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The Ethnological Table.
Gen_10:1-32
2. The basis of the genealogical table. According to Hävernik and Keil, this document was grounded on very old tradition, and had its origin in the time of Abraham. According to Knobel, the knowledge of the nations that is represented in it, had its origin, in great part, in the connection of the Hebrews with the Phœnician Canaanites. Delitzsch assigns its composition to the days of Joshua. The signs of a high antiquity for this table present themselves unmistakably in its ground features. There belong here: 1. The small development of the Japhethan line; on which it may be remarked, that they were the people with whom the Phœnicians maintained the most special intercourse; 2. the position of the Æthiopians at the head of the Hamites, the historical notices of Nimrod, as also the supposition that Sodom and Gomorrah were then existing; 3. the discontinuance of the Jewish line with Peleg, as well as the accurate familiarity with the branching of the Arabian Joktanites, who have as much space assigned to them alone as to all the Japhethites, when for the commercial Phœnicians they would be of least significance. The table indicates various circles of tradition—more universal and more special. The Japhethan groups appear least developed. Besides the seven sons, the grandchildren of Japheth are given only in the descendants of Gomer and Javan, in the people of anterior Asia, and in the inhabitants of the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean Sea. Magog, Madai, Thubal, Meshech, and Tiras are carried no farther. The table certifies a very copious tradition of the Hamites. First, there are mentioned the four sons of Ham, then five sons of his firstborn, Cush, then the two sons of Raamah, the fourth son of Cush. These two are, therefore, great-grandchildren of Ham. Nimrod is next presented as a specially prominent son of Cush. Then follows the second son of Ham, Mizraim, with six sons. The sixth, Casluhim, is again presented in the mention of the Philistim and Caphtorim, who are, therefore, also great-grandchildren of Ham. Phut, the fourth son of Ham, is the only one who is carried no farther. The fifth, Canaan, appears with eleven sons; namely, Sidon, the ancestor of the Phœnicians, and the heads of the other Canaanitish tribes. Shem, finally, has five sons, of whom, again, Elam, Asshur, and Lud, are no farther developed. The line of his son, Aram, appears in four sons, grandchildren of Shem. Of the sons of Shem, Arphaxad is treated as most important. The line goes from Shem through Arphaxad and Salah, even to the great-grandchild, Eber. Eber forms the most important point of connection in the Shemitic line. With his son Peleg the earth is divided; that is, there is formed the strong monotheistic, Abrahamic line, in contrast with the line of his brother Joktan and the Arabian Joktanites. Joktan is developed in thirteen sons, great-grandchildren of Shem.
From this survey it appears: 1. That the table has a clear and full view of the three ground-types or points of departure of the Noachian humanity—Shem, Ham, Japheth. It however, inverts the order of the names, because Shem, as the ancestor of the people of the promise, is the peculiar point of aim in the representation. Japheth, however, comes first, because, since the history of Israel stands in nearest reciprocal connection with that of the Hamites, the Japhethites in this respect take the background. 2. The table has, in like manner, a clear view of the nearest descendants of the three sons of Noah, of the seven sons of Japheth, of the four sons of Ham, and the five sons of Shem. It presents us, therefore, the sixteen ground-forms of commencing national formations. 3. In the case of five sons of Japheth, one son of Ham, and three sons of Shem, the genealogy is not carried beyond the grandchildren. 4. In respect to the Japhethites, it does not, generally, go beyond the grandchildren; among the Hamites it passes through the grandchild, Raamah, to the great-grandchildren; so, likewise, through the grandchildren, the Casluhim; among the Shemites, through Arphaxad, it proceeds to the great-great-grandchildren, and these, through the great-great-grandchild, Joktan, are carried one step farther. 5. The table occupies itself least with the Japhethans; beyond the Medes, the people of Middle Asia and the eastern nations generally come no farther into the account. It appears, however, to have little familiarity with the Phœnicians proper, since it only makes mention of Sidon, whilst it exhibits a full acquaintance with the Egyptians, with the inhabitants of Canaan, and with the Arabian tribes. In this peculiar form of the table lies the mark of its very high antiquity. 6. It contains three fundamental geographical outlines, one political, and besides this, an important theocratic-ethnographic notice. Geographical: 1. The mention of the spreading of the Javanites (Ionians) over the isles and coasts of the Mediterranean; 2. the spreading of the Canaanites in Canaan; 3. the extension of the Joktanites in Arabia. Political: The first founding of cities (or states) by Nimrod. Theocratic: The division of the world in the time of Peleg, the ancestor of Abraham.
Kurtz recommends the following as fundamental positions in deciding on the names in the ethnological table: 1. The names denote, for the most part, groups of people, whose name is carried back to the ancestor; the race, together with the ancestor, forming one united conception. 2. Moreover, the one designation for a land and its inhabitants, must not be misapprehended; for example, the names Canaan, Aram, etc., pass over from the land to the people, and then from the people to the ancestor. 3. In general, the table proceeds from the status in quo of the present, solving the problem of national origin formally in the way of evolution (unity for multiplicity), but materially in the way of reduction, in that it carries back to unity the nations that lie within the horizon of the conceiving beholder. The last position, however, hardly holds of the sons of Noah himself; just as little can it be applied to the genealogies of the Shemitic branching. In regard, then, to the sources of the table, Kurtz also remarks: “together with Hengstenberg and Delitzsch, we regard the sources of this ethnological table to have been the patriarchal traditions, enriched by the knowledge of the nations that had reached the Israelites through the Egyptians. Hengstenberg had already begun to make available, in proof of this origin, the knowledge of the peoples that was expressed on the Egyptian monuments. In assigning its composition (as a constituent element of Genesis) to about the year 1000 b. c., Knobel must naturally regard the ethnological knowledge of the Phœnicians as its true source.” On the significance of the table, the same writer (Kurtz) remarks: “Now that the sacred history is about to leave the nations to go their own way, the preservation of their names indicates, that notwithstanding this, they are not wholly lost to it, and that they are not forgotten in the counsel of everlasting love. Its interest for the Old Testament history consists particularly in this, that it presents so completely the genealogical position which Israel holds among the nations of the earth. It is, moreover, like the primitive history everywhere, in direct contrast with the philosophemes and myths of the heathen.” In relation to the idea, that henceforth the nations are to be suffered to go their own way, Keil reminds us of Act_14:16; in relation to the prospect of their restoration, he describes the ethnological table as a preparation for the promise of the blessing which is to go forth from the promised race over all the races of the earth (Gen_12:23). For the historicalness of the ethnological table, Keil presents the following arguments: 1. That there is no trace of any superiority claimed for the Shemites; 2. no trace of any design to fill up any historical gaps by conjecture or poetic invention. This is seen in the great differences in the narration as respects the individual sons of Noah; in one case, there is mention made only to the second; then again to the third and fourth member; of many the ancestors are particularly mentioned; whilst in other cases the national distinctions alone are specified; so that in respect to many names we are unable to decide whether it is the people or the ancestor that is meant to be denoted; and this is especially so because, by reason generally of the scantiness and unreliability of ancient accounts that have come down to us from other sources concerning the origin and commencements of the nations, many names cannot be satisfactorily determined as to what people they really belong.
Against the certainty of this ethnological table, there have been made to bear the facts of linguistic affinity. The Phœnicians and the Canaanites are assigned to Ham, but their language is Shemitic. Tuch ascribes this position of the people aforesaid among the Hamites to the Jewish national hatred, and would regard it as false. But on the contrary, it must be remembered that the Jews, notwithstanding their national hatred, never denied their kinsmanship with the Edomites and others. Knobel solves the philological problem by the supposition that the Canaanites who migrated to that country might have received the Shemitic language from Shemites who had previously settled there. Add to this that the affinity of the Phœnicians and Canaanites with the Hamitic nations of the south seems to be established (Kurtz, p. 90; Kaulen, p. 235). As to what concerns the Elamites on the Persian Gulf, we must distinguish them from the eastern Japhethic Persians. Besides these philological difficulties, there has been set in opposition to the ethnological table the hypothesis of autochthonic human races. We have already spoken of this. And again, say some, how, in the space of four hundred years, from Noah till the Patriarchal time, could such a formation of races have been completed? On that we would remark, in the first place, that the American and Malayan races have only been known since the time of modern voyages of discovery. The Mongolian race, too, does not come into the account in the patriarchal age. There is, therefore, only the contrast between the Caucasian and the Æthiopic. For the clearing up of this difficulty, it is sufficient to note: 1. The extraordinary difference, which, in the history of Noah, immediately ensued between Shem and Japheth on the one side, and Ham on the other; 2. the progressive specializing of the Hamitic type in connection with the Hamitic spiritual tendency towards its passional and the sensual; 3. the change that took place in the Hamitic type in its original yielding conformity to the effect of a southern climate. The Hamitic type had, moreover, its universal sphere as the Æthiopic race; this constituted its developed ground-form, whilst single branches, on the other hand, through a progress of ennobling, might make an approach to the Caucasian cultivation. That Shem and Japheth, however, in their nobler tendency, should unite in one Caucasian form, is not to be wondered at. The great difference between the Shemitic type and the Japhethan, as existing within the Caucasian, is, notwithstanding, fully acknowledged. Since, however, the Shemitic type in its nobler branches, may make transitions to the Caucasian; so also may separations from the Japhethic and Shemitic form, perhaps, the Mongolian and the American races, in consequence of a common tendency (see Kurtz, p. 80. “The Direction of the Noachidæ.”)
There have also been objected to the table chronological difficulties; in so far as it forms a middle point for the assumption of Jewish and Christian chronology. According to Bunsen, the time before Christ must be reckoned at 20,000 years,—namely, to the flood, 10,000, and from the flood to Abraham, 7,000 (see, on the contrary, Delitzsch, p. 291). Taking these 20,000 years, the ante-Christian humanity loses itself in a Thohu Vabohu running through many thousand years of an unhistorical, beastly existence, wherein the human spirit fails to find any recognition of its nobility.
Delitzsch, in his admirable section on the ethnological table, remarks, p. Genesis 286: “The line of the promise with its chosen race, must be distinguished from the confusion of the Gentiles; such is the aim of this great genealogical chart, and in accordance with which it is constructed. It is a fundamental characteristic of Israel, that it is to embrace all nations as partakers of a like salvation in a participation of hope and love,—an idea unheard of in all antiquity beside. The whole ancient world has nothing to show of like universality with this table. The earth-describing sections of the Epic poems of the Hindoos, and some of the Puranas, go greatly astray, even in respect to India, whilst the nearest lands are lost in the wild and monstrous account that is given of them. Their system of the seven world islands (dvîpas) that lay around the Meru, seems occupied with the worlds of gods and genii rather than with the world of man. (Lassen, in the “Journal of Oriental Knowledge,” i. p. 341; Wilson, The Vishnu Purana). Nowhere is there to be found so unique a derivation of the national masses, or so universal a survey of the national connections. A tinge of hopeful green winds through the arid desert of this ethnological register. It presents in perspective the prospect that these far-sundered ways of the nations shall, at the last, come together at the goal which Jehovah has marked. Therefore does Baumgarten complete the saying of Johannes von Müller, “that history has its beginning in this ethnological table,” with a second equally true, “that in it also, as its closing limit, shall history find its end.” We may undervalue this table if we overlook the fact that, in its actual historical and ethnological ground-features it presents, symbolically, a universal image of the one humanity in its genealogical divisions. We may overvalue it, or rather, set a false value upon it, when we attempt to trace back to it, with full confidence, all the known nations now upon the earth. Even the number 70, as the universal symbol of national existences, can only be deduced from it by an artificial method; as, for example, in Delitzsch, p. 289. It is only in the symbolical sense that the catalogue may be regarded as amounting to this number.
Neither can we derive this subdividing the nations to such a multiplicity of national life, from the confusion of languages at Babel. The natural subdivision of the people has something of an ideal aspect; the increased impulse given to it at Babel had its origin in sin. We regard it, therefore, as a strong proof of the canonical intuition that this ethnological table precedes instead of following the history of the tower-building. Kurtz treats the history of Babel as earlier than that of the register; and Keil, too, would seem inclined to identify the diversity of the nations with the confusion of tongues (p. 107).
After these general remarks, we will confine ourselves to the most necessary particulars.
2. Gen_10:6-20.—The Hamites. The three first sons of Ham settled in Northern Africa. 1. The Æthiopians of the upper Nile; 2. the Egyptians of the lower Nile; 3. the Libyans, west of the Egyptians, in the east of Northern Africa. The Cushites appear to have removed from the high northeast (Cossæ), passing over India, Babylonia, and Arabia, in their course towards the south; for “in these lands the ancients recognized a dark-colored people, who were designated by them as Æthiopians, and who have since, in part, perished, whilst a few have kept their place to this day.” Knobel.—Mizraim.—The name denotes narrowing, enclosing; its dual form denotes the double Egypt (upper and lower Egypt); Áἴãõðôïò is probably from Kah-ptah, land of Ptah. The old Egyptian name is Kemi, Chemi, (with reference to Ham).—Canaan.—Between the Mediterranean Sea and the western shore of Jordan.—The name Pœni (Puni), allied to öüíïò , blood, and öïéíïò , blood-red, denotes the Phœnicians in their original Hamitic color.—Sons of Cush. Seba.—Meroë, which, at one time, according to Josephus, was called Seba.—Chavila.—In the Septuagint, Åὐúëá . The Macrobians (or long living), Æthiopians of the modern Abyssinia.—Sabta.—Sabbata, a capital city in Southern Arabia. “To this day there is in Yemen and Hadramaut a dark race of men who are distinct from the light-colored Arabians. So it is also in Oman on the Persian Gulf.” Knobel.—Raamah.—Septuagint: ‘ Ñåãìá , in Southeastern Arabia—Oman. There, too, there are obscure indications of Raamah’s sons Sheba and Dedan.—Sabtecha.—Dark-colored men on the east side of the Persian Gulf, in Caramania.—Aside from these, Nimrod is also made prominent as a son of Cush, Gen_10:8-12. Knobel regards this section as a Jehovistic interpolation, and so does Delitzsch. The name Jehovah, however, as occurring here, is no proof of such a fact; it comes naturally out of the accompanying thoughts. The only thing remarkable is, that Nimrod is not named in immediate connection with the other sons of Cush, but that the two sons of Raamah go before him. It is, however, easy enough to be understood, that the narrator wished first to dispose of this lesser reference. Interruptions similar to it are of repeated occurrence in the table, as is the case also in other genealogies (1Ch_2:7; 1Ch_23:4; 1Ch_23:22).—He was a mighty hunter.—“The author presents Nimrod as the son of Cush, putting him far back before the time of Abraham, and assigns him to the Æthiopian race. In fact, the classical writers recognize Æthiopians in Babylonia in the earliest times. They speak, especially, of an Æthiopian king, Cepheus, who belongs to the mythical time, and there is mention of a trace of the Cephenians as existing to the north of Babylon.” Knobel. In the expression, “he began to be a hero, or a mighty one upon the earth,” there is no occasion for calling him a “postdiluvian Lamech” (Delitzsch). He began the unfolding of an extraordinary power of will and deed, in the fact mentioned, that he became a mighty hunter in the presence of Jehovah. The hunting of ravenous beasts was in the early time a beneficent act for the human race. Powerful huntsmen appear as the pioneers of civilization; a fact which clearly proclaims itself in the myth of Hercules. And so the expression, “Nimrod was a mighty hunter before Jehovah,” may mean, that he was one who broke the way for the future institutions of worship and culture which Jehovah intended in the midst of a wild and uncultivated nature. There is another interpretation: he was so mighty a hunter, that even by Jehovah, to whom, in other respects, nothing is distinguished, he was recognized as such (Knobel; Delitzsch); but this seems to us to have little or no meaning. Keil holds fast to the traditional interpretation: in defiance of Jehovah, and, at the same time, takes the literal sense of animal-hunting in connection with the tropical sense of hunting men, so that he explains it, with Herder, as meaning an ensnarer of men by fraud and force. Neither the expression itself, nor the proverb: “like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord,” justifies this view. By such a proverb, there may be denoted a praiseworthy, Herculean pioneer of culture, as well as a blameworthy and violent despot. In truth, the chase of the animals was, for Nimrod, a preparatory exercise for the subjugation of men. “For him and his companions, the chase was a training for war, as we are told by Xenophon (Kunegete, C. i.), the old heroes were pupils of Chiron, and so, ìáèçôáὶ êõíçãåóßùí , disciples of the chase.” Delitzsch.—And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel.—Knobel: “His first kingdom in contrast with his second.” This, however, is not necessarily involved in the expression, “the beginning.” It denotes rather the basis. In thus playing the hero, Nimrod established, in the first place, a kingdom that embraced Babel, that is, Babylon, Erech, or Orech, in the southwest of Babylonia, Akkad (in respect to situation ’ ÁêêÞôç ), in a northern direction, and in the Northeast, Calneh, in respect to territory corresponding to Chalonitis, or Ktisiphon, on the east shore of the Tigris. This establishment of an empire transforming the patriarchal clan-governments into one monarchy is not to be thought of as happening without force. The hunter becomes a subjugator of men, in other words, a conqueror.—Out of that land went forth Asshur. [Lange translates: Out of that land went he forth towards Asshur.]—The Septuagint, Vulgate, and many interpreters (Luther, Calvin) regard Asshur as the grammatical subject, and give it the sense: Asshur went forth from Shinar. On the contrary, the Targum of Onkelos, Targum of Jonathan, and many other authorities, (Baumgarten, Delitzsch, Knobel) have rightly recognized Nimrod as the subject. Still, it does not seem clear, when Knobel supposes that Nimrod had left his first kingdom for the sake of founding a second. Moreover, it is not to be supposed that he barely extended his rule over an uninhabited territory for the purpose of colonizing it. It was rather characteristic of Nimrod, that he should seek still more strongly to appropriate to himself the occupied district of Assyria by the establishment of cities. The first city was Nineveh (at this day the ruin-district called Nimrud), above the place where the Lycus flows into the Tigris; the second was Rehoboth, probably east of Nineveh; the third Calah, northward in the district of Kalachan, in which there is found the place of ruins called Khorsabad; the fourth was Resen, between Nineveh and Calah.—The same is a great city.—The first suggested sense would seem to denote Resen as the great city, or as the greater city in relation to the others named with it. On the contrary, remarks Knobel: Resen is nowhere else mentioned as known to antiquity, and could not possibly have been so distinguished, as to be called in this short way the great city. Rather does the expression denote the four cities taken together, as making Nineveh in the wider sense, and which, both by Hebrews and Assyrians, was thus briefly called the great city.” According to Ktesias, it had a circumference of four hundred and eighty stadia (twenty-four leagues), with which there well agrees the three days’ journey of Jon_3:3; it embraced the quarter founded by Nimrod, out of which it grew in the times that followed Nimrod, when the Assyrian kings gradually combined the four places into one whole; thus the whole city was named Nineveh after its most southern part. The ancient assertions respecting the circuit of the city are confirmed by the excavations. “These four cities correspond, probably, to the extensive ruins on the east of the Tigris, that have lately been made known by Layard and Botta, namely, Nebi-Junus and Kujundschik, opposite Mosul, Khorsabad, five leagues north, and Nimrud, eight leagues north of Mosul.” Keil. See also the note (p. 112) on the agreement of Rawlinson, Grote, Niebuhr, and others, as opposed by the conjectures of Hitzig and Bunsen.—The sons of Mizraim: 1. Ludim. As distinguished from the Shemitic Ludim, Gen_10:22; Movers regards it as the old Berber race of Levatah that settled by the Syrtis,—so called after the manner of other collective names of the Mauritanian races. According to Knobel it was the Shemitic Ludim, who, after the Egyptian invasion, were called Hyksos. This is in the face of the text. 2. Anamim. This is referred by Knobel to the Egyptian Delta. 3. Lehabim. Ægyptian Libyans, not to be confounded with ôּåּè , the Libyans proper. 4. Naphtuhim. According to Knobel, the people of Phthah, the god of Memphis, in Middle Egypt; according to Bochart, it agrees with ÍÝöèõò , that connects with the northern coast-line of Egypt. 5. Pathrusim. Inhabitants of Pathros, Meridian land, equivalent to Upper Egypt, or Thebais. 6. Casluhim. The Colchians, “who, according to Herod., ii. c. 105, had their descent from the Egyptians.” This may probably be held of one branch of Mizraim; whereas the origin of the Cushites themselves would seem to point back to Colchis (see Genesis 2.).—Out of whom came Philistim.—The name is explained as meaning emigrants, from the Æthiopian word fallasa. According to Amo_9:7; Jer_47:4, the Philistines went forth from Caphtor. We may reconcile both these declarations, by supposing that the beginning of the settlement of the Philistines on the coast-line of Canaan, had been a Casluhian colony, but that this was afterwards strengthened by an immigration from Caphtor, and then their territory enlarged by the dispossession of the Avim, Deu_2:23.—And Caphtorim.—By old Jewish interpreters these are described as Cappadocians; they are regarded by Ewald as Cretans. Both suppositions may agree in denoting the course of migration taken by the Caphtorim.—The sons of Canaan:—“Notwithstanding the Shemitic language, the Phœnician Canaanites are here reckoned among the Hamitic nations, and must, therefore, have had their origin from the South. In fact, ancient writers affirm that they came from the Erythræan Sea, that is, from the Persian Gulf, to the Mediterranean. And with this agrees the mythology which makes the Phœnician ancestors, Agenor and Phœnix, akin, partly to Belus in Babylonia, and partly with Egyptus (Danaus the Æthiopian).” Knobel. 1. Zidon. Although originally the name of a person, this does not exclude its relation to the famous city so called, öåã , primarily, to lay nets; it appears, however, to denote fishing as well as hunting proper. Sidon was the oldest city of the Phœnicians. 2. Heth. This also stands as the name of a person, whereas the designations of the Canaanites that follow have the form of national appellations. In this position of Heth, together with Sidon the first-born, they would appear to be denoted as the peculiar point of departure of the Canaanitish life. The Hittites (Hethites) on the hill-land of Judah, and especially in the neighborhood of Hebron, were only a branch of the great original Hittite family (1Ki_10:29; 2Ki_7:6). The Kittim also, and the Tyrians, are, according to Knobel, comprehended in this name. 3. The Jebusites. Distinguished as the inhabitants of the old Jebus, Jerusalem. 4. The Amorites. On the hill-land of Judah, and on the other side of Jordan, the mightiest family of the Canaanites; therefore may their name embrace all Canaanites (chs. Gen_15:16; Gen_48:22) 5. The Girgasites. (Gen_15:21; Deu_7:1; Jos_24:11); their relation to the Gergesenes (Mat_8:28) is very uncertain. 6. Hivites (or Hevites) in Sichem (Gen_34:2), at Gibeon (Jos_9:7), and at the foot of Hermon (Jos_11:3). “The five last sons of Canaan dwelt northward in Phœnicia.” Knobel. The Arkites. Denoted from the city Arka, north of Sidon. The Sinites, named from the city Sina, mentioned by Hieronymus, still farther north. More northern still the Zemarites, named from the city Simyra (Sùmrah, by the moderns). Farthest north the Arvadites (also on the island Aradus); on the northeast, the Hamathites, name from the city Hamath, still existing.—And afterwards were spread abroad.—This spreading extends from the Phœnician district along the coast. The Kenites, mentioned Gen_15:19-21, the Kenezites, and the Kadmonites, are regarded by Delitzsch as people of Hamitic descent. So also the Rephaim, besides whom there are still farther named the Perezites. The same thing may probably be said of the Geshurim, mentioned 1Sa_27:8. The Susim and Emim, Genesis 14, he (Delitzsch) holds to be not Canaanites, but a people of a later introduction (p. 300). An immigration of Shemites must, in truth, have preceded that of the Hamites into Canaan.—The sons of Shem (Gen_10:21-31). The father (ancestor) of all the children of Eber.—This declaration calls attention beforehand to the fact, that in the sons of Eber the Shemitic line of the descendants of Abraham separates again in Peleg, namely, from Joktan or his Arabian descendants. 1. Elam. Elamites, the most easterly Shemites who dwelt from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea; at a later day they are lost, together with their language, in the Persians. 2. Asshur. Assyrians to the east of the Tigris, from thence extending towards Syria and Asia Minor. Their mother-country was a plain; hence the name (from àָùַׁø ). Their Shemitic language also underwent a change, and became foreign to the Hebrew. 3. Arphaxad. Their dwelling-place was in Arrapachitis, on the east side of the Tigris, from which they spread out; by Ewald and Knobel it is interpreted as referring to the Chaldæans, which Keil, however, regards as uncertain. 4. Lud. The Lydians of Asia Minor, related to the Assyrians (see Keil, p. 114; by Knobel they are referred to the Canaanite and Arabian races). 5. Aram. Aramæans, in Syria and Mesopotamia.—The sons of Aram: Uz and Gether, probably Arabians; Hul and Mash, probably Syrians.—The sons of Arphaxad:—The names Salah and Eber (sending forth and passing over) denote the already commencing emigration of the Abrahamic race. The two sons of Eber are called Peleg (division) and Joktan (diminished, small). With them there is a division of the Abrahamic and the Arabian lines. Peleg is the ancestor of the first. This is the explanation: in this manner was it that “in his day the earth was divided.” Fabri interprets this expression of a catastrophe that took place in the body of the earth, whose form was then violently divided into the later continental relations (in his treatise on the “Origin of Heathenism,” 1859). Delitzsch interprets it as referring, in general, to the division of the earlier population; Keil explains it of the division that took place in consequence of the building of the tower of Babel. Knobel refers the language of the separa of the two brothers, Peleg and Joktan, in which Joktan and his sons took their way to the south. We find here indicated the germ of the facts by which the earth, that is, the population of the earth, became divided into Judaism and Heathenism. For the separation of Abraham is no immediate or sudden event. The interrupted emigration of Terah had been previously prepared in Salah and Eber; fully so in Peleg. Therefore is Peleg’s son called øְòåּ , friend of God. In contrast with Salah (the sent), Eber (the passing over), and Peleg (the separating, division), Serug denotes again the complicated or entangled, Nahor, the panting, possibly the ineffectual striving, and, finally, Terah, the loitering, the one who tarries on the way. Then comes Abram, the high father, with whom the race of the promise decidedly begins. We have no hesitation in taking these names as at the same time historical and symbolical.—The sons of Joktan: In their multiplicity they present a remarkably clear figure of the Arabian tribes. “Thirteen names, some of which can still be pointed out in places and districts of Arabia, whilst others have not, as yet, been discovered, or have been wholly extinguished.” Knobel. Concerning their strife, and perhaps, too, their merging in the Hamites, who were in Arabia before them, compare Knobel, p. 123—The beni Kahtan, sons of Joktan, or Joktanidæ, form their leading point of view in Northern Yeman. 1. Almodad. The name El Mohdad is found among the princes of the Djorhomites, first in Yemen, and then in Hedjez. 2. Sheleph, the same as Salif, the Salapenians in a district of Yemen. 3. Hazarmaveth, the same as Hadramaut (court of death), in Southeastern Arabia, by the Indian Ocean; so named because of the unhealthy climate. 4. Jereh. Sons of the moon, worshippers of the moon; south from Chaulan. 5. Hadoram. The Adramites, on the south coast of Arabia. 6. Uzal. One with Sanaa, a city of Yemen. 7. Diklah, meaning the palm; probably cultivator of the palm-tree; they may be placed conjecturally in the Wady Nadjran, abounding in dates. 8. Obal. Placed by Knobel with Gebal and the Gebanites. 9. Abimael. Father of Mael; undetermined. 10. Sheba. The Sabæans, a trading people whose capital city is Marĭ 11. Ophir. Placed by Knobel to the southwest of Arabia, the land of the Himyarites. Lassen, Ritter, and Delitzsch, remove Ophir to the mouths of the Indus. For the different views, see Gesenius. It would appear, however, that the point of departure for Ophir must still be sought in Arabia. 12. Havilah. District of Chaulan, in Northern Yemen; probably also colonized in India (see Delitzsch, p. 308). 13. Jobab.—And their dwelling was from Mesha.—Concerning these undetermined bounding districts of Mesha and Sephar, compare Keil.—And by these were the nations divided.—A preparation for what follows, see the next chapter.
1. The religious significance of the ethnological table: 1. Personal characters form the basis of the human world; the relation of God to humanity is conditioned by the personal relation of God to personal being. The revelation of salvation, therefore, tends also to take upon itself a genealogical form. The ethnological table is the extended ground-outline of the relation between God and humanity, and of those that men bear to one another. The genealogies are trees of human life that God has planted. 2. In the christological point of view, the genealogical table is the prefiguration of the universality of the gospel, corresponding to the universality of the divine love, grace and compassion. 3. It gives us a clear idea of the regular gravitation of humanity to its centre in Shem, Eber, Abraham, Christ; that is, the genealogy of Christ. 4. As the branching of the three principal races places them in contrast, so, in a special manner, is this the case with the branching of the Hamitic race into the better lines, and in the Canaanites; and so also the branching of the Shemites, or that of the sons of Eber in the line of the descendants of Joktan, and in the line of the promise. 5. The signs of preparation for the later calling of Abraham are already contained in the names of his ancestors from Salah and Eber onward.
2. On the names Babel and Nineveh, compare the Theological dictionaries; on the history of Babel and Nineveh, see the historical works. We must be careful here, not to confound the beginning of this very old city, including in it the Babylonian tower, with its later world-historical development, and its falling into ruin. Nevertheless, even the ruins of that city are still a speaking witness, not only for the fulfilling of the divine predictions and threatenings, by the prophets, but also of the historical consistency and truthfulness of these very narrations in Genesis. Concerning the geographical relations, especially the situation of Babylon on the Euphrates, and of Nineveh on the Tigris, compare the maps of the old world in the Bible-atlas of Welland and Ackerman; the Historico-Geographical Atlas of the Old World, by Kiepert; the Atlas of Kutscheit, and others. Already, in Xenophon’s time, Nineveh lay in ruins; according to Strabo, it perished with the Assyrian Empire (see in Herzog’s “Real-Encyclopedia” the article on the Ruins of Nineveh). Babylon was much broken by the Persian kings, especially by Xerxes; Alexander the Great would have restored it, but contributed only the more to its destruction; the founding of Seleucia laid it in ruins. As Seleucia lies opposite to the ruins of Babylon, so does Mosul to those of Nineveh.
3. Starke: In this chapter we see the origin of many nations in all parts of the world, and therefore, the power of the blessing which God, after the flood, had renewed to men in respect to their multiplying and propagation; and so, finally, we learn the fathers from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. Neither Noah nor his sons begat any offspring during the time of the flood. The same may be conjectured to be true of the animals which were shut up with him in a dark dungeon, and as it were in the midst of death.—Lange: Many readers, when they come to this tenth chapter, are wont to regard it as of little value; some really think it to be superfluous, or of little use, on account of so many unknown names. But, in truth, we ought to regard it as a right noble gem in the crown of Holy Writ, the like of which has never been, or can be shown, from any writings of the old heathenism that yet remain to us.—Gerlach: There is no account of antiquity which gives us so full and so general a survey of the ancient nations, as this ethnological table; as appears from the fact, that the exactness and truth of the national divisions as presented in the same, are ever more and more confirmed. The heathen had no other relations to people who were foreign to them, than those of war and trade, with the addition, perhaps, of a certain community of religious legends, knowledge, and culture; irrespective of this, however, each nation remained shut up within itself. In the history of revelation, on the other hand, before the narrative of the dispersion of the nations stands the promise that Japheth shall find a home in the tents of Shem.—Bunsen: So much is now clear, that the races of Shem are the Shemites of philology. This is not clear at all; just as little, in fact, as that the Gallic Franks must be of Romanic origin. Compare in other places the learned explanation of the ethnological table by Bunsen. Says the same authority (vol. i. part 2, p. 63): “The ethnological table is the most learned among all the ancient documents, and the most ancient among the learned. For tradition predominates far above research, though the latter is not wanting. In its core it must be regarded as earlier than the time of Abraham; but this by no means excludes the idea that Moses may have made investigations respecting it.” So says Schröder: “From this chapter must the whole universal history of the world take its beginning.” To the same effect Joh. von Müller. Citation of the historical catalogues of Heathen nations, as they are found in the palace of Karnak, a ruin of the old city Thebes, in Bendidad, and on the monuments of Persepolis. These have throughout a national character. Nimrod’s chase of the beasts was the bridge of transition to the hunting of men (Jer_16:16; Lam_3:52; Lam_4:18; Mat_4:19; Luk_5:10).
4. On the numbering of the seventy nations, which the Rabbins make out of this table, as Delitzsch farther constructs it, see Keil, p. 116. Delitzsch traces a relation between the seventy peoples, and the seventy disciples, Luk_10:1, and designates the number as that of the divinely-ordained multiplicity of the human. Probably, also, the name of the Septuagint has reference to the heathen nations for whom the Alexandrian translation of the Old Testament was designed. Keil objects, that the numbering can only come out clean and round when we assign the name of nations to Salah and Eber. But Salah might have actually had more sons. And, besides, it is not necessary that the symbolical numbers should always literally correspond to the historical. This frequent appearance of the number seventy resolves itself into some early symbolizing. Seven is the number of God’s work, including his holy day of rest; ten is the number of the perfect human development; the seventy nations were, therefore, the entire outspreading of God’s host, under his rule.
5. Nimrod’s despotic power, at least if we judge from the name, was denoted as a rebellion, as a revolution. It partook of both forms of revolution against the divine ordinance: 1. From above downwards; 2. from below upwards; of which the first seems, in truth, to have been the oldest.
Schröder: All these sons, the white posterity of Japheth, the yellow and dark sons of Ham, however they may live in temporal separation, are all still God’s children, and brothers to one another.
[Excursus on the Hebrew Chronology—the state of the Primitive Men—the Rapid Beginnings of History. The brief Hebrew chronology is urged as an objection to the Scriptures. Hence the tendency, even among believers, to prefer the numbers given in the Septuagint. There is hardly time enough, it is thought, for the great historical commencements, and the scale on which they appear, so soon after the flood. Others, like Lepsius and Bunsen, would go very far beyond the LXX., carrying up the human chronology, and that of the Egyptian monarchy along with it, twenty thousand years before the time of Christ, and twelve or fifteen thousand years before the flood. The main ground of this theory is not so much the monuments, though Bunsen has much to say about them, as an assumption respecting the earliest condition and slow progress of the human race. With regard to the monuments, on which so much reliance is placed, there is not space, nor occasion, to say much here. Those who refer to them with most confidence have to admit that there is great difficulty in determining their meaning as well as their historical authority, even if rightly interpreted. It is made a question, too, whether, in many cases, they represent successive or cotemporaneous dynasties. Their barrenness in respect to almost everything else but names, detracts also from their chronological testimony. Like the Chaldean, Hindoo, and Chinese statements, they are hardly anything else but numbers. There is little or no filling up of these blank statistical spaces with anything like a veritable life-like history. Had much that is on these monuments been found in the early Scriptures, it would have made them the scoff of the infidel and the rationalist. There is, however, one concise argument, which, if rightly considered, ought to dispose of the whole matter. Egypt was visited, two thousand three hundred years ago, by a most intelligent Greek, whose valuable history has come down to us entire. In faithful narrative of what he saw, as he saw it, and of what he heard, as he heard it, Herodotus is excelled by no writer, ancient or modern. His pains and fidelity are attested by those immense journeys, whose extent would be deemed a wonder, even with all the facilities of modern travel. Now this most credible witness saw these monuments in their freshness, and when they were as intelligible to the Egyptian priests, as would be to us the contents of a modern census. They decipher for him these hieroglyphics, now so puzzling, and give him, as deduced therefrom, what they understand to be the Egyptian history. It is contained in his second book. Can we ever expect a better interpretation than the one made under such circumstances, and under the direction of such competent guides? They had every motive to present their nation in its most antique and imposing aspect, knowing, as they doubtless did, that the inquirer was collecting materials for a history of the world, as then known. If they erred at all, it would most likely have been on the side of an excessive antiquity. And yet, the chronology of Herodotus may, without any great difficulty, be made to agree with that of the Bible—certainly with that of the Septuagint. In regard to the monuments, such a view should be deemed conclusive. Herodotus is, after all, the great historical authority in respect to the antiquity of the Egyptian monarchy; and he is likely to remain so, since we have no reason to expect any interpretation of these hieroglyphics that escaped his eager search, or the intelligence of his well-informed and zealous instructors.
The other ground, that is, the necessity of a very long time to bring about such results in the slow progress of mankind, is a sheer assumption, that may at once be met by arguments drawn from the intrinsic aspects of the case. It all depends upon the hypothesis with which we start in respect to the condition of the primitive men; and this involves, first of all, an inquiry as to the primitive man, or the primus homo, or whether there ever really was such a distinct individual, the head of a distinct race, having a supernatural beginning at a distinct moment of time. Some, who favor the view of the low primitive condition of man, from which he struggled slowly up into language and a distinct human consciousness, making his appearance in history only after he had been many ages upon the earth, may still hold to something like a creation of the species; but logically it is very difficult to separate such a doctrine from that eternal-development theory, which, in opposition to the axiom de nihilo nihil, or, what is equivalent to it, that more cannot come out of less, would bring the highest life out of the lowest forms of matter, and make God himself (supposing it to acknowledge something under that name) the end instead of the beginning of nature. On the contrary, the admission of a creation, in any intelligible sense of the word, is the admission of a distinct time, a distinct moment of time, when the thing created began to be, which a moment before was not. This, however, does not demand the idea of an instantaneous coming from nothing, or even de novo, of everything belonging to, or connected with the new existence, but only the new and distinct, beginnning of that which especially makes it what it is, a new, peculiar entity, separate from everything else. To apply this to man, the origin of his physical, his earthly, may have been as remote as any geological theory of life-periods, or any biblical interpretation supposed to be in accordance with it, may allow. If we admit the idea of growth, or succession in creation, as perfectly consistent with supernatural starts regarded as intervening and originating its successive processes, then man may have been long coming from the earth, from the deepest parts of the earth, as is said Psa_139:15. The formation of the human physical may have begun in the earliest stages of the êôßóéò , or world-building. The words îï òôø , “from the dust,” may denote a process comparatively quick or slow. The essential faith is satisfied either way; since it only demands two things—a dual derivation of the completed humanity, and an order, that is, a succession, whether in nature or in time (or in both), rather than any precise duration. Even the common notion of an outward plastic formation of the body implies the use of a previous nature in a previous material or materials—that is, a use of them according to such natures. There is essentially the same idea in the employment of previous growths and processes, as in that of previous material, although with the conception of such successions there necessarily comes that of time, longer or shorter. How many steps there were we cannot know; but in thus bringing up the human physical through lower structural forms, there may have been outwardly approximations to the human, long before there was reached that humanity proper in Which nature and spirit unite. Without scientific comparison and deduction, the simplest inspection of nature is sufficient to suggest the thought that man is built upon types from below him, even as he is formed in the image of that which is above him. If then such a view of successive evolutions from the dust, instead of an immediate outward plastic formation of the human earthly, be not inconsistent with the comprehensive language of Scripture, we should not be startled at the thought of there having been anthropoidal forms of various degrees of approximation, some of them, perhaps, larger than any now found upon earth, and which may have perished, like some of the larger or mammoth species of mammalia. If the explorations of science have brought to light any such remains, our faith need not be disturbed by the question of their pre-historicalness. The interpreter of Scripture is little concerned, either in affirming or denying such discoveries. Whatever be their date, we have not yet come to the humanity proper, the Adamic humanity, that humanity which Christ assumed and raises to a still higher sphere. The animal world is not yet surpassed. But there is a moment when the human race now upon the earth had its distinct beginning, and that, too, in a primus homo,—the “first Adam”—even as there is a “new man,” a new humanity, that is to have its finish or completion in a second Adam, or last Adam ( ἔó÷áôïò Áäὰì ), as the apostle calls him. This beginning of humanity upon earth was not a physical act merely, or the mere completion of a physical progress. It took place in the spiritual sphere. The true creation of man was not merely a formation, or an animation, but an inspiration, a direct, divine inspiration (Gen_2:7); and now there is what before was not, a áøéàä , a new thing upon earth, not simply something higher physically (though even that would require a divine intervention), but an entity distinct as connected with a higher or supernatural world. This Adamic man, thus divinely raised out of nature, and lifted above the pure animality, is the one of whom the Bible gives us so particular an account. He was the one who first awoke to a true rational human consciousness. Thus man “became a living soul.” The emphasis is in the manner of the inbreathing; but to distinguish it wholly from the animation of other kinds who are also called ðôù çéä , the wondrous event is described in