proper name at all, was probably the principal town of a people whose name occurs but once in O. T., the Zzrzims' (as rendered in A. V.) If these were the Zanizummins' of Deut. ii. 20, as has been conjectured by Raschi, Calmct, Patrick, etc., among the older writers ; and Gesenius, Rosen mtiller, Ewald [Volkes Israel, i. 3o8], Delitzsch,
Knobel, and Keil, among the moderns), we have some clue to the site ; for it appears from the entire passage in Deut., that the Zamzummims were the original occupants of the country of the Ammonites. Tuch and others have accordingly supposed that our Ham, where the Zuzints were defeated by Chedorlaomer on his second invasion, was the primitive name of Rabbatlz Ammon, after wards Philadelphth ( Jerome and Euseb., Onomast. s. v. AMMAN), the capital of the Ammonite terri tory. It is still called [the ruins of] 'Amman, La according to Robinson, Researches [ed. ' 1], vol. iii. 168. There is some doubt, however, whether the word in Gen. xiv. 5 be anything more than a pronoun. The Masoretic reading of the clause, indeed, is ana awn-mt, the last word of which is pointed, am (A. V., `'In Hant'), as if there were three battles, and one of them had been fought at a place so called ; and it perhaps makes for this reading that, according to Kennicott, seven Sanzaritan MSS. read arm (with Beth), vtihich can produce no other meaning than hz Ham, or Cham with the aspirate. Yet the other (that is, the pronomina/) reading must have been recog nised in ancient Hebrew MSS. even as early as the time of the LXX. translators, who render the phrase by together with them ;' as if there were but two conflicts, in the former of which the great eastern invader smote the Re phaims in Ashteroth-Karnaim, and the Zuzims [which the LXX. make an appellative—e3m7 ioxupci, strong- nationsl aloe, with them,' as their allies. The following note, Which we extract from St. Jerome's Qucest. Hebr. Opera [ed. Bened. Ven. 1767], iii. (2) 327, proves that the Hebrew 'MSS. extant in his day varied in their readings of this passage : Porro Baem, pro quo LXX. dixerunt abrois, hoc est cum els, putaverunt scribi per HE, ducti elementi similitudine, quum per HETH scrip tum sit. Eaem enim quutn per tres literas scribi tur—si mediam HE habet, interpretatur, in eis si autem HETH, ut in prxsenti locum significat, id est, in Ham' (A. V., Lianz'). St. Jerome here refers to the reading, which punctuates the three letters as if they merely constituted the pro noun ana, together with thenz.' This reading he seems to have preferred, for in his own version [Vulg.] he renders the word, like the LXX. cum cis.' Onkelos, however, regarded the reading evi dently as a proper name, for he has translated it by Nribnz, in Henzta,' and so has the Pseudo Jona than' Targum; while the Jerusalem has limn with them.' Saadias, again has the proper name .
141, (in Hama). Hillerus, whom Rosenmiillcr quotes, identifies this Ham with the famous Am monite capital Rabbak (2 Sam. xi. ; Chron. xx. 1) ; the two names,' he says, are synony mous—Rabbah meaning popu/ous, as in Lament. i. 1, where Jerusalem is 03/-11:1F1, the city [that was] full of people ;' while the more ancient name of the same city, an, has the same signification as the collective word' that is, a mullitzea'e.'— P. H.