Response to Blaming Ham (for the Nephilim)

by Jon H Benson
(Whitehall, PA USA)

Someone responded recently to something I'd written about the Nephilim, inasmuch as I'd mentioned Ham's children as the source of the POST flood advent of the Nephilim. Also called into question was my referring to Ham as "cursed."

Certainly the Bible says, cursed be Cannan, who was the son of Ham. This is spoken in Gen. 9:25, and immediately follows "And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him" (v. 24). So, though Ham is not NAMED in the curse, he is still the one that will suffer from it, knowing the future that will overtake his son Canaan.

This is often how curses unfold in the Bible. (Adam's children, even down to us, paid the penalty for his sins, David's sons paid the price for his sins. NT Israel , at Jesus crucifixion said, let his blood be on us and our children.) So, it would seem cursing someone's children, is also a curse on the parent. At least I know I would feel cursed, if suffering fell on my children for something I did.

In any case, in responding to these statements, there was not enough space allowed in comments section to give the answers that they really deserved. So, this is an expansion of the comments that I left there. Hopefully this will help to make clearer what I was trying to say. I apologize if I am, inadvertently offending anyone.



The Bible certainly records God cursing many people. Cain was cursed by God, Ham was cursed by Noah, (inasmuch as his descendants would always be subject to his brothers.) God even cursed the Israelites, as He promised He would if they abandoned His ways. Jesus cursed the fig tree as a metaphor for the curse that would come upon the Jewish nation for their rejection of the Messiah. Jesus' list of "woes" in the NT can be seen as a list of curses as well.

So, you can't say that God doesn't curse people, because that is taking AWAY from what is in the Bible. But, God's cursings have always been of a nature to try to lead the errant back to obedience, that they would repent and return to Him. And while God may have cursed men, or families or even nations, He has always recognized that even amidst the most pagan of peoples, there would be some that would seek to obey Him.

Hence we find Melchizedek, a high priest in Canaan, with no familial connection to the chosen family of Abraham. Moses finds the Midianite children of Abraham (by Keturah, after the death of Sarah, Gen. 25:1-6), in the desert and takes a wife from them. Rahab at Jericho shelters the Israelite spies, Naaman, a pagan, is the only person in Israel healed of leprosy during the time of Elisha, Ruth, a Moabitess, is a member of the lineage that would eventually produce the Messiah.

In the NT it is a Roman centurion about whom Jesus says that in all Israel, no one has the faith that he does. And Paul is sent to the Gentiles, because God's own chosen people have rejected His offering of Christ for their sins, bringing on themselves the results of His warning in Daniel, that they had 490 years to return to Him and accept His Messiah, Jesus, when He appears. And even though the NATION of Israel fell under the curse, the individual Jews who believed on Jesus were spared the horrors that fell upon the nation as a whole. And while the political and geographic nation of Israel may have fallen, the spiritual nation of Israel never has.

The fact is, we, ALL of us, are under the curses God placed on us in Eden for OUR sake (Gen 3:17). And yet, even in Eden, God gave us the assurance that we could overcome the curse of our inherent sinful nature, by obedience to Him, through the Spirit (Gen. 3:15)

Also, for the record, I wasn't "blaming" Ham for the post flood Nephilim. But it was Ham's descendants who would fall fastest and farthest away from God, just as it was Cain's descendants who would fall away pre-flood. And it was from those who fell into unrighteousness that the RIGHTEOUS began taking wives for themselves, against GOD's better judgment. Hence, if I am "blaming" anyone, I am blaming the righteous sons of Noah and Adam, who who gave their "less corrupted" genes to nations unprepared to handle the resulting offspring, and who turned those offspring into "gods" because of their superior physical and intellectual traits.

As to "why would the Most High allow his people to become a nation in the Land of Ham -- Egypt -- if Ham is responsible for 'Nephilim'?" Israel was meant to be the earthly example of God's heavenly kingdom. The reason they "sinned , in that they demanded a king" is because it was intended by God that HE would be their king. They were meant to be a peculiar people, that is, an uncommon people, a nation of priests. They were meant to lead the world out of sin, and back to God. So, God raised them up amidst, yes, a thoroughly pagan people, but also in a land (or lands, Egypt, Canaan or Babylon or wherever) where they would be in close contact with those people who needed them the most, and who, at the time, were the "cradle of civilization".

While God intended that they should keep themselves pure, avoiding idolatry, and the lusts of the flesh that accompanied it etc, they were never intended to isolate themselves from the world. They were never supposed to look upon the Gentiles as undeserving of the love of God. In fact, the various dispersions they suffered, would be the very means of spreading the Christian message in the early church, as even Paul went to the exiled Jewish communities first, even after becoming the "apostle to the Gentiles."

Even as God destroyed the Tower of Babel, so that men would not cling together but spread out across the earth, He also destroyed the "Babel" of the Jewish state, that they would spread His Word across the earth. And whereas He confounded the language at Babel, to cause confusion and separation, after His ascension, He gave the gift of tongues, to drive out confusion, and to unite His children once again.