Ham

Ham was one of Noah's three sons who survived the flood aboard the ark. Genesis 10 traces his line through four sons: Cush (Ethiopia and Sudan), Mizraim (Egypt), Put (Libya), and Canaan. These descendants become the most frequently referenced foreign peoples in the Old Testament — Egypt as the place of Israel's bondage and later refuge, Canaan as the land of promise and conflict, and Cush in the prophetic literature.

The episode most attached to Ham is Genesis 9:20–27, where he saw his father Noah drunk and unclothed and reported it to his brothers rather than covering him. His brothers Shem and Japheth walked backward with a garment and covered their father without looking. Noah's subsequent curse fell not on Ham himself but on Ham's son Canaan, whose descendants would serve the lines of Shem and Japheth. The theological weight of this passage has been debated throughout history, but within the narrative it functions as an origin story for the Canaanite peoples whom Israel would later displace.