Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Chronicles 1.

As I read this genealogy I was reminded of the “curse of Ham”, which Noah supposedly put on the descendants of Ham because Ham had seen him naked and told his brothers.  The “curse of Ham” was used to justify slavery in the antebellum South.  The primary problem with the “curse of Ham” is that Noah only cursed Ham’s son, Canaan (and through Canaan, his descendants), rather than all of Ham’s descendants (and the Africans who were enslaved in the antebellum South were not descendants of Canaan according to any Biblical genealogy).  However, that is not why I was reminded of it.  What struck me is that the descendants sons of Japheth (Magog, Gomer, Javan, Meshek, and Tubal) play a central role as the antagonists to God’s people in the Apocalyptic prophecies of the Bible (Ezekiel, Revelation, Daniel).  So, throughout the history of ancient Israel, their antagonists were descendants of Ham (according to this table of nations), mostly descendants of Canaan.  Yet, in the Apocalyptic prophecies of the Bible, the antagonists to God’s people will be descendants of Japheth.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.