Sense and Meaning

The words which form the title of this book are frequently spoken by the lead elder in the consistory room prior to the service where he lays the needs of the minister and the congregation before the Lord, and asks if His servant may bring the message according to the “sense and meaning of the Holy Spirit.” This book primarily consists of a practical explanation of biblical exegesis in its object, its concepts, its methods, its practice and its application. A number of examples of difficult exegesis are included which Rev. Moerkerken shows how they can or cannot be explained. One of the questions asked is, “Is it proper to say that the Ethiopian in Acts 8 was cursed because of his black skin?” In view of the increasing tensions in our nations between white citizens and citizens of color, and even wrong conceptions within our own circles, we include this article to provide some instruction to our readers. The following is a translation of pages 149-156 of the above-mentioned book, with permission from the publisher. (Ed.)

In the past, the opinion was sometimes defended that the Ethiopian mentioned in the history of Acts 8 was cursed because of his black skin. Or to say it more accurately, his black skin was a token of the curse which had been placed upon him as a descendant of Ham. We wish to consider this question somewhat more closely. For this we will use Scripture as our guide. He who wishes to examine this subject in more depth will discover that several different questions can be posed. We will name some of them. What does the Bible mean when it speaks of an Ethiopian or of Ethiopia? Also, who was actually cursed by Noah in Genesis 9, and what did he actually mean? Subsequently, did an Ethiopian have black skin? Finally, can the question be asked if Scripture gives grounds to speak of the color of the skin of an Ethiopian as a token of a curse?

In the first place, then, what is the meaning of the biblical words referring to a Moor (Ethiopian in the KJV) or Ethiopia?

The sons of Ham

The name Ethiopia (Morenland in Dutch) is the translation of the Hebrew word Cush in the Statenvertaling. The word appears as the name of a person as well as the name of a people or country. We will pass by Psalm 7:1 where it appears that a man with this name was a hostile courtier in the court of King Saul. The name written there is completely independent. The Cush mentioned in Psalm 7:1 was a Benjamite, and therefore has nothing to do with a Moor, or Ethiopian.

It is different with a man of whom we already read in Genesis 10. There, a certain Cush is mentioned as a son of Ham. Ham, the son of Noah, appears to have had four sons, namely, Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. The oldest, Cush, we will let be for the time being. Concerning Mizraim, this name is the original name for Egypt. We can read of that in Psalm 105 where the psalm is set to melody:

He wholly broke the staff of bread

And called for famine sore,

And He prepared His people’s way

By sending one before.

To Egypt (read as land of Ham) Israel followed then,

And there grew great and strong,

Until their friends became their foes

And did them grievous wrong.

—Psalter 289:8&11

There is not much known about Ham’s son Phut. It is likely that his descendants settled in the delta of the Nile River where it empties into the Mediterranean Sea, therefore in the northern part of Egypt. We still have to consider Canaan, the youngest son of Ham. Genesis 10 speaks quite extensively about Canaan and his children. Eleven sons of Canaan are mentioned in Genesis 10:15-18. In order to answer the questions with which we are presently occupied, it is very important that we realize that these descendants of Canaan (who was explicitly cursed by his grandfather Noah) went to live in the land of Canaan or in the neighborhood thereof. It was precisely these people that Israel was commanded to destroy when they took possession of the land of Canaan. Therefore, Cush is an uncle of Canaan.

The sons of Cush

What do we know about Cush? Six sons are attributed to this son of Canaan (Genesis 10). The most well-known of them is undoubtedly Nimrod, of whom the Bible tells us that he was a mighty hunter before the Lord. The translators of the Dutch Statenvertaling tell us with a bit of irony that he did not only hunt animals but also hunted people. They do not see the words before the Lord as an indication of his fear of the Lord, rather his fearlessness and shamefulness. Subsequently, Seba is also named as a son of Cush and is the father of the later Sabeans. Then Havila is named (which appears earlier in Genesis 2), Sabtâh, Raämah and Sabtechäh.

In a certain sense all of these descendants of Cush can be called Moors. It is good for us to remember this fact. The Hebrew word for Cushite is Cushi. We also know this name from Scripture as the name of an individual. It was the name of the runner who received the command from Joab to notify David of the death of his son Absalom (2 Samuel 18:21). The translators of the Statenvertaling remark about this text that it can also be translated as “Moor” or “Arabian.” Some say, however, that they believe it is a personal name. It is interesting to note that in today’s age the fastest long-distance runners frequently come from Ethiopia.

Cush as the name of a country

In other places in the Old Testament, Cush is used as the name of a country, but which country? There, the meanings vary somewhat. When considering this, the Ethiopian spoken of in Acts 8 comes to the foreground. The Greek text calls him an Aithiops. This of course makes us think of Ethiopia, but the Ethiopia of biblical times is not the same Ethiopia as we see depicted in our World Atlas of today. Present Ethiopia lies far southeast of the biblical land of the Moors. The biblical land of Cush encompassed what we today recognize as Nubia, the northern part of the country of Sudan. It bordered on Egypt as can be noted in Ezekiel 29:10. It is also mentioned in one breath with Egypt in the Old Testament. Just think of Psalm 68:31, “Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.”

When we speak of Cush as the country of the Moors, we must realize two things. In the first place, it is not the same country as today’s Ethiopia; in the second place, there are also reasons to consider that the Bible speaks of a country of the Moors in Arabia. The writers of the marginal notes of the Statenvertaling have acknowledged this problem. We can realize this, for example, we read of Zipporah, the wife of Moses. She is called an Ethiopian (Cushite) in Numbers 12:1. Marginal note 2 on this text remarks that Moses’ wife was not a descendant of the Cushites which descended from Ham but from the Midianites, therefore from the line of Shem! I cite as follows: “It appears that the Holy Scriptures with the name Cushites does not only include the Moors but also Egyptians, Arabians, Midianites, and people who lived toward the south.” In marginal note 21 attached to Genesis 10:6, we read something similar, “Of this Cush are the Arabians and the Moors.” With the first instance of the country of Cush mentioned in the Bible, namely, with the description of the four rivers in Paradise (Genesis 2:13), the writers of the marginal notes are of the same opinion. In a book from the eighteenth century, Bijbels Zakelijk Woordenboek (Concise Biblical Dictionary) by Rev. J.G. Staringh, who was a minister in the Dutch City of Gouderak for sixty years, an interesting observation is made. He writes that according to his impression, the reason that Ethiopia was also called Cush is because a few descendants of Cush who originally lived in Arabia found that land too barren and had settled in Ethiopia by way of Egypt.

We must therefore bear in mind that the Moors (the descendants of Cush) have not lived only in Africa. If we return for a moment to the six sons of Cush, then we will see that Nimrod began to live in the neighborhood of the later Nineveh (Assyria) in present day Iraq. We would not expect to find a “Moor” there. Seba apparently settled on the western coast of the Red Sea in the eastern part of Egypt. Havila is likely the site of an area in the center of Saudi Arabia. Sabra would have lived somewhat to the south of Havila. Raämah lived to the west of this area, and it is difficult to place Sabtechä. It is clear that of the four sons of Ham, only two have settled in Africa (Phut and Cush), and that most of the descendants of Cush have never lived in Africa (actually only Seba) but in Asia. The remark in marginal note 20 on Genesis 10 is therefore quite correct, namely, that the descendants of Ham partly lived in Asia, and partly in Africa, and some of them for a time in Palestine.

Who and what has Noah meant with his curse?

We come to the next question. Who was actually cursed by Noah in Genesis 9? We know the sad history of the drunkenness of God’s child, his lying naked in his tent, and the mockery of his son Ham. When Noah awakens and becomes aware of what his son has done, he utters the following words, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren.” It is immediately apparent that Noah cursed Canaan and not Ham whom we would have expected. It is often noted that Canaan, the grandson of Noah, was of the same mindset as his father Ham. That is quite likely. Yet, the arrow lies somewhat further. It is documented in Scripture that the most painful way to be stricken is to be stricken in our descendants. We do not need to provide proof texts for this as every regular reader of the Bible will know them. The writers of the marginal note for Genesis 10:25 correctly remark that Noah with his curse did not only direct it to the son (Canaan) but also to Ham and the descendants of the son. Here, we are faced with something very essential. Who were the descendants of Canaan? We just saw that they were the people who ages later had to be destroyed by the Israelites when they took possession of the land of Canaan. It must have been very poignant for Moses, the writer of the book of Genesis, to pen this judgment against Canaan long before the strife against the Canaanites began. We asked the question, who was meant with Noah’s curse? Another question that comes to mind is, what did Noah mean with his curse? “A servant of servants shall he (Canaan) be to his brethren!”

The expression “servant of servants” is a typical Hebrew expression and points to the most severe form of slavery. Now we cannot deny that the heathen nations which had come forth out of Canaan, and who had lived in Palestine, had been subjugated for a long time by the descendants of the brothers of Canaan (now taken literally), namely, Cush, Phut, and Mizraim. Especially these three had the rule for centuries around the area of the Mediterranean Sea. Noah, therefore, could have literally meant that the children of Canaan would be under the subjection to the brothers of Canaan.

In the light of what we have so far found in God’s Word, it would not be tenable that Noah’s words meant that all of the black people from Africa would be kept in an oppressive position under the yoke of white people for ages. Furthermore, the thought that his words would be a justification for the horrors of slave trade and slavery is plainly condemnable. The truth demands us to admit that among us in the past this subject was spoken about in an unbiblical manner. Also among us black people were spoken about in a derogatory manner. We should pay attention to the fact that in different places the Bible speaks very positively about the black Ethiopian. Just think of Psalm 87, Jeremiah 38 (the Ethiopian Ebed-Melech who took Jeremiah up out of the pit) and, of course, the Ethiopian in Acts 8. He who will still have a good word about the earlier slave trade would do well to absorb himself in the autobiography of the sixteenth-century minister and poet, John Newton, who in his younger days had been a slave trader. We also must not forget that the Apostle Paul was born in the eastern part of what we know today as Turkey and that Augustine was a North African.

A black skin?

We now wish to consider whether the Ethiopian, as God’s Word speaks about him, had a black skin. That depends on what mankind considers to be black. What we would today call a Negro is a name or color which we reserve for the people who live in the central part of Africa, to the south of the Sahara Desert. The Ethiopian did not come from that area. It is possible that Simon, the minister of the Christian congregation in Antioch (Acts 13:1), was a black or a Negro because he had the surname of Niger, but that is only a guess. If we would assume that the Ethiopian of whom we read in Acts 8 had the same skin color as the people who live in the area from where he came, then we certainly would not visualize him as a white person but also not as a black person. He would have had a dark brown skin.

That brings us to the last part of this question. Is it true that Scripture gives us any grounds for the thought that the color of the skin of the Ethiopian can be seen as a token of the curse spoken by Noah? To speak of it even more forcefully, can someone solely and alone be considered a cursed one because of the color of his skin? We do not find proof for that anywhere in Scripture, not even in Jeremiah 13:23, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.” These words should not be considered as having to do with a black skin as a token of a sinful nature—but of the absolute impossibility to leave sin behind (see marginal note 44). God’s Word teaches us that we all lie under the ravages of sin—not because of Ham or Canaan, and not because of the color of our skin, but we lie under the curse of God’s law because of Adam’s breaking of the covenant in Paradise. The Ethiopian lay under this curse as a child of Ham, but also Philip as a child of Shem who could bring the eunuch the gospel of salvation. All the children of Japheth also lie under this curse.

God’s Word teaches us that he who may be in Christ is released from the curse. It may be asked of what curse? If we are a carrier of the curse of Noah, then also we may be released from this curse but, above all, from the curse of the law. The question as to what color of skin we will have had here upon earth shall pale in the light of another question, namely, will we wear that white wedding garment of Christ’s righteousness? Or will we wear the garment of eternal sorrow?

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