Genesis 9:18

Summary

The verse identifies the sons of Noah who came out of the ark — Shem, Ham, and Japheth — and adds a specific note that Ham was the father of Canaan. The sentence has two parts: a narrative statement listing the sons, followed by a separate clause singling out Ham's relationship to Canaan.

Key words

• va-yihyu ("and they were", H1961) — qal narrative verb form that opens the sentence, typical of Hebrew storytelling sequence ("and it came to pass that...").
• ha-yotze'im ("who came out", H3318G) — qal participle with definite article, functioning as a relative clause modifying "sons of Noah" ("the ones coming out").
• ben / benei ("sons of", H1121A) — construct plural noun, grammatically binding "sons" to "Noah" in a possessive-type relationship.
• hu' ("he", H1931) — independent personal pronoun, used here to add emphasis when reintroducing Ham in the second clause.
• avi ("father of", H0001G) — construct singular noun, linking "father" directly to "Canaan" in a possessive construction.

What the text says

The verse divides into two grammatical units. The first, introduced by the narrative va-yihyu ("and they were", H1961), presents a construct chain: benei-Noach ("sons of Noah", H1121A + H5146), further specified by the participial relative clause ha-yotze'im min-ha-tevah ("who came out from the ark", H3318G + H8392). This construction identifies the three sons — Shem (H8035), Cham (H2526G), and Yafet (H3315) — as a single grammatical unit tied to their emergence from the ark.

The second part of the verse repeats the name Cham (H2526G) and follows it with the independent pronoun hu' ("he", H1931), which in Hebrew syntax adds emphasis or specification to the subject before the predicate. This is followed by the construct pair avi Khena'an ("father of Canaan", H0001G + H3667G), a noun-noun relationship indicating paternity. The repetition of Ham's name and the emphatic pronoun set this second clause apart syntactically from the initial list, marking it as an additional, distinct statement rather than a mere continuation of the sons' enumeration.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text uses the emphatic pronoun hu' ("he", H1931) before avi Khena'an ("father of Canaan"), a construction not distinctly rendered in the Greek (Χάμ ἦν πατὴρ Χανάαν — "Ham was father of Canaan") or the Latin (Cham ipse est pater Chanaan — "Cham himself is the father of Canaan"), though the Vulgate's ipse ("himself") does reflect the emphatic function of the Hebrew pronoun. The English and Spanish translations provided (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) render this simply as a declarative statement without preserving the emphatic pronoun structure visible in the Hebrew.