Genesis 10

The history of Noah is now closed, in the customary form of the fifth chapter. This marks a connection between the third and fourth documents, and points to one hand as the composer, or at least compiler, of both. The document now closed could not have had the last paragraph appended to it till after the death of Noah. But, with the exception of these two verses, it might have been composed hundreds of years before. This strongly favors the notion of a constant continuator, or, at all events, continuation of the sacred history. Every new prophet and inspired writer whom God raised up added the necessary portion and made the necessary insertions in the sacred record. And hence the Word of God had a progressive growth and adaptation to the successive ages of the church. The present document stands between the old world and the new. Hence it has a double character, being the close of the antediluvian history, and the introduction to that of the postdiluvian race. It records a great event, pregnant with warning to all future generations of men. And it notes the delegation, by God to man, of authority to punish the murderer by death, and therefore to enforce all the minor sanctions of law for breaches of the civil compact. It therefore points out the institution of civil government as coming from God, and clearly exhibits the accountability of all governments to God for all the powers they hold, and for the mode in which they are exercised. This also is a great historical lesson for all ages. M.

1. Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood. 2 The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah. And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. Of these were the isles of the nations divided in their lands, every one after his tongue; after their families, in their nations. 6 And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Put, and Canaan. And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabteca: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan. And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land he went forth into Assyria, and builded Nineveh, and Rehoboth-Ir, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah (the same is the great city).

13. And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, and Pathrusim, and 14 Casluhim (whence went forth the Philistines), and Caphtorim.

15. And Canaan begat Zidon his firstborn, and Heth; and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and 16 the Girgashite; and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite; and the Arvadite, and the 17 Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanite spread 18 abroad. And the border of the Canaanite was from Zidon, as thou goest toward Gerar, unto 19 Gaza; as thou goest toward Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, unto Lasha. 20 These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, in their nations.

21. And unto Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, to him 22 also were children born. The sons of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arpachshad, and Lud, 23 and Aram. And the sons of Aram; Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash. And Arpachshad 24 begat Shelah; and Shelah begat Eber. And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of the 25 one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided: and his brother’s name was Joktan. 26 And Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazaraveth, and Jerah; and Hadoram, and 27 Uzal, and Diklah; and Obal, and Abimael, and Sheba; and Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab; 28 all these were the sons of Joktan. And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest toward 29 Sephar, the mountain of the east. 30 These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after 31 their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.

32. These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and of these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.

The tenth chapter of Genesis has furnished the basis of a vast amount of investigation and called forth a singular amount of admiration, being, in Bunsen’s language, “the most learned of all ancient documents, and the most ancient among the learned;” or, as Johannes Von Müller puts it, “history has its beginning in this table.” S. C. B.

The tenth chapter of Genesis is the most re- markable historical document in existence; re- markable, because associated with facts in the past which have been established, and with facts in the future which could only be known to one supernaturally instructed. No page of history can be made parallel with it. The records of succeeding centuries confirm it, and the present condition of the world is its commentary. W. Fraser.—The evident purpose of this chapter is to present in an ethnographic chart the illus- tration of the outworking of God’s providence in the fulfilment of the prophecy to Noah. And it furnishes another strong proof in confirma- tion of the superhuman character of this his- tory, that it thus so boldly ventures upon such a detail of facts, which historical science may put rigidly to the test. Bishop Butler well re- marks in the analogy (pt. 2, chap 7) how the historic character of these sacred records, and especially the great length of time which they cover, and the great extent and variety of sub- jects whereof they treat, gives the largest scope for criticism, and if the narrative be not true this should render the task of confuting it very easy. Can any man believe that if such a his- tory, dealing with the affairs of all the greatest nations of antiquity, were a fictitious narrative- modern historical science, with its searching methods and its exact and extended knowledge, would not long since have completely overthrown the historical authority of the sacred volume? But what is remarkable of modern historical inquiry is that as it has found histories and monuments long buried and unlocked the stores to increase in extent and exactness the knowl- edge of primeval times—instead of contradic- tion, all harmonizes with and confirms this chart as valid historical statement. We have seen how the narrative of Eden and the fall of man, and also the subsequent destruction of the flood, have been attested by all the traditions of the nations and ages. Now we approach the era when scientific history may delve out from the ruins of the ancient ages at least sufficient facts to test the only historic narrative in exist- ence of the first thousand years after the flood. This book volunteers a general statement of the repeopling of the earth. The first feature of the statement is that it enumerates the nations under three heads—the sons of Japheth, the sons of Ham and the sons of Shem. Now the most advanced modern ethnological science having set itself by a careful analysis of facts to establish a classification of races, has formed a precisely similar triple division of mankind into the Semitic, the Aryan and the Turanian, or “Allophylian.” And when we proceed to examine the groups into which this 10th of Genesis has thrown the races, we find a most re- markable agreement with the conclusions to which ethnological science has come from a consideration, independent of the Bible history, of the facts of human language and physical type. Prichard and Bunsen and Max Müller, Rawlinson and Wilkinson but indorse the older learning and diligence, in another line of inquiry, as pursued in the methods of Bales, of Faber, of Buchart, of Leclerc, of Sir William Jones, who before them had labored so successfully in these inquiries, and the results of whose conclusions corroborated this general statement in Genesis 10th. S. R.

Whether Chaldean or Phoenician, Egyptian or Arabian, Greek or Roman, Mongol or Tartar, Indo-Germanic, Celtic, Belgic or Briton—all find the germ of their nationality in this wonderful chapter, and all concur to swell and substantiate the proof that the human race sprang from Noah and that we have no occasion to look for pre-Adamic men or for tribes that escaped the flood and have no pedigree among the sons of Noah. All the light that comes up from the comparative study of the languages of the race helps us still to follow the track of the emigrating tribes as they diverged from the ancient home of Noah’s family. The Science of Ethnography begins with this chapter of inspiration. H. C.

The Scriptural ethnography which divides the human family into three great families, the Semitic, Japhetan, and Hamite, is confirmed from so many sources, from tradition, from monuments, from names of tribes and places, from affinities of language, from profane history, that its correctness, apart from all reference to the divine authority of the Bible, cannot be reasonably questioned. B. & F. Ec. Rev.—What could be more fitting than to recognize in this narrative the account of the division of Central Asiatic mankind into those three great world-historical races, which form in themselves a unity, and to which we are now in a position to trace back all the peoples of Asia and Europe known to us by their speech? Research respecting these three races, the Turanians, the Semites, and the Aryans, leads us to a great common centre—the district bounded by the mountains of Central Asia—the Caucasus, Ararat and the Altai. Bunsen.

According to the Scriptures, the terrestrial Paradise, the birthplace of the human race, was located on the high table-lands of Central Asia, affording an outflow to the four great rivers named in Genesis. From this centre, the fountain of populations, the nations of the Old World whose history is recorded in the Bible, flowed down toward the south along the channels of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and westward toward Palestine, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Europe. In this way the unity of the race is maintained, all the modern peoples being derived from a common centre, and connected by intimate ties of blood and language plainly legible after so many ages of separation from the original root. D. Sherman.

The fifth document (chaps. 10 :—11 : 9) relates to the generations of the sons of Noah. It presents first a genealogy of the nations, and then an account of the distribution of mankind into nations, and their dispersion over the earth. This is the last section which treats historically of the whole human race. Only in incidental, didactic, or prophetic passages do we again meet with mankind as a whole in the Old Testament. The present chapter signalizes a new step in the development of the human race. They pass from the one family to the seventy nations. This great process covers the space of time from Noah to Abraham. During this period the race was rapidly increasing under the covenant made with Noah. M.

I. The ethnological table, to which the first verse forms, as it were, the general title, is immediately connected with the genealogical table of chap. v. It gives us the only true and certain basis for the history of the most ancient nations, and of the gradual spread of the posterity of Noah in segregated races over the countries of the globe. The stronger the light which, in these modern days, has been cast upon the study of countries, nations, and languages, the more have the notices in this and the following chapters been confirmed, as historically and geographically true. C. G. B.

This genealogical table shows us the connection and the severance of the nations of the old world, according to their position toward the history of the kingdom of God. Those nations which had most influence on it in its course are minutely reckoned up; others, which had but a remote connection therewith, are scarcely touched on. Gerl.—No ethnology in his period, no history, no philology, could have taught that to Moses; but now the historian, helped by all the monuments of Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and Palestine, and the philologist and the ethnologist all agree, after their marvellous researches in this century, that the tenth chapter of Genesis exactly describes the distribution of the race. Where did Moses get these chapters from? He did not get them from science. He got them from God! Crosby.

Sons of Noah. The descent of all mankind from Noah is, of course, a renewed testimony by Scripture to the unity of the human race—a doctrine so intimately connected with the Divine plan of Redemption, and so vital to the brotherhood and mutual sympathy of man with man. Geikie.

The earth was again peopled by the descendants of the three sons of Noah—Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Shem is the Assyrian Samu, “alive e dored,” Ham is Khammu, “burned black,” and Japheth Ippat, “the white race.” The tribes and races which drew their origin from them are here enumerated. The arrangement of this chapter, however, is geographical, not ethnological; the peoples named in it being grouped together according to their geographical position, not according to their relationship in blood or language. Hence it is that the non-Semitic Elamites are classed along with the Semitic Assyrians, and that the Phoenicians of Canaan, who spoke the same language as the Hebrews, and originally came from the same ancestors, are associated with the Egyptians. When this fact is recognized, there is no difficulty in showing that the statements of the chapter are fully consistent with the conclusions of modern research. Sayce.

1. The territories of JAPHETH lie chiefly on the coasts of the Mediterranean, in Europe and Asia Minor, “the isles of the Gentiles,” but they also reach across Armenia and along the north-eastern edge of the Tigris and Euphrates valley, over Media and Persia. The race spread westward and northward over Europe, and at the other end as far as India, embracing the great Indo-European family of languages. This wide diffusion was prophetically indicated by the very name, Japheth (enlarged), and by the blessing of his father Noah. In Greek mythology the Titian JAPETUS is the progenitor of the human race, and Milton has not scrupled to call his son Prometheus “Japheth’s wiser son.”

2. The race of SHEM occupied the south-western corner of Asia, including the peninsula of Arabia. Of his five sons, Arphaxad is the progenitor both of the Hebrews and of the Arabs and other kindred tribes, whose origin is recorded in the Book of Genesis. North of them were the children of Aram (which signifies high), in the highlands of Syria and Mesopotamia. Asebur evidently represents Assyria; and the eastern and western extremities were occupied by the well-known nations of the Elymaans (children of Elam) on the south-eastern margin of the valley of the Tigris, and the Lydians (children of Lud) in Asia Minor.

3. The race of HAM (the swarthy, according to the most probable etymology) presents very difficult but interesting problems. Their chief seat was in Africa, but they are also found mingled with the Semitic races on the shores of Arabia, and on the Tigris and Euphrates, while on the north they extended into Palestine (the land of the Philistines), Asia Minor, and the larger islands, as Crete and Cyprus. In Africa, Mizraim is most certainly identified with Egypt; Cush with Ethiopia, above Egypt; and Phut probably with the inland peoples to the west. Among the sons of Mizraim, the Lubim correspond to Libya; and those of Cush represent tribes which crossed the Red Sea and spread along the southern and eastern shores of Arabia, up the Persian Gulf and the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. P. S.

The intimations given in the earlier chapters of Genesis on all matters of purely secular interest, are incidental only, and exceedingly obscure. And yet enough is said to indicate how much there lay beyond and outside of the narrative which is given. The dividing of the tribes of the Gentiles among the descendants of Japheth, conveys the idea of movements and operations which probably occupied long intervals of time, and many generations of men. The genealogy of Shem neither does, nor professes to do, more than to trace the order of succession among a few families only out of the millions then already existing in the world. Argyll.

We have in our museums, inscribed on cylinders and tablets of clay, the literature of the nations who of old inhabited these ancient lands. We also possess translations of writings in the language of Accad (G. 10:10), made when that town was passing out of memory for the libraries of Assyrian kings, and which, even in this form, are themselves anterior to the Christian era by six or seven centuries. These writings are childishly polytheistic and full of fable, but it is remarkable that they cover much the same ground as the earlier narratives of Genesis. R. P. S.—Traditions, legends, and historic annals have been exhumed illustrating, in a most remarkable manner, not merely those portions of Scripture in which the wars of the Assyrian and Babylonian kings are chronicled, but, strange to say, the very earliest narratives in the book of Genesis. Inscribed tablets, which have lain buried for two thousand five hundred years beneath desolate mounds on the plains of Assyria and Babylonia, contain, in a language until very recently unknown to scholars, accounts in some points substantially identical with the Mosaic narrative of the creation, the fall, and the deluge. The Bible represents those great plains as the home of our first parents, the site of Eden, the scene of the deluge and of the confusion of tongues, the birthplace of Israel, the centre from which the human race was dispersed, and the common nucleus of those mighty empires which for ages ruled the destinies of the world—Chaldea, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, and Persia. The Record chambers of Nineveh, recently discovered, have supplied documents which confirm the Biblical annals. J. L. P.—The historical records and public documents of the Assyrians were kept on tablets and cylinders of baked clay. To the height of a foot or more from the floor these chambers were entirely filled with them; some entire, but the greater part broken. The largest tablets were flat and measured about 9 inches by 6½; the smaller were slightly convex. Loyard.

Men have been enabled not only to find out the meaning of the remarkable cuneiform character, but also to bring out from its grave a language—nay, two, three languages—that were altogether dead, of which not one single word or syllable was known to us before; and now those languages have their grammars and their dictionaries and their reading-books, and we can study them in our homes as we can study Hebrew or Greek. There is the Assyrian language especially, of which there is now found an immense literature, the literature especially of the kings of Assyria, a language which is the old parent of the Hebrew—the Sanscrit, so to speak, of the Semitic dialects; and there is the Akkad language, as it is called, or one of the Turanian stock, belonging to Southern Babylonia; and then, also, there is the Median language; and these three languages, that thirty years ago were not known to exist, have now their full development in grammar and dictionary. In these remarkable remains have been found the tablets written with the cuneiform character by kings some of whom reigned 2000 years before Christ, in the time of Abraham and before him; and in some of these tablets we have long and particular records of all the events of their reigns; and it is interesting for us, in examining these records, to find at times the mention of Palestine and the kings with whose names we are so familiar in Holy Writ. Crosby.

This history is, moreover, corroborated by contemporary writers of other nations, as far as they touch upon the same times and places. It has been, and is still, receiving striking and frequent confirmation of its statements from the undoubted monuments of the past, from the stamps on the bricks of Babylon, the arrowheads on the tablets of Nineveh, the hieratic writings on the papyri of Egypt, and the inscriptions on the stones of Persia, Media and Palestine. It is more remarkable still that the sacred history of the Bible is the most trustworthy source to which antiquarians can resort for substantial aid in the decipherment of inscriptions and the identification of places coming within the range of its records. Hence, it appears that this history is not only true in itself, but at the same time detects and corrects history in other documents bearing upon the same events. M.

If we trace back the thread of human history, we have modern Europe, the Middle Ages, the Goths, Vandals, and Huns, Rome. We can follow the Roman history to seven hundred and fifty years before Christ. Before the Romans were the Greeks. We can trace them back through Demosthenes, Thucydides, Herodotus, Homer. Solon was about 600 B.C.; Lycurgus about 900 B.C. Back of that we place the Trojan war, about 1200 B.C., the Lycians, the Lydians, the Carians, etc.; and there, excluding certain confused ideas of Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Etruscan, and Phoenician history, one thread was lost, excepting the earlier Hebrew chronicles, written about 1500 B.C. But modern research has laid bare the Egyptian and Mesopotamian annals, and we know now more of the daily life of the Memphian and Theban monarchies than we do of the Romans before the Punic wars. The long-sealed records of ancient Babylonia, India, Phoenicia, Palestine, Persia and Moab have also been more or less illustrated by archaeological inquiry. Southall.

To take THE NAMES OCCURRING IN THE TABLE OF NATIONS as applying merely to single individuals or to founders of tribes, is to misunderstand the eastern mode both of viewing and of writing history. They chiefly refer to groups of nations, the later name of a nation being transferred to its ancestor, as according to oriental ideas a tribe and its founder are in reality one. Besides in many cases the same name applies both to the land and its inhabitants. Thus the names Canaan, Aram, etc., were in the first place transferred from the country to the nation and then from the latter to its founder, who represented the nation in its totality and unity. When the personal name of the founder of a tribe was not preserved by the remembrance of events connected with him, it gradually sank into oblivion, and the name of the nation took the place of that of its founder. K.

There is a most remarkable agreement between the actual arrangement here made and the conclusions to which the theoretic reasoning of modern ethnologists have come, from the facts of human language and of physical type. Thus this chapter has classified together of the sons of Japheth—the Cynry or Celts (Gomer), the Medes (Madai), and the Ionians or Greeks (Javan); and thus has actually anticipated what is known in modern times as the “Indo-European theory” of the essential unity of the Aryan (Asiatic) races with the principal races of Europe—the Celts and the Ionians. So in this chapter are thrown together as the “children of Shem” the Assyrians (Asshur), the Syrians (Aram), the Hebrews (Eber), and the Joktanian Arabs (Joktan), the four principal races which modern ethnology recognizes under the heading of the “Semitic” races. So again under “the children of Ham” this tenth chapter arranges Cush, the Ethiopians, Mizraim, the Egyptians, Sheba and Dedan, the Southern Arabians, and Nimrod, an ancient people of Babylon. And, accordingly, between these four races the latest linguistic researches have established the closest affinity. Indeed, the whole tendency of modern ethnological inquiry has been to put almost beyond question the accuracy of this “Book of the Generations of Noah,” and to create a feeling among the true scientific ethnologists, well expressed by Sir Henry Rawlinson in saying, “It is the most authentic record we possess for the affiliation of nations.” And, as even the rationalistic Kalisch, the recent German commentator, says, “It is an unparalleled list, the combined result of reflection and deep research, and no less valuable as a historical document than as a lasting proof of the brilliant capacity of the Hebrew mind.” Any one who will carefully study the essay of Sir Henry Rawlinson “On the ethnic affinities of the nations of Western Asia” (Rawlinson’s Herodotus, vol. 1st, appendix essay 11th) will find this whole subject treated in a most masterly and comprehensive manner, and will see how remarkably modern investigations confirm the ancient ethnographic chart. S. R.

Is it not very significant to find the descendants of Japheth, Ham, and Shem, separately described as peopling the earth “after their families and after their tongues”? From these families, it would seem, have all the languages in the world been gradually evolved; and is it not perfectly consistent with this Bible statement to find eminent philologists of all ranks concurring in the conclusion, that the languages and dialects of the world are reducible to three distinct families or groups—the Aryan, the Semitic, and Turanian? “Comparative Philology,” says Bunsen, “would have been compelled to set forth as a postulate the supposition of some such division of languages in Asia, especially on the ground of the relation of the Egyptian language to the Shemitic, even if the Bible had not assured us of the truth of this great historical event. It is matter of astonishment: it is more than a mere astounding fact, that something so purely historical, and yet divinely fixed—something so conformable to reason, and yet not to be conceived of as a mere natural development—is here related to us out of the oldest primeval period; and which now, for the first time, through the new science of philology, has become capable of being historically and philosophically explained.” W. Fraser.—Two points Comparative Philology has gained. 1. Nothing necessitates the admission of different independent beginnings for the material elements of the Turanian, Semitic, and Aryan branches of speech: nay, it is possible even now to point out radicals, which, under various changes and disguises, have been current in these three branches ever since their first separation. 2. Nothing necessitates the admission of different beginnings for the formal elements of the Turanian, Semitic, and Aryan branches of speech; and though it is impossible to derive the Aryan system of grammar from the Semitic, or the Semitic from the Turanian, we can perfectly understand how, either through individual influences, or by the wear and tear of grammar in its own continuous working, the different systems of grammar of Asia and Europe may have been produced. Max Müller.—Although it may not be possible simply to assign all Semitic tongues to the descendants of Shem, Aryan to the descendants of Japheth, and Turanian to the descendants of Ham; it is still observable that comparative philology seems to have reduced all languages to three distinct stocks, even the rapid degeneracy of barbarian dialects not wholly obscuring their relationship to one of these three families. I. H. B.

2-5. The Sons of Japheth. Fourteen of the primitive nations spring from Japheth. We discover their ancient seats around the Caspian, the Euxine, the Ægean, and the north of the Mediterranean. From these coast-lands they seem to have spread over Europe, northern, western, and southern Asia, and, both by Behring’s Strait and the Atlantic, they at length poured into America. So true is it that Japheth was enlarged, and that by them were “the isles of the nations divided.” M.

2. The Assyrian inscriptions have thrown a good deal of light upon the names contained in it. Gomer, the son of Japheth, represents the Gimirrai of the inscriptions, the Kimmerians of classical writers. Madai are the Medes, a title given by the Assyrians to the multifarious tribes to the east of Kurdistan. They are first mentioned in the inscriptions about 820 B.C. Javan is the Greek word “Ionian,” but in the Old Testament it is generally applied to the Island of Cyprus. Sayce.

4. Tarshish is doubtless the famous Phoenician port in Spain, outside the Strait of Gibraltar, between the two mouths of the Guadalquivir, or “great river.” It was famous from the earliest antiquity for the abundance of silver and other metals yielded by its mines; and no less for its corn. Already in the time of Solomon, a thousand years before Christ, the huge vessels which sailed to it were known as Tarshish ships, as in later days we spoke of “Indiamen,” and the name even came to be applied to any very large merchantmen, to whatever port they sailed.

By KITTIM or CHITTIM, the next in the list of the “sons” of Javan, that is of the offshoots of the Greek stem, a people is indicated whose country is described as an island or coast land. The “islands of Chittim” are, indeed, frequently mentioned in Scripture. Josephus, in the generation after Christ, had already identified the name with that of Cyprus. Geikie.

5. Isles of the nations. The word here rendered isle is used either of islands or of places on the sea-coast. By the phrase “Isles of the Gentiles” were understood those countries of Europe and Asia Minor to which the inhabitants of Egypt and Palestine had access only by sea. E. H. B.

“There was a time,” says Max Müller, “when the ancestors of the Celts, the Germans, the Selaves, the Greeks and Italians, the Persians and the Hindoos were living together beneath the same roof, separated from the Semitic and Turanian races.” And again: “There is not an English jury nowadays which, after examining the hoary documents of language, would reject the claim of a common descent and a legitimate relationship between Hindoo, Greek, and Teuton.” Ethnological science, we see, regards it as morally certain, as proved beyond all reasonable doubt, that the chief races of modern Europe, the Celts, the Germans, the Graeco-Italians, and the Selaves, had a common origin with the principal race of Western Asia, the Indo-Persian. Now this result of advanced modern inductive science—a result which it is one of the proudest boasts of the nineteenth century to have arrived at—is almost exactly that which Moses, writing fifteen hundred years before the

Christian era, here states as a simple historical fact. G. R.

6. The sons of Ham. Thirty primitive nations sprang from Ham. Of these, only four were immediate descendants. Cush has left traces of his name perhaps in the Caucasus, the Caspian, and Chuzistan. To Ethiopia the name generally refers in Scripture. Mizraim is the ordinary name for Egypt in the Hebrew scriptures. Put has with one consent been placed beyond Egypt, in the north of the continent of Africa. Canaan settled in the country called after his name. M.

6-20. It is the simplest and best interpretation of this passage to understand it as asserting that the four races—the Egyptians, Ethiopians, Libyans, and Canaanites—were ethnically connected, being all descended from Ham; and further, that the primitive people of Babylon were a subdivision of one of these races—namely, of the Cushite or Ethiopians, connected in some degree with the Canaanites, Egyptians, and Libyans, but still more closely with the people which dwelt upon the Upper Nile. G. R.

The posterity of Ham spread itself over Southern, Central, and Eastern Asia, Southern Europe and Northern Africa, and constitutes the stock of the African and Turanian races, as well as probably of the American tribes. It presents itself in early postdiluvian times as the first representative and teacher of art and material civilization. The Hamite race is remarkable for the early development of pantheism and hero-worship, and for the artificiality of its culture. It presents us with the darkest colors, and in the vast solitudes of Africa and Central Asia its outlying tribes must have fallen into comparative barbarism a few centuries after the Deluge. Dawson.

6. These are the first notices of Egypt which occur in Holy Scripture. The word Mizraim, which is here simply transliterated from the Hebrew, is elsewhere, except in 1 Chron. 1:8, uniformly translated by “Egypt,” or “the Egyptians.” It undoubtedly designates the country still known to us as Egypt; but the origin of the name is obscure. The Hebrew “Mizraim” is a dual word, and signifies “the two Mizrs,” or “the two Egypts,” an expression readily intelligible from the physical conformation of the country, which naturally divides itself into “Upper” and “Lower Egypt,” the long narrow valley of the Nile, and the broad tract, known as the Delta, on the Mediterranean.

8-10. That this passage refers to Babylon will scarcely be disputed. The words “Babel”

and “Shinar” are sufficient proof. “Babel,” elsewhere generally translated “Babylon,” is the exact Hebrew equivalent of the native Babil, which appears as the capital of Babylonia in the cuneiform records from the time of Agu-kakrimi (about n.c. 2000) to the conquest of the country by Cyrus (n.c. 538). “Shinar” is probably an equivalent of “Mesopotamia,” “the country of the two rivers,” and in Scripture always designates the lower part of the Tigris and Euphrates valley, the alluvial plain through which the great rivers flow before reaching the Persian Gulf. That Babylonia became at a very early date a settled government under a king is confirmed by Berosus, by Diodorus Siculus, and by the monuments. The founder of this monarchy bears the name of Nimrod; its site is the land of Shinar, or Babylonia; its ethnic character is Cushite or Ethiopian, for Nimrod is the “son,” i.e. descendant “of Cush;” its great cities are four, Babel or Babylon, Erech, Accad, and Calneh. Recent researches in Mesopotamia have revealed to us, as the earliest seat of power and civilization in Western Asia, a Cushite kingdom, the site of which is lower Babylonia, a main characteristic of which is its possession of large cities. Babel, Accad and Erech (Huruk) are names which occur in the early geographic nomenclature of this monarchy. . . . Another sign of the reality of Nimrod’s rule is to be found in the attachment of his name to various sites in the Mesopotamia region. The remarkable ruin generally called Akkerku, which lies a little to the south-west of Baghdad, is known to many as the “Tel-Nimrūd;” the great dam across the Tigris below Mosul is the “Sahr-el-Nimrūd;” one of the chief of the buried cities in the same neighborhood is called “Nimrūd” simply; and the name of “Birs-Nimrūd” attaches to the grandest mass of ruins in the lower country. G. R.

The site of Babel (Babylon) has been discovered in certain ruins near Hillah, chiefly on the opposite or eastern bank of the Euphrates, where there is a square mound called Babil by the natives. Erech has been traced also on the east bank of the Euphrates, about one hundred miles south-east of Babil, or half way between the city and the confluence of the rivers. It is the Orchoe of the Greeks, and the ruins now bear the name of Urka, or Warka. This name appears as Huruk on the cuneiform inscriptions of the place. Akkad Colonel Taylor finds in Akkerku, north of Babel, and about nine miles west of the Tigris, where it approaches the Euphrates. Here there is a hill or mound of ruins called Tel Nimrud. The sites of these towns fix that of Shinar, which is evidently the lower part of Mesopotamia, or, more precisely, the country west of the Tigris, and south of Is, or Hit, on the Euphrates, and Samara on the Tigris. It is otherwise called Babylonia and Chaldea. M.

It is an important fact that while the Assyrians and later Babylonians spoke a Semitic language, the most ancient inscriptions discovered in the region of Babylonia show that the earliest inhabitants of the great cities there founded spoke a Turanian or Cushite tongue. J. L. P. —Its vocabulary is decidedly Cushite or Ethiopian, and the modern languages to which it makes the nearest approaches are those of Southern Arabia and Abyssinia. The old traditions have thus been confirmed by comparative philology, and both are side-lights to Scripture. H. Rawlinson. —This agrees with the Mosaic statement that Nimrod, the founder of Babel and Erech, was a son of Cush. That dialect of the Turanian which was used in primeval Babylonia is called Akkadian, and a penitential psalm written in it is among the cuneiform texts recently published. The Akkadians were Hamites who inhabited Babylonia in prehistoric times, and were connected with the nomad races both on the north and south, in Africa and Asia. They were among the first to practise the art of writing, and they were from the earliest period devoted to the study of astronomy and the occult sciences. In their primitive tongue were preserved all the scientific, theological, and mythical records of Babylonia. They seem to be identical with the Chaldeans (Hebrew, Kasdim) of the Bible, one of whose chief seats was Ur, and who were instruments, simultaneously with the Sabeans, in the affliction of Job. In later times the name Chaldean was applied to the learned, and the language of the Chaldeans was that through which scientific and religious education was given. For this reason the prophet Daniel himself was made “master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers” in Babylon. Semitic tribes invaded Chaldea and Babylonia at an early period. At first they lived side by side with the Cushites, as is evidenced in the case of Abraham’s family. They founded the Assyrian Empire about the thirteenth century before Christ.

Recent research has discovered the sites and remains of the ancient cities of Erech, Akkad, and Calneh. They are vast mounds of brick, scathed by fire, and left bare and desolate by the action of the elements for more than two thousand years. Their names have been seen in inscriptions upon the earliest monuments, and upon tablets and cylinders found amid the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. Akkad, which probably gave its name to the Akkadian tribe of Cushites, was a city famous for its science, especially astronomy. It may have been a school of Chaldean learning. The monuments of Assyria and Babylonia also corroborate in a most singular manner the legends on the tablets and the narratives in Genesis. In the very earliest sculptures on cylinders, and on the slabs which once lined the chambers of palaces, we find representations of the tree of knowledge, the serpent tempter, the tree of life guarded by cherubim, the ark, and many other things, which show how thoroughly imbued the minds of the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians were with the whole facts recorded in the early chapters of the Bible. J. L. P.

11. Out of that land he went forth.

Nimrod “went out into Assyria” (ver. 11, marginal rendering), “and builded Nineveh”—the remarkable circumstance here being that each time four cities are mentioned in connection with Nimrod: first, the four cities of his Babylonian empire, of which Babel was the capital, and then the four cities of his conquered Assyrian empire, of which Nineveh was the capital. Now all this tallies in the most striking manner with what we read in ancient history, and with those Assyrian monuments which within our own lifetime have by the labors of Layard and Loftus been exhumed from their burial of many centuries, to give witness for the Bible. For, first, we now know that the great Asiatic empire of Babylon was of Cushite origin. Secondly, we are made aware that Babel was the original seat of the empire; and, strangest of all, that the earliest Babylonian kings bore a title which is supposed to mean “four races,” in reference to “the quadruple groups of capitals” of Babylonia and Assyria. Lastly, we know that, as stated in the Bible, “the Babylonian empire extended its sway northward” to Assyria, where Nineveh was founded, which in turn succeeded to the empire once held by Babel. In all these respects, therefore, the latest historical investigations have most strikingly confirmed the narrative of Scripture. A. E.

The reading “From this land he went out into Assyria,” is the rendering of all the Targums, of Nachmanides, and, after them, of Drusius, Bochart, Le Clerc, De Wette, Baumgarten, Tuch, Gesenius, Knobel, Delitzsch, Kalisch, and most modern interpreters. The syntax fully admits of this interpretation; and the general sense of the passage requires it. Nimrod is the subject here treated of. Asshur, the son of

Shem, was at least a generation older than Nimrod, who may probably have first colonized the country called after him, Asshur (or Assyria). E. H. B.—The probabilities in favor of this translation are the following: 1. The discourse relates to Nimrod. 2. The words admit of it. 3. The word Asshur has occurred hitherto only as the name of a country. 4. Asshur, the person, was considerably older than Nimrod, and had probably given name to Asshur before Nimrod’s projects began. 5. Asshur would have been as great a man as Nimrod, if he had founded Nineveh and its contiguous towns; which does not appear from the text. 6. The beginning of his kingdom implies the addition to it contained in these verses. 7. And the phrases in the land of Shinar, out of that land, and the need of some definite locality for the second four cities, are in favor of this rendering. M.—This translation is favored by Micah 5:6, where “the land of Nimrod” appears to mean Assyria. Sayce.—Assyria was a country intersected by the Tigris. It included the part of Mesopotamia north of Shinar, and the region between the Tigris and Mount Zagros. Its extension westward is undefined by any natural boundary. M.

12. Nimrod’s capital was Babylon, but he founded also three other cities in the plain of Shinar, namely, Erech, Accad, and Calneh. Thence he extended his empire northward along the course of the Tigris over Assyria, where he founded a second group of capitals, Nineveh, Rehoboth, Calah, and Resen. P. S.—Nineveh lay opposite the present town of Mosul, and it is from the remains of its chief palace, now buried under the mounds of Kouyunjik, that most of the Assyrian inscriptions in the British Museum have been brought. A few miles to the south of Nineveh, on the site now known as Nimrod, was Calah, a town built by Shalmaneser I, who lived n.c. 1300. Calah subsequently fell into ruins, but was rebuilt in the ninth century before our era. “Between Nineveh and Calah” stood Resen, according to Genesis. Resen is the Assyrian Ris-eni, “head of the stream,” which is once mentioned in an inscription of Sennacherib. Rehoboth ‘Ir, or “the open spaces of the city,” must have denoted the suburbs of Nineveh. Sayce.

13,14. The Lehabim are the Libyans, while the Naphtuhim may be the people of Napata in Ethiopia. The Caphtorim or inhabitants of Caphtor are the Phoenician population settled on the coast of the Delta. From an early period the whole of this district had been colonized by the Phoenicians, and, as Phoenicia itself was called K-ft by the Egyptians, the part of Egypt in which they had settled went by the name of Keft-ur or “greater Phœnicia.” Sayer.

It must have been at a very early period after the dispersion that MIZRAIM and his company, directing their march southward, reached at last the banks of the Nile, and laid the foundations of the great empire of EGYPT. It is beyond all doubt that Egypt was not only a very ancient kingdom, but that it possessed a very ancient and very wonderful civilization. Before the call of Abraham, the massive forms of some of the largest pyramids were already to be seen in the plain of El Gizeh. Already the walls of many tombs and temples were covered with those inscriptions which the scholars of the nineteenth century are laboring to explain. W. G. B.

The descendants of Mizraim were settled in Africa with the exception of the Philistines, who migrated into the country to which they gave their name. M.—The Philistines occupied the Shephelah, or that portion of the Mediterranean coast which forms the south-western boundary of Palestine. Like the inhabitants of the northern section of the same coast, though not by any means to the same degree, the Philistine people became widely known beyond their own territory. Even at the time of the Exodus they had acquired a high reputation as a powerful and warlike nation (Ex. 13:17). W. Lee.

15-19. From Canaan are descended eleven nations. Zidon is styled his first-born. The name is retained in the well-known town on the coast of Phœnicia, which is accordingly of the highest antiquity among the cities of that region. The Sidonians were reckoned co-extensive with the Phœnicians, and are mentioned by Homer. Heth. This tribe dwelt about Hebron and in the mountains around, and perhaps still further north in the districts extending toward the Euphrates. M.

15. In “Sidon” and “Heth” we seem to have the names of individual men; but when it is added that he also “begat the Jebusite and the Amorite,” etc., it is clear that we are dealing not with single generations, but with a condensed abstract of the origin and growth of tribes. No definite information is given in such abstract as to the lapse of time. Argyll.—Here Sidon represents the race of which it was the early prominent seat of activity, being mentioned in Joshua as already “great Sidon” (Josh 11:8). And in denominating Sidon “the firstborn of Canaan,” the narrative records the great historic fact that at a period estimated (by many) to be some four thousand years ago, “a tribe speaking a Semitic tongue abandoned the nomad habits of their ancestors, and building some rude huts beside a creek, sheltered by an inland breakwater, took to the sea, and called themselves ‘Sidonians’ or ‘Fishermen.’ It was a memorable day for humanity, when the first colonizing and commercial power which the world had seen, launched its rude craft tentatively on the Mediterranean. On that day the arts and culture of the East may be said to have set out on their journey to the West, and the long process to have begun by which the sceptre was transferred from the primeval ‘river kingdoms’ to the republics of the Inland Sea, and from these passed over to the ‘ocean empires’ of modern times.” S. C. B.

16. The Jebusite had his chief seat in and around Jerusalem, which was called Jebus, from his chief; and the citadel of which was wrested from him only in the time of David. The Amorite was one of the most important and extensive tribes. Five kings of this nation dwelt in the mountains afterward occupied by Judah, and two on the east of the Jordan, in Heshbon and Bashan, north of Moab (Nu. 21:13; Deut. 4:47). The eastern Amorites were conquered under Moses, the western under Joshua. A remnant of them were made bondsmen by Solomon. They survived the captivity (Ez. 9:1). The Girgashite seems to have lived on the east of the Jordan.

17. The Hivite was found at Shalem, Gibeon, and also at the foot of Hermon and Antilibanus. The Arkite probably dwelt near a town called Arke or Cæsarea Libani, lying some miles north of Tripolis, at the foot of Lebanon. Its ruins are still extant at Tel Arka. The Sinite is supposed to have dwelt in Sinna, a town mentioned by Strabo, not far from Arke.

18. The Arvadite dwelt in Arvad, Aradus, now Ruad, a Phœnician town on an island of the same name. The Zemarite has been traced in the town Simura, the ruins of which were found by Shaw at the western foot of Lebanon, under the name of Sumra. The Hamathite was the inhabitant of Hamath, at present Hamah. It is situated on the Orontes, and held an important place in the history of Israel. The land of Hamath was of great extent, including the town of Riblah (2 K. 25:21) and reaching even to Antioch. The entrance of Hamath, the northern part of the valley between Lebanon and Antilibanus, formed the utmost boundary of Palestine to the north (Nu. 13:21; Jos. 13:5; 1 K. 8:65). Its king was in alliance with David (2 S. 8:10). M.

The name of Canaan (low country) is always exclusively applied to the country west of Jordan. It is as much the name of the people as of the country. The strange circumstance that a land so decidedly mountainous should obtain such a name becomes only intelligible by this historical statement in the table of nations, according to which the Canaanites had first settled in the low country of Phoenicia, whence they gradually spread to the Dead Sea. The name Palaistine is the Greek mode of pronouncing the word which originally applied to the territory of the Philistines along the southern shore of the Mediterranean, but was extended by the Romans to the whole country. In the Bible the following names also occur: the land of the Hebrews (Gen. 40 : 15); the Lord’s land (Hosea 9 : 3); the holy land (Zech. 2 : 12); the coast, or the land of Israel (Judges 19 : 29; Ezek. 7 : 2); the land of promise (Heb. 11 : 9). K.

By this account it appears that the posterity of Canaan were both numerous and rich, and very pleasantly seated; and yet Canaan was under a curse, a divine curse, and not a curse causeless. Those that are under the curse of God may yet perhaps thrive and prosper greatly in this world; for we cannot know love or hatred, the blessing or the curse, by what is before us, but by what is within us. The curse of God always works really and terribly: but perhaps it is a secret curse, a curse to the soul, and does not work visibly; or a slow curse, and does not work immediately; but sinners are by it reserved for and bound over to a day of wrath. H.

After the conquest of Canaan under Joshua, the residue of the Canaanites wandered northward to the foot of Lebanon, and the coast of Northern Syria; others crossed the sea to Africa, Carthage, Greece (Cadmus), and the other Phoenician colonies of the Mediterranean. Hence the expression (v. 18) “afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad.” C. G. B.

In point of political intercourse with Shem Japheth in early times sinks comparatively into the shade, and Ham assumes the prominent place. Babylon, Cush, Egypt, and Canaan are the powers which come into contact with Shem, in that central line of human history which is traced in the Bible. Hence it is that in the table of nations special attention is directed to Cush, Nimrod, Mizraim, and to the tribes and borders of Canaan. M.

21-31. The sons of Shem. The history of the growth, development, and early migrations of the Semitic race, and its subdivision into the various families of Elam in Persia, Asshur in Assyria, Arphaxad in Northern Assyria, Joktan in Arabia, Lud in the highlands of Armenia, and Aram in Mesopotamia and Syria is here given in a concise form. To these details ethnological investigations may add some interesting facts, but to their accuracy and clearness they add little more than corroborating evidence. E. H. Palmer.—Heber, the founder of the Hebrew race, is classed among the sons of Shem, through Arphaxad, and along with Elam, Asshur, Lud, and Aram. In other words, the Hebrews are connected by common descent, with the people of Elymais or Elam on the Persian Gulf, east of the Tigris; with the Assyrians on the north-east of that river; with the people of Arphaxad, still further north, among the mountains of Southern Armenia, immediately east of what is now the Lake Van; with the Lydians and the Semitic peoples of Asia Minor; and with the Aramean or Syrian nations stretching thence, south-east, to the Euphrates. Geikie.

21. Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber. As Ham is specially called the father of Canaan, so probably Shem is designated as the father of Eber. The Hebrews and the Canaanites were brought into constant conflict and exemplified respectively the characters of the Hamites and the Shemites, their characters and their destinies. E. H. B.

22. Twenty-six of the primitive nations are descended from Shem, of which five are immediate. Elam was settled in a part of the modern Persia, to which he gave name. M.—Elam—the High Land—an extensive country on the east side of the lower Tigris, bordered on the west by the province of Babylon, on the north by Assyria and Media, and on the south by the Persian Gulf. It thus embraced parts of the present Laristan, Chusistan, and Arabistan: a picturesque, mountainous region: its capital, at least in later times, being the famous city of Shushan, so often mentioned in Daniel as a royal residence of the kings of Babylon, and in Esther as a favorite with the kings of Persia. Geikie.

Asshur seems to have originally occupied a district of Mesopotamia, which was bounded on the east by the Tigris. M.—It is plain from the context that Arphaxad must signify Chaldea; and this conclusion is verified by the fact that the name might also be pronounced Arpa-Chesed, or “border of Chaldea.” Chesed is the singular of Casdim, the word used in the Old Testament to denote the inhabitants of Babylonia. Sayce.—Lud is usually identified with the Lydians, who by migration at length reached and gave their name to a part of the west coast of Asia Minor. Aram gave name to the upper parts of Mesopotamia and the parts of Syria north of Palestine. Hence we read of Aram Naharaim (of the two rivers), Aram Dammesek (of Damascus), Aram Maakah on the south-west border of Damascus, about the sources of the Jordan, Aram Beth Rechob in the same neighborhood, and Aram Zoba to the north of Damascus. From Aram are descended four later nations.

23. Us is the chief of a people having their seat in the north of Arabia Deserta, between Palestine and the Euphrates. From this Uz it is possible that the sons of Nahor and of Seir (Gen. 22:21; 36:28) obtained their name. Job dwelt in this land. M.

24. Salah begat Eber. The name Salah appears to signify sending forth, extension, as Eber, the name of his son, signifies passing over. Many of the names in these genealogies are significant, and were probably given to their bearers late in life, or even historically, after their deaths. Salah and Eber seem to point to this fact, that the descendants of Arphaxad were now beginning to spread forth from the first cradle of the Semitic race. E. H. B.

25. It has rightly been supposed that this verse furnishes an approximate indication of the time of the Dispersion. Some have fixed the date in the year 101 after the flood, being the year of the birth of Peleg. But the expression “in his days,” seems to indicate a later period, when Peleg was a man of note; and also the impossibility that so many persons as would have been requisite for the building of the tower should have existed at that period. Peleg lived 239 years, and we may therefore place this event toward the close of the third or the commencement of the fourth century after the flood. K. —The genealogy is now specially concerned with the descendants of Shem and the ancestry of the promised race, which is here traced down to Peleg to be continued further in ch. 11:18, sqq. The two races, which sprang from Eber, soon separated very widely from each other, the one, Eber and his family, spreading north-westward toward Mesopotamia and Syria, the other, the Joktanides, southward into Arabia. There is a general consent in favor of the colonization of Southern Arabia by the descendants of Joktan, with the names of whom correspond several of the districts and cities of that country.

28. Sheba. We read much of Sheba, a country in Arabia Felix, abounding in gold, precious stones, frankincense, and famous for its merchandise. The Arabic and Greek accounts of the Sabæans, a people, whose capital was Saba or Mariaba, three or four days’ journey from Senaa, correspond thoroughly with all this.

29. Ophir. On no geographical question has a greater diversity of opinion existed than on the site of Ophir. The position of Ophir, as a son of Joktan, and the settlement of the other Joktanides in Arabia, form a strong argument in favor of placing Ophir in Arabia also. The historical notices, however, in the books of Kings and Chronicles have inclined many to place Ophir either in India or in Africa: whilst others have thought, that two Ophirs are mentioned in Scripture, one in Arabia, the other in India or Ceylon. E. H. B.

From a review of these lands it is evident that Shem occupied a much smaller extent of territory than either of his brothers. The mountains beyond the Tigris, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Levant, the Archipelago, and the Black Sea, bound the countries that were in part peopled by Shem. Arabia, Syria, and Assyria contained the great bulk of the Shemites, intermingled with some of the Hamites. The Cushites, Canaanites, and Philistines trench upon their ground. The rest of the Hamites peopled Africa, and such countries as were supplied from it. The Japhethites spread over all the rest of the world. In this table there are seventy names, exclusive of Nimrod, of heads of families, tribes, or nations descended from the three sons of Noah, fourteen from Japheth, thirty from Ham, and twenty-six from Shem. It appears that the subdivisions are traced further in Ham and much further in Shem than in Japheth, and that they are pursued only in those lines which are of importance for the coming events in the history of Shem.

32. This passage explains the table of nations, in which they are said to be distinguished, not merely by birth and land, but “every one after his tongue.” It is therefore attached to the table as a needful appendix, and thus completes the history of the nations so far as it is carried on by the Bible. At this point the line of history leaves the universal, and by a rapid contraction narrows itself into the individual, in the person of him who is to be ultimately the parent of a chosen seed. M.

One modern view of Biblical inspiration is to the effect, that while the writers of Scripture are to be held as infallible guides in whatever relates to religion and morality, on all other matters they are to be considered as simply on a par with other men, equally limited in their knowledge, equally liable to error, not a whit superior to their contemporaries, or in advance of their age. The accordance of the ethnology of Genesis with the latest results of modern ethnographical science, seems to deal a rude blow to such a theory. Origen’s argument has always seemed sound, that if in the material world God has wrought every minutest part to a finish and a perfection the highest that is possible to conceive, much more is it to be believed that in the far more important treasure of his word he has left nothing incomplete, but has given to every jot and tittle his full care, the utmost perfection of which it was capable, so that the whole is designed and is the utterance to man of absolute wisdom. G. R.

The Bible is a Book of Numbers. It is a trait maintained consistently throughout. From the exact nativities of the Antediluvian ages, from the precise dates of the rising and subsiding waters of the flood, from Noah’s almanac, as we may say, down to Haggai’s diary, or careful noting of the very year and month and day of the month in which the word of the Lord came unto him, it is all of a piece, one consistent number giving, time-keeping record. The Jews, if there is any truth in their history at all, were a journalizing people, a genealogizing people; the Bible is their family book of entries, just as we now employ certain pages of it as a register of births and deaths. Precise statistics are everywhere, and everywhere purporting to be from men who knew, and who are, in the main, supposed to be recording known present or passing facts. There is nothing like it in the history of any other people on earth; certainly not in any early history. Let any one compare the 1st volume of Grote’s History of Greece with the Pentateuch, the confused and utterly unchronological annals of the Doric, Hellenic, and Eolic races with even the earliest part of the Mosaic writings or the history of the Patriarchs, and he will see at once the difference. Darkness, confusion, shadows, deformities, painful perplexities or hopeless riddles, in the one,—the clear geography, the direct chronology, the fact consistency, the lifelike minuteness of coloring, the strange combination of the marvellous in such perfect affinity with the familiar and the domestic that it loses its marvel,—all this in the other. Even after the commencement of what is called the “historical period,” or the introduction of the Olympiads, the Grecian chronology is full of obscurities. It is not easy to fix the times of the historians themselves; there is a doubt about Herodotus; the Heraclidæ and Lycurgus fail of being precisely determined by some centuries; but more than a thousand years before Herodotus, the

Hebrew writings set forth a regular chronology. Before Hellenians and Dorians had set foot in Greece, many centuries before even the Pelagi “were in the land,” we are told the time of life, and have the means of reckoning the very year, when Abraham went forth from Ur of the Chaldees. There is no escape from it: the Jewish history is the boldest of lies, the most unscrupulous of f. Igeries, and, at the same time, the most inexplicable of literary enigmas, or it is the truth, attested inwardly and confirmed outwardly, as no other ancient historical account was ever attested in the multiplied annals of the race. T. L.

The Bible unfolds the oldest history in the world. No other comes within sight of its earliest records. The Pentateuch was written by Moses a thousand years before Herodotus recited his history at the public games of Greece and the boy Thucydides wept lest he might fail in future rivalry, and more than twelve hundred years before the two Egyptian writers, Manetho and Eratosthenes, endeavored to explain the revolutions of their country. Ctesias and Berosus, the one thirty and the other a hundred and fifty years later than Herodotus, followed him with their somewhat conflicting accounts of Chaldean and Assyrian struggles and triumphs. The earliest Greek historian was thus the contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah; and, long before Manetho had arranged the details of Egyptian dynasties, the prophet Malachi had closed the Old Testament record. The ancient testimonies which monuments and written documents have most opportunely supplied within the present century, indeed in a large measure within the present generation, have not only demolished all the old reasoning against the Bible, but have so vindicated its historical trustworthiness, that “Moses and the Prophets” are now left in undisturbed possession of the watch-towers from which many centuries ago they spoke to the Israelites, and through them to the whole world. In closely examining the tenth chapter, we find such diversity of history as precludes exact classification, but its general statements are beginning to admit of comparatively easy historical exposition. To this chapter, as an ethnological table, scholars of opposite religious tendencies have united in paying homage. W. Fraser.

Here is an exhibition of the ultimate relationship of all the nations far and near, outwardly and inwardly so diverse as the weighty thought of this survey. Israel is but one member of universal humanity. All men and nations are of the same race, the same value, and the same consideration, brethren and kindred. This Biblical consideration sets out from the greatness and entirety of humanity, before it turns itself to the history of an individual people, the people of God, and then at length by the mouths of the prophets, points forward to the end and ultimate goal of this several history, the union of all nations in the kingdom of God. Dillmann.

With this list the book of Genesis takes leave of mankind in general, and revelation henceforth limits itself to a single chosen race. The register of nations is intended to keep in memory the original brotherhood of all the nations of the earth. This is a thought beyond the reach of all antiquity, with the exception of Israel. Among the cultivated Greeks it was not till the time of Alexander the Great, and chiefly through Stoicism, that the idea of a common world-citizenship of man found expression; for the antithesis of Greeks and barbarians was invincible. When the Apostle Paul preached on the Areopagus, “He made of one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth,” he attacked the very heart of heathenism and Athenian pride. O.

Each race, by Divine appointment, has its own work to do, its own errand to accomplish. The Hamitic race, hot, quick, versatile, leads off for a time in arts and arms; but presently the glow becomes a fever, imagination masters the judgment, passion debauches conscience, and the plunge is made into barbarism. The elder Babylonian Empire soon passes away, and Egypt becomes in time the basest of kingdoms. The Semitic race, finer in fibre, of purer tastes, more thoughtful, intuitive and reverent, gives birth, indeed, to Phonician commerce, and, from the shores of Carthage, thunders at the gates of Rome; but, in the main, prefers, even at the risk of historic immobility, to hold its original seat away from the sea, and there nurse the religions which are to rule the world. The only cosmopolitan religions are the Semitic: Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism. Heliopolis was for Egypt, and Delphi for Greece; but Mecca is for millions of men not Arabs, and Jerusalem is the mother of us all. The Japhethic race, of iron muscle and of iron will, stirred by a mysterious impulse, turns its back upon the seats of rising empire, pushes off northward and westward, into less hospitable climes, and there awaits the later call of Providence. In due time we behold the language and letters of Greece; Roman roads, legions and laws; and, finally, the whole life of modern Europe and America, now striking for the dominion of the world. Just now, the race that was first, is last; and the one that was last, is first. But the day is coming, when all shall enjoy together what each has contributed in its turn to win.

What is thus true of the larger divisions of mankind, is equally true of all. There is that in the Keltic race, for example, distinguishing it from every other, which has always distinguished it, and which inevitably qualifies the career of every nation which has the Keltic blood very largely in its veins. Better was it than the Iberian, or the Iberian would not have retired before it; but inferior to the Teutonic, or the Teutonic would not have overborne it. Between the Teutonic and the Slavonic, the issue is still impending. The best races are the amalgams. An unmixed race will never hold its own; and, ordinarily, the deterioration is rapid. Within certain limits, the mixing of races has a tendency to multiply the good points, and eliminate the bad ones. As in France, where the modern Frenchman is better than either the Kelt, the Frank, or the Norman, of whom mainly he has been composed. As in the England of to-day, so greatly in advance of the England of Arthur, of Alfred, or of the Norman Conqueror. As in North America, where Providence is now preparing a new amalgam, which appears to have forces in it, and a destiny before it, more grand than either of its European ingredients. R. D. H.