iv. 5160); and where the name is probably perpetuated in the

ruins of Daidan, West of Teima (Dillmann). The name occurs both in Minæan and Sabæan inscriptions (Glaser, 397 ff.; Müller, _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, xxx. 122), but not in the Greek or Roman geographers.――The older tradition of Yahwist (25³) recognises a closer kinship of the Israelites with Sheba and Dedan, by making them sons of Joḳshan and descendants of Abraham through Ḳeturah (_v. ad loc._). (An intermediate stage seems represented by 10²⁵⁻²⁹, where South Arabia is assigned to the descendants of ‛Eber). Priestly-Code follows the steps of 25³ by bracketing the two tribes as sons of Ra‛mah: whether he knew them as comparatively recent offshoots of the Kushite stock is not so certain.

=22, 23, 31. The Shemitic or Eastern Group.=――With the doubtful exception of לוּד‎ (see below) the nations here mentioned all lie on the East of Palestine, and are probably arranged in geographical order from South-east to North-west, till they join hands with the Japhethites.

=Shem.=

1. Elam. 2. Asshur. 3. Arpachshad. 4. Lud. 5. Aram. 6. Uẓ. 7. Ḥul. 8. Gether. 9. Mash.

‎ (1) עֵילָם‎ (Αἰλαμ)] Assyrian _Elamtu_,¹ the name of “the great plain East of the lower Tigris and North of the Persian Gulf, together with the mountainous region enclosing it on the North and East” (Delitzsch _Wo lag das Paradies?_ 320), corresponding to the later Elymäis or Susiana. The district round Susa was in very early times (after 3000 B.C.) inhabited by Semitic settlers ruled by viceroys of the Babylonian kings; about 2280 the Anzanite element (of a different race and speaking a different language) gained the upper hand, and even established a suzerainty over Babylonia. From that time onwards Elam was a powerful monarchy, playing an important part in the politics of the Euphrates valley, till it was finally destroyed by Assurbanipal.² The reason for including this non-Semitic race among the sons of Shem is no doubt geographical or political. The other Old Testament references are Genesis 14¹ᐧ ⁹, Isaiah 11¹² 21² 22⁶, Jeremiah 25²⁵ 49³⁴ ᶠᶠᐧ, Ezekiel 32²⁴, Daniel 8².

¹ Commonly explained as ‘highland’ (Schrader, Delitzsch _Assyrisches Handwörterbuch_ etc.), but according to Jensen (_Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, vi. 170², xi. 351) = ‘front-land,’ _i.e._ ‘East land.’

² See the interesting historical sketch by Scheil, _Textes elamites-semitiques_ (1900), pages ix‒xv [= volume ii. of de Morgan, _Delegation en Perse: Memoires_]. Compare Sayce, _The Expository Times._, xiii. 65.

‎ (2) אַשּׁוּר‎] Assyria. See below on verse ¹¹ (page 211).

‎ (3) אַרְפַּכְשֶׂד‎ (Ἀρφαξαδ)] identified by Bochartus with the Ἀῤῥαπαχῖτις which Ptolemy (vi. 1. 2) describes as the province of Assyria next to Armenia,――the mountainous region round the sources of the Upper Zab, between lakes Van and Urumia, still called in Kurdish _Albâk_. This name appears in Assyrian as Arapḫa (Arbaḫa, etc.),¹ and on Egyptian monuments of the 18th dynasty as _’Ararpaḫa_ (Müller, _Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern_, 278 f.). Geographically nothing could be more suitable than this identification: the difficulty is that the last syllable שׁד‎ is left unaccounted for. Josephus recognised in the last three letters the name of the Chaldeans ‎ (כֶּשֶׂד‎),² and several attempts have been made to explain the first element of the word in accordance with this hint. (a) The best is perhaps that of Cheyne (_Encyclopædia Biblica_, 318),³ resolving the word into two proper names: ארפך‎ or ארפח‎ (= Assyrian _Arbaḫa_) and כֶּשֶׂד‎,――the latter here introducing a second trio of sons of Shem. On this view the Arpakšad of verse ²⁴ 11¹⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ must be an error (for כשׂד‎?) caused by the textual corruption here. (b) An older conjecture, approved by Gesenius (_Thesaurus philologicus criticus Linguæ Hebrææ et Chaldææ Veteris Testamenti_), Knobel, al., compares the ארפ‎ with Arabic _’urfat_ (= ‘boundary’),⁴ Ethiopian _arfat_ (= ‘wall’); ארף כשד‎ would thus be the ‘wall (or boundary) of Kesed.’ (c) Hommel _The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as illustrated by the Monuments_, 212, 294‒8) takes the middle syllable _pa_ to be the Egyptian article, reading _’Ur-pa-Kesed_ = Ur of the Chaldees (11²⁸),――an improbable suggestion. (d) Delitzsch. (_Wo lag das Paradies?_ 255 f.) and Jensen (_Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, xv. 256) interpret the word as _arba-kišādu_ = ‘[Land of the] four quarters (or shores),’ after the analogy of a common designation of Babylonia in royal titles.――These theories are partly prompted by the observation that otherwise Chaldea is passed over in the Table of Priestly-Code,――a surprising omission, no doubt, but perhaps susceptible of other explanations. The question is complicated by the mention of an Aramean Kesed in 22²². The difficulty of identifying that tribe with the Chaldeans in the South of Babylonia is admitted by Driver (page 223); and if there was another Kesed near Ḥarran, the fact must be taken account of in speculating about the meaning of Arpakšad.

¹ _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, i. 177, 213, ii. 13, 89; compare Delitzsch _Wo lag das Paradies?_ 124 f.

² Ἀρφαξάδης δὲ τοὺς νῦν Χαλδαίους καλουμένους Ἀρφαξαδαίους ὠνόμασεν ἄρξας αὐτῶν: _Antiquities of the Jews_ i. 144.

³ A different conjecture in _Encyclopædia Biblica_, 3644; _Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel_, 178.

⁴ Note Tuch’s objections, page 205.

‎ (4) לוּד‎ (_The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ לד‎, LXX Λουδ)] usually understood of the Lydians (Josephus, Bochartus, al.), but it has never been satisfactorily explained how a people in the extreme West of Asia Minor comes to be numbered among the Shemites. An African people, such as appears to be contemplated in verse ¹³, would be equally out of place here. A suggestion of Jensen’s deserves consideration: that ‎ לוד‎ is the _Lubdu_,――a province lying “between the upper Tigris and the Euphrates, North of Mt. Masius and its western extension,”――mentioned in _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, i. 4 (line 9 from below, read _Lu-up-di_), 177 (along with Arrapḫa), 199. See Winckler _Altorientalische Forschungen_, ii. 47; Streck, _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, xiv. 168; Jeremias 276. In the remaining references (Isaiah 66¹⁹, Jeremiah 46⁹, Ezekiel 27¹⁰ 30⁵), the Lydians of Asia Minor might be meant,――in the last three as mercenaries in the service of Egypt or Tyre.

‎ (5) אֲרָם‎ (Ἀραμ, Ἀραμων)] a collective designation of the Semitic peoples speaking ‘Aramaic’ dialects,¹ so far as known to the Hebrews (Nöldeke _Encyclopædia Biblica_, 276 ff.). The actual diffusion of that family of Semites was wider than appears from the Old Testament, which uses the name only of the districts to the North-east of Palestine (Damascus especially) and Mesopotamia (Aram-Naharaim, Paddan-Aram): these, however, were really the chief centres of Aramæan culture and influence. In Assyrian the _Armaiu_ (_Aramu, Arimu, Arumu_) are first named by Tiglath-pileser I. (_circa_ 1100) as dwelling in the steppes of Mesopotamia (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, i. 33); and Shalmaneser II. (_circa_ 857) encountered them in the same region (_ib._ 165). But if Winckler be right (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 28 f., 36), they are referred to under the name _Aḫlāmi_ from a much earlier date (Tel-Amarna Tablets; Ramman-nirari I. [_circa_ 1325]; Ašur-rîš-îši [_circa_ 1150]: see _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, v. 387, i. 5, 13). Hence Winckler regards the second half of the 2nd millennium B.C. as the period during which the Aramæan nomads became settled and civilised peoples in Mesopotamia and Syria.

¹ οὓς Ἕλληνες Σύρους προσαγορεύουσιν――as Josephus correctly explains.

In 1 Chronicles 1¹⁷ the words ובני ארם‎ (verse ²³) are omitted, the four following names being treated as sons of Shem:

‎ (6) עוּץ‎ (Ὠς, Οὐζ)] is doubtless the same tribe which in 22²¹ (Ὠξ, Ὠζ) is classed as the firstborn of Naḥor: therefore presumably somewhere North-east of Palestine in the direction of Ḥarran. The conjectural identifications are hardly worth repeating. The other Biblical occurrences of the name are difficult to harmonise. The Uz of Job 1¹ (Αὐσιτις), and the Ḥorite tribe mentioned in Genesis 36²⁰, point to a South-east situation, bordering on or comprised in Edom; and this would also suit Lamentations 4²¹, Jeremiah 25²⁰ (הָעוּץ‎!), though in both these passages the reading is doubtful. It is suggested by William Robertson Smith (_Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_², 61) and Wellhausen (_Reste arabischen Heidentums_ 146) that the name is identical with that of the Arabian god _‛Auḍ_; and by the former scholar that the Old Testament עוּץ‎ denotes a number of scattered tribes worshipping that deity (similarly Budde _Das Buch Hiob_ ix.‒xi.; but, on the other side, see Nöldeke _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, xl. 183 f.).

‎ (7) חוּל‎ (Οὑλ)] Delitzsch (_Wo lag das Paradies?_ 259) identifies with a district in the neighbourhood of Mt. Masius mentioned by Asshur-nasir-pal. The word (_ḥu-li-ia_), however, is there read by Peiser as an appellative = ‘desert’ (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, i. 86 f., 110 f.); and no other conjecture is even plausible.

‎ (8) גֶּתֶר‎ is quite unknown.

‎ (9) מַשׁ‎ (_The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ משא‎, LXX Μοσοχ, in accord with 1 Chronicles 1¹⁷ Massoretic Text מֵשֶׁךְ‎)] perhaps connected with Mons Masius,――τὸ Μάσιον ὄρος of Ptolemy (v. 18. 2) and Strabo (XI. xiv. 2),――a mountain range North of Nisibis now called Ṭûr-‛Abdîn or Ḳeraǧa Dagh (Bochartus, Delitzsch _Wo lag das Paradies?_ 259, Dillmann, al.). The uncertainty of the text and the fact that the Assyrian monuments use a different name render the identification precarious. Jensen (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, vi. 1, 567) suggests the mountain _Māšu_ of Gilgameš IX. ii. 1 f., which he supposes to be Lebanon and Anti-Libanus. The _Mât Maš_ of _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, ii. 221, which has been adduced as a parallel, ought, it now appears, to be read _mad-bar_ (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 191²; compare Jensen _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, x. 364).

=31, 32.= Priestly-Code’s closing formula for the Shemites (³¹); and his subscription to the whole Table (³²).

_The Table of Yahwist._

=IX. 18a, X. 1b. Introduction.= See pages 182, 188.

A slight discontinuity in verse ¹ makes it probable that ¹ᵇ is inserted from Yahwist. If so, it would stand most naturally after 9¹⁸ᵃ (Dillmann), not after ¹⁹. It seems to me that ¹⁹ is rather the Yahwistic parallel to 10³² (Priestly-Code), and formed originally the conclusion of Yahwist’s Table (compare the _closing_ formulæ, 10²⁹ 22²³ 25⁴).

=8‒12. Nimrod and his empire.=――The section deals with the foundation of the Babylonio-Assyrian Empire, whose legendary hero, Nimrod, is described as a son of Kush (see below). Unlike the other names in the chapter, Nimrod is not a people, but an individual,――a _Gibbôr_ or despot, famous as the originator of the idea of the military state, based on arbitrary force.――=8.= The statement that _he was the first to become a Gibbôr on the earth_ implies a different conception from 6⁴. There, the Gibbôrîm are identified with the semi-divine Nephîlîm: here, the Gibbôr is a man, whose personal prowess and energy raise him above the common level of humanity. The word expresses the idea of violent, tyrannical power, like Arabic _ǧabbār_.

If the כּוּשׁ‎ of verse ⁶ ᶠᐧ be Ethiopia (see page 200 f.), it follows that in the view of the redactor the earliest dynasty in the Euphrates valley was founded by immigrants from Africa. That interpretation was accepted even by Tuch; but it is opposed to all we know of the early history of Babylonia, and it is extremely improbable that it represents a Hebrew tradition. The assumption of a South Arabian Kûsh would relieve the difficulty; for it is generally agreed that the _Semitic_ population of Babylonia――which goes back as far as monumental evidence carries us――actually came from Arabia; but it is entirely opposed to the ethnography of Yahwist, who peoples South Arabia with descendants of Shem (²¹ᐧ ²⁵ ᶠᶠᐧ). It is therefore not unlikely that, as many Assyriologists think,¹ Yahwist’s כּוּשׁ‎ is quite independent of the Hamitic Kûsh of Priestly-Code, and denotes the _Kaš_ or _Kaššu_, a people who conquered Babylonia in the 18th century, and set up a dynasty (the 3rd) which reigned there for 600 years² (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 21). It is conceivable that in consequence of so prolonged a supremacy, Kaš might have become a name for Babylonia, and that Yahwist’s knowledge of its history did not extend farther back than the Kaššite dynasty. Since there is no reason to suppose that Yahwist regarded Kaš as Hamitic, it is quite possible that the name belonged to his list of Japhetic peoples.

¹ See Delitzsch _Wo lag das Paradies?_ 51‒55; Schrader _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_², 87 f.; Winckler _Alttestamentliche Untersuchungen_, 146 ff.; Jensen _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, vi. 340‒2; Sayce, _The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments_², 148 ff., etc.

² Remnants of this conquering race are mentioned by Sennacherib (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, ii. 87). They are thought to be identical with the Κοσσαῖοι of the Greeks (Strabo, XI. xiii. 6, XVI. i. 17 f.; Arrian, _Anabasis_ vii. 15; Diodorus, xvii. 111, xix. 19, etc.); and probably also with the Κίσσιοι of Herodotus vii. 62, 86, etc. (compare v. 49, 52, vi. 119). Compare Delitzsch _Wo lag das Paradies?_ 31, 124, 127 ff.; Meyer _Geschichte des Alterthums_¹, § 129; Winckler _Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens_, 78 ff.; Schrader _Keilinschriften und Geschichtsforschung_, 176 f.; Oppert, _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, iii. 421 ff.; Jensen _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, l. 244 f., etc.

* * * * *

‎ =8.= נִמְרֹד‎ (Νεβρωδ)] The Hebrew naturally connects the name with the √ מרד‎ = ‘rebel’ (Targumᴶᵒⁿᵃᵗʰᵃⁿ, Rashi, al.): see below, page ‎ 209.――הוּא הֵחֵל לִ׳‎] ‘he was the first to become’; see on 4²⁶ 9²⁰.

* * * * *

=9.= Nimrod was not only a great tyrant and ruler of men, but _a hero of the chase_ (גִּבּוֹר צַיִד‎). The verse breaks the connexion between ⁸ and ¹⁰, and is probably an interpolation (Dillmann al.); although, as Delitzsch remarks, the union of a passion for the chase with warlike prowess makes Nimrod a true prototype of the Assyrian monarchs,――an observation amply illustrated by the many hunting scenes sculptured on the monuments.――_Therefore it is said_] introducing a current proverb; compare 1 Samuel 19²⁴ with 10¹²; Genesis 22¹⁴ etc. “When the Hebrews wished to describe a man as being a great hunter, they spoke of him as ‘like Nimrod’” (Driver).――The expression לִפְנֵי יהוה‎ doubtless belongs to the proverb: the precise meaning is obscure (_v.i._).

A perfectly convincing Assyriological prototype of the figure of Nimrod has not as yet been discovered. The derivation of the name from Marduk, the tutelary deity of the city of Babylon, first propounded by Sayce, and adopted with modifications by Wellhausen,¹ still commends itself to some Assyriologists (Pinches, _A Dictionary of the Bible_, iii. 552 f.; compare _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 581); but the material points of contact between the two personages seem too vague to establish an instructive parallel. The identification with Nazi-Maruttaš, a late (_circa_ 1350) and apparently not very successful king of the Kaššite dynasty (Haupt, Hilprecht, Sayce, al.), is also unsatisfying: the supposition that that particular king was so well known in Palestine as to eclipse all his predecessors, and take rank as the founder of Babylonian civilisation, is improbable. The nearest analogy is that of Gilgameš,² the legendary tyrant of Erech (see verse ¹⁰), whose adventures are recorded in the famous series of Tablets of which the Deluge story occupies the eleventh (see page 175 above, and _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 566 ff.). Gilgameš is a true Gibbôr――“two parts deity and one part humanity”――he builds the walls of Erech with forced labour, and his subjects groan under his tyranny, until they cry to Aruru to create a rival who might draw off some of his superabundant energy (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, vi. 1, 117, 119). Among his exploits, and those of his companion Ea-bani, contests with beasts and monsters figure prominently; and he is supposed to be the hero so often represented on seals and palace-reliefs in victorious combat with a lion (see _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 266 f.). It is true that the parallel is incomplete; and (what is more important) that the name Nimrod remains unexplained. The expectation that the phonetic reading of the ideographic _GIŠ. ṬU. BAR_ might prove to be the Babylonian equivalent of the Hebrew Nimrod, would seem to have been finally dispelled by the discovery (in 1890) of the correct pronunciation as Gilgameš (but see Jeremias _l.c._). Still, enough general resemblance remains to warrant the belief that the original of the biblical Nimrod belongs to the sphere of Babylonian mythology. A striking parallel to the visit of Gilgameš to his father Ut-napištim occurs in a late Nimrod legend, preserved in the Syrian _Schatzhöhle_ (see Gunkel _Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit_ 146²; Lidzbarski _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, vii. 15). On the theory which connects Nimrod with the constellation Orion, see Tuch _ad loc._; Budde _Die biblische Urgeschichte_ 395 f.; _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 581²; and on the late Jewish and Mohammedan legends generally, Seligsohn, _Jewish Encyclopædia_, ix. 309 ff.

¹ Sayce (_Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, ii. 243 ff.) derived it from the Akkadian equivalent of Marduk, _Amar-ud_, from which he thought _Nimrudu_ would be a regular (Assyrian) Niphal form. Wellhausen (_Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments_² 309 f.) explains the נ‎ as an Aramaic imperfect preformative to the √ מרד‎, a corruption from Mard-uk which took place among the Syrians of Mesopotamia, through whom the myth reached the Hebrews.

² So Smith-Sayce, _Chaldean Account of Genesis_ 176 ff.; Jeremias _Isdubar-Nimrod._

* * * * *

=9.= While Dillmann regards the verse as an interpolation from oral tradition, Budde (_Die biblische Urgeschichte_ 390 ff.) assigns it to his Yahwist¹, and finds a place for it between 6⁴ and 11¹,――a precarious suggestion.――יהוה‎¹] LXX + τοῦ θεοῦ.――לִפְנֵי י׳‎] ‘before Yahwe.’ The phrase is variously explained: (1) ‘unique,’ like לאלהים‎ in Jonah 3³ (Dillmann al.); (2) ‘in the estimation of Yahwe’ (compare 2 Kings 5¹ etc.); (3) ‘in despite of Yahwe’ (Budde); (4) ‘with the assistance of Yahwe’――the name of some god of the chase having stood in the original myth (Gunkel); (5) ‘in the constant presence of Yahwe’――an allusion to the constellation Orion (Holzinger). The last view is possible in ⁹ᵇ, but hardly in ᵃ, because of the היה‎. A sober exegesis will prefer (1) or (2).

* * * * *

=10.= _The nucleus of his empire was Babylon ... in the land of Shin‛ar_] It is not said that Nimrod founded these four cities (contrast verse ¹¹). The rise of the great cities of Babylonia was not only much older than the Kaššite dynasty, but probably preceded the establishment of any central government; and the peculiar form of the expression here may be due to a recollection of that fact. Of the four cities, two can be absolutely identified; the third is known by name, but cannot be located; and the last is altogether uncertain.

‎ בָּבֶל‎ (Βαβυλών)] the Hebrew form of the native _Bāb-ili_ = ‘gate of God’ or ‘the gods’ (though this may be only a popular etymology). The political supremacy of the city, whose origin is unknown, dates from the expulsion of the Elamites by Ḥammurabi, the sixth king of its first dynasty (_circa_ 2100 B.C.); and for 2000 years it remained the chief centre of ancient Oriental civilisation. Its ruins lie on the left bank of the Euphrates, about fifty miles due South of Baghdad.

‎ אֶרֶךְ‎ (Ὀρεχ)] the Babylonian _Uruk_ or _Arku_, now _Warka_, also on the Euphrates, about 100 miles South-east of Babylon. It was the city of Gilgameš (_v.s._).

‎ אַכַּד‎ (Ἀρχαδ: compare דַּמֶּשֶׂק‎ and דַּרְמֶשֶׂק‎)] The name (_Akkad_) frequently occurs in the inscriptions, especially in the phrase ‘Šumer and Akkad,’ = South and North Babylonia. But a city of Akkad is also mentioned by Nebuchadnezzar I. (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, iii. 170 ff.), though its site is uncertain. Its identity with the Agadé of Sargon I. (_circa_ 3800 B.C.), which was formerly suspected, is said to be confirmed by a recent decipherment. Delitzsch and Zimmern suppose that it was close to Sippar on the Euphrates, in the latitude of Baghdad (see _Wo lag das Paradies?_ 209 ff.; _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 422², 423⁸; _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 270).

‎ כַּלְנֵה‎ (Χαλαννη)] Not to be confused with the כלנה‎ of Amos 6² (= כַּלְנוֹ‎, Isaiah 10⁹), which was in North Syria. The Babylonian Kalne has not yet been discovered. Delitzsch (_Wo lag das Paradies?_ 225) takes it to be the ideogram _Kul-unu_ (pronounced _Zirlahu_), of a city in the vicinity of Babylon. But Jensen (_Theologische Litteraturzeitung_ 1895, 510) asserts that the real pronunciation was _Kullab(a)_, and proposes to read so here ‎ (כֻּלָּבָה‎).

‎ שִׁנְעָר‎ (Σεν[ν]ααρ)] apparently the old Hebrew name for Babylonia proper (11² 14¹ᐧ ⁹, Joshua 7²¹, Isaiah 11¹¹, Zechariah 5¹¹, Daniel 1²), afterwards ארץ כשדים‎ or simply [א׳] בבל‎. That it is the same as Šumer (_south_ Babylonia: _v.s._) is improbable. More plausible is the identification with the _Šanḫar_ of Tel-Amarna Tablets (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, v. 83) = Egyptian _Sangara_ (Müller, _Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern_, 279); though Winckler (_Altorientalische Forschungen_, i. 240, 399; _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 31) puts it North of the Taurus. _Ǧebel Sinǧar_ (ὁ Σιγγαρος ὄρος: Ptolemy v. 18. 2), West of Nineveh, is much too far north for the biblical Shin‛ar, unless the name had wandered.

=11, 12.= The colonisation of Assyria from Babylonia.――_From that land he_ (Nimrod, _v.i._) _went out to Assyria_]――where he built four new cities. That the great Assyrian cities were not really built by one king or at one period is certain; nevertheless the statement has a certain historic value, inasmuch as the whole religion, culture, and political organisation of Assyria were derived from the southern state. It is also noteworthy that the rise of the Assyrian power dates from the decline of Babylonia under the Kaššite kings (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 21). In Micah 5⁵ Assyria is described as the ‘land of Nimrod.’

That אַשּׁוּר‎ is here the name of the land (along the Tigris, North of the Lower Zab), and not the ancient capital (now _Ḳal‛at Šerkāt_, about halfway between the mouths of the two Zabs), is plain from the context, and the contrast to שנער‎ in verse ¹⁰.

‎ נִינְוֵה‎] (Assyrian _Ninua_, _Ninâ_, LXX Νινευη [-ι]) the foremost city of Assyria, was a royal residence from at the latest the time of Aššur-bel-kalu, son of Tiglath-pileser I. (11th century); but did not apparently become the political capital till the reign of Sennacherib (Winckler _Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens_, 146). Its site is now marked by the ruined mounds of _Nebī Yūnus_ (with a village named _Nunia_) and _Kuyunjiḳ_, both on the East side of the Tigris opposite Mosul (see Hilprecht _Explorations in Bible Lands during the 19th century_, 11, 88‒138).

‎ רְחֹבֹת עִיר‎ (Ῥοωβὼς πόλιν)] has in Hebrew appellative significance = ‘broad places of a city’ (Vulgate _plateas civitatis_). A similar phrase on Assyrian monuments, _rêbit Ninâ_, is understood to mean ‘suburb of Nineveh’; and it has been supposed that ר׳ ע׳‎ is a translation of this designation into Hebrew. As to the position of this ‘suburb’ authorities differ. Delitzsch (_Wo lag das Paradies?_ 260 f.) thinks it certain that it was on the North or North-east side of Nineveh, towards Dûr-Sargon (the modern Khorsabad); and Johns (_Encyclopædia Biblica_, iv. 4029) even identifies it with the latter (compare _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, ii. 47). Billerbeck, on the other hand, places it at Mosul on the opposite side of the Tigris, as a sort of _tête du pont_ (see _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 273). No _proper_ name at all resembling this is known in the neighbourhood of Nineveh.

‎ כֶּלַח‎ (Χαλαχ, Καλαχ) is the Assyrian _Kalḫu_ or _Kalaḫ_, which excavations have proved to be the modern _Nimrûd_, at the mouth of the Upper Zab, 20 miles South of Nineveh (Hilprecht _l.c._ 111 f.). Built by Shalmaneser I. (_circa_ 1300), it replaced Aššur as the capital, but afterwards fell into decay, and was restored by Aššur-nasir-pal (883‒59) (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, i. 117). From that time till Sargon, it seems to have continued the royal residence.

‎ רֶסֶן‎ (Δασεμ, Δαση, etc.)] Perhaps = _Riš-îni_ (‘fountain-head’), an extremely common place-name in Semitic countries; but its site is unknown. A Syrian tradition placed it at the ruins of Khorsabad, ‘a parasang above Nineveh,’ where a _Rās ’ul-‛Ain_ is said still to be found (G. Hoffmann in Nestle, _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, lviii. 158 ff.). This is doubtless the Riš-ini of Sennacherib (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, ii. 117); but its identity with רסן‎ is phonetically questionable, and topographically impossible, on account of the definition ‘between Nineveh and Kelaḥ.’

The clause הוא העיר הגדלה‎ is almost universally, but very improbably, taken to imply that the four places just enumerated had come to be regarded as a single city. Schrader (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_², 99 f.) is responsible for the statement that from the time of Sennacherib the name Nineveh was extended to include the whole complex of cities between the Zab and the Tigris; but more recent authorities assure us that the monuments contain no trace of such an idea (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 75⁴; Gunkel² 78; compare Johns, _Encyclopædia Biblica_, 3420). The fabulous dimensions given by Diodorus (ii. 3; compare Jonah 3³ ᶠᐧ) must proceed on some such notion; and it is possible that that might have induced a late interpolator to insert the sentence here. But if the words be a gloss, it is more probable that it springs from the העיר הגדולה‎ of Jonah 1², which was put in the margin opposite נִינְוֵה‎, and crept into the text in the wrong place (_Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 273).¹

¹ With the above hypothesis, Schrader’s argument that, since Nineveh is here used in the restricted sense, the passage must be of earlier date than Sennacherib, falls to the ground. From the writer’s silence regarding Aššur, the ancient capital, it may safely be inferred that he lived after 1300; and from the omission of Sargon’s new residence Dûr-Sargon, it is _probable_ that he wrote before 722. But the latter argument is not decisive, since Kelaḥ and Nineveh (the only names that can be positively identified) were both flourishing cities down to the fall of the Empire.

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‎ =11.= יָצָא אַשּׁוּר‎] ‘he went out to Asshur’ (so Targumᴶᵒⁿᵃᵗʰᵃⁿ, Calvin, and all moderns). The rendering ‘Asshur went out’ (LXX, Vulgate, Peshiṭtå, Targumᴼⁿᵏᵉˡᵒˢ, Jerome, al.) is grammatically correct, and gives a good sense (compare Isaiah 23¹³). But (1) ראשית‎ (verse ¹⁰) requires an antithesis (see on 1¹); and (2) in Micah 5⁵ Nimrod is the hero of Assyria.

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=13, 14.――The sons of Mizraim.=――These doubtless all represent parts or (supposed) dependencies of Egypt; although of the eight names not more than two can be certainly identified.――On מִצְרַיִם‎ = Egypt, see verse ⁶.――Since Mizraim could hardly have been reckoned a son of Canaan, the section (if documentary) must be an extract from that Yahwistic source to which 9¹⁸ ᶠᐧ belong (see page 188 f.).

‎ (1) לוּדים‎ (Λουδιειμ: 1 Chronicles 1¹¹ לודיים‎)] Not the Lydians of Asia Minor (_Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 274), who can hardly be thought of in this connexion; but (if the text be correct) some unknown people of North-east Africa (see on verse ²², page 206). The prevalent view of recent scholars is that the word is a mistake for לוּבִים‎, the Lybians. See Stade _Ausgewählte akademische Reden und Abhandlungen_ 141; Müller, _Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern_, 115 f.; _Orientalische Litteraturzeitung_, v. 475; al.

‎ (2) עֲנָמִים‎ (_The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ עינמים‎; LXX Αἰν-[Ἐν-]εμετιειμ[ν])] Müller reads כנמים‎ or (after LXX) כנמתים‎; _i.e._ the inhabitants of the Great Oasis of _Knmt_ in the Libyan desert (_Wāḥāt el-Khāriǧah_).¹ For older conjectures see Dillmann.

¹ _Orientalische Litteraturzeitung_ v. 471 ff.――It should be explained that this dissertation, frequently cited above, proceeds on the bold assumption that almost the best known name in the section (פַּתְרֻסִים‎, ¹⁴) is an interpolation. When this ‘cuckoo’s egg’ is ejected, the author finds that the ‘sons’ of Egypt are all dependencies or foreign possessions, and are to be sought _outside_ the Nile valley. The theory does not seem to have found much favour from Egyptologists or others.

‎ (3) לְהָבִים‎ (Λαβιειμ)] commonly supposed to be the Lybians, the ‎ ((לוּב) לוּבִים‎) of Nahum 3⁹, Daniel 11⁴³, 2 Chronicles 12³ 16⁸, [Ezekiel 30⁵?]. Müller thinks it a variant of לוּדִים‎ (1).

‎ (4) נַפְתֻּחִים‎ (Νεφθαλιειμ)] Müller proposes פתנחים = _P-to-n-‛ḥe_, ‘cowland,’――the name of the Oasis of _Farāfra_. But there is a strong presumption that, as the next name stands for Upper Egypt, this will be a designation of Lower Egypt. So Erman (_Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, x. 118 f.), who reads פתמחים‎ = _p-t-maḥī_, ‘the north-land,’――at all periods the native name of Lower Egypt. More recently Spiegelberg (_Orientalische Litteraturzeitung_ ix. 276 ff.) recognises in it an old name of the Delta, and reads without textual change _Na-patûh_ = ‘the people of the Delta.’ ‎ ‎ (5) פַּתְרֻסִים‎ (Πατροσωνιειμ)] the inhabitants of פַּתְרוֹס‎ (Isaiah 11¹¹, Jeremiah 44¹ᐧ ¹⁵, Ezekiel 30¹⁴), _i.e._ Upper Egypt: _P-to-reši_ = ‘south-land’ (Assyrian _paturisi_): see Erman, _l.c._

‎ (6) כַּסְלֻחִים‎ (Χασμωνιείμ)] Doubtful conjectures in Dillmann. Müller restores with help of LXX נסמנים‎, which he identifies with the Νασαμῶνες of Herodotus ii. 32, iv. 172, 182, 190,――a powerful tribe of nomad Lybians, near the Oasis of Amon. Sayce has read the name _Kasluhat_ on the inscription of Ombos (see on _Kaphtorim_, below); _Man_, 1903, No. 77.

‎ (7) פְּלִשְׁתִּים‎ (Φυλιστιειμ)] The Philistines are here spoken of as an offshoot of the Kaslûḥîm,――a statement scarcely intelligible in the light of other passages (Jeremiah 47⁴, Amos 9⁷; compare Deuteronomy 2²³), according to which the Philistines came from _Kaphtōr_. The clause אֲשׁר יָֽצְאוּ מִשָּׁם פּ׳‎ is therefore in all probability a marginal gloss meant to come after כפתרים‎.――The Philistines are mentioned in the Egyptian monuments, under the name _Purašati_, as the leading people in a great invasion of Syria in the reign of Ramses III. (_circa_ 1175 B.C.). The invaders came both by land and sea from the coasts of Asia Minor and the islands of the Ægean; and the Philistines established themselves on the South coast of Palestine so firmly that, though nearly all traces of their language and civilisation have disappeared, their name has clung to the country ever since. See Müller, _Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern_, 387‒90, and _Mittheilungen der vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft_, v. 2 ff.; Moore, _Encyclopædia Biblica_, iii. 3713 ff.

‎ (8) כַּפְתֹּרִים‎ (Χαφθοριειμ)] _Kaphtōr_ (Deuteronomy 2²³, Amos 9⁷, Jeremiah 47⁴) has usually been taken for the island of Crete (see Dillmann), mainly because of the repeated association of ‎ כְּרֵתִים‎ (Cretans?) with the Philistines and the Philistine territory (1 Samuel 30¹⁴ᐧ ¹⁶, Ezekiel 25¹⁶, Zephaniah 2⁵). There are convincing reasons for connecting it with _Keftiu_ (properly ‘the country _behind_’), an old Egyptian name for the ‘lands of the Great Ring’ (the Eastern Mediterranean), or the ‘isles of the Great Green,’ _i.e._ South-west Asia Minor, Rhodes, Crete, and the Mycenian lands beyond, to the North-west of Egypt (see Müller, _Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern_, 337, 344‒53, 387 ff.; and more fully H. R. Hall in _Annual of the British School at Athens_, 1901‒2, pages 162‒6). The precise phonetic equivalent _Kptār_ has been found on a late mural decoration at Ombos (Sayce, _The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments_⁶, 173; _The Early History of the Hebrews_, 291; Müller, _Mittheilungen der vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft_, 1900, 5 ff.). “_Keftiu_ is the old Egyptian name of Caphtor (Crete), _Keptar_ a Ptolemaic doublet of it, taken over when the original meaning of _Keftiu_ had been forgotten, and the name had been erroneously applied to Phœnicia” (Hall, _Man_, November, 1903, No. 92, page 162 ff.). In _Orientalische Litteraturzeitung_, M. questions the originality of the name in this passage: so also Jeremias _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 275.¹

¹ Verse ¹³ ᶠᐧ present so many peculiar features――the regular use of the plural, the great preponderance of quadriliteral names, all vocalised alike――that we can hardly help suspecting that they are a secondary addition to the Table, written from specially intimate acquaintance with the (later?) Egyptian geography.

=15‒19. The Canaanites.=――The peoples assigned to the Canaanitish group are (1) the Phœnicians (צִידֹן‎), (2) the Ḥittites (חֵת‎), and (3) a number of petty communities perhaps summed up in the phrase מִשְׁפְּחוֹת הַֽכְּנַעֲנִי‎ in ¹⁸ᵇ. It is surprising to find the great northern nation of the Ḥittites classed as a subdivision of the Canaanites. The writer may be supposed to have in view offshoots of that empire, which survived as small enclaves in Palestine proper; but that explanation does not account for the marked prominence given to Ḥeth over the little Canaanite kingships. On the other hand, one hesitates to adopt Gunkel’s theory that כנען‎ is here used in a wide geographical sense as embracing the main seats of the Ḥittite empire (page 187). There is evidence, however, of a strong settlement of Ḥittites near Ḥermon (see below), and it is conceivable that these were classed as Canaanites and so inserted here.

Critically, the verses are difficult. Wellhausen (_Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments_² 15) and others remove ¹⁶⁻¹⁸ᵃ as a gloss: because (a) the boundaries laid down in ¹⁹ are exceeded in ¹⁷ᐧ ¹⁸ᵃ, and (b) the mention of a _subsequent_ dispersion of Canaanites (¹⁸ᵇ) has no meaning after ¹⁶⁻¹⁸ᵃ. That is perhaps the most reasonable view to take; but even so ¹⁸ᵇ does not read quite naturally after ¹⁵; and what could have induced a glossator to insert four of the most northerly Phœnician cities, passing by those best known to the Hebrews? Is it possible that the last five names were originally given as sons of Heth, and the previous four as sons of Zidon? ¹⁸ᵇ might mean that the Canaanite clans emanated from Phœnicia, and were _afterwards_ ‘dispersed’ over the region defined by ¹⁹.――The change from כנען‎ in ¹⁵ to הכנעני‎ in ¹⁸ᵇᐧ ¹⁹ is hardly sufficient to prove diversity of authorship (Gunkel).

‎ צִידֹן‎] The oldest of the Phœnician cities; now Ṣaidā, nearly 30 miles South of the promontory of Beirūt. Here, however, the name is the eponym of the Ẓidonians (צִידֹנִים‎), as the Phœnicians were frequently called, not only in the Old Testament (Judges 18⁷ 3³, 1 Kings 5²⁰ 16³¹ etc.) and Homer (_Iliad_ vi. 290 f., etc.), but on the Assyrian monuments, and even by the Phœnicians themselves (Meyer _Encyclopædia Biblica_, iv. 4504).

‎ חֵת‎ (τὸν Χετταῖον)] elsewhere only in the phrases בְּנֵי ח׳‎, בְּנוֹת ח׳‎ (chapter 23 _passim_ 25¹⁰ 27⁴⁶ᵇ 49³² [all Priestly-Code]); other writers speak of חִתִּי[ם]‎. The Ḥittites (Egyptian _Ḫeta_, Assyrian _Ḫatti_) were a northern non-Semitic people, who under unknown circumstances established themselves in Cappadocia. They appear to have invaded Babylonia at the close of the First dynasty (_circa_ 1930 B.C.) (King, _Chronicles concerning early Babylonian kings_, page 72 f.). Not long after the time of Thothmes III. (1501‒1447), they are found in North Syria. With the weakening of the Egyptian supremacy in the Tel-Amarna period, they pressed further South, occupying the Orontes valley, and threatening the Phœnician coast-cities. The indecisive campaigns of Ramses II. seem to have checked their southward movement. In Assyrian records they do not appear till the reign of Tiglath-pileser I. (_circa_ 1100), when they seem to have held the country from the Taurus and Orontes to the Euphrates, with Carchemish as one of their chief strongholds. After centuries of intermittent warfare, they were finally incorporated in the Assyrian Empire by Sargon II. (_circa_ 717). See Paton, _The Early History of Syria and Palestine_ 104 ff.――The Old Testament allusions to the Ḥittites are extremely confusing, and cannot be fully discussed here: see on 15¹⁹⁻²¹ 23³. Besides the Palestinian Ḥittites (whose connexion with the people just spoken of may be doubtful), there is mention of an extensive Ḥittite country to the North of Palestine (2 Samuel 24⁶ [LXXᴸᵘᶜⁱᵃⁿ], 1 Kings 10²⁹, 2 Kings 7⁶ al.). The most important fact for the present purpose is the definite location of Ḥittites in the Lebanon region, or at the foot of Hermon (Joshua 11³ [LXXᴮᐧ ᵃˡᐧ] and Judges 3³ [as amended by Meyer al.]), compare Judges 1²⁶?). It does not appear what grounds Moore (_Judges_ 82) has for the statement that these Ḥittites were Semitic. There is certainly no justification for treating (with Jastrow _Encyclopædia Biblica_, 2094) חֵת‎ in this verse as a gloss.

The four names which follow are names of Canaanitish clans which constantly recur in enumerations of the aborigines of Palestine, and seldom elsewhere.

‎ (1) הַיְבוּסִי‎] The clan settled in and around Jerusalem: Joshua 15⁸ 18²⁸, Judges 19¹⁰, 2 Samuel 5⁶⁻⁹ etc.

‎ (2) הָֽאֱמֹרִי‎] An important politico-geographical name in the Egyptian and cuneiform documents (Egyptian _Amor_, etc., Assyrian _Amurru_). In the Tel-Amarna Tablets the ‘land of Amurru’ denotes the Lebanon region behind the Phœnician coast-territory. Its princes Abd-Aširta and Aziru were then the most active enemies of the Egyptian authority in the north, conducting successful operations against several of the Phœnician cities. It has been supposed that subsequently to these events the Amorites pressed southwards, and founded kingdoms in Palestine both East and West of the Jordan (Numbers 21¹³ ᶠᶠᐧ, Joshua 24⁸ etc.); though Müller has pointed out some difficulties in the way of that hypothesis (_Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern_, 230 f.).――In the Old Testament there appears an occasional tendency to restrict the name to ‘highlanders’ (Numbers 13²⁹, Deuteronomy 1⁷), but this is more than neutralised by other passages (Judges 1³⁴). The most significant fact is that Elohist (followed by D) employs the term to designate the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Palestine generally (compare Amos 2⁹ ᶠᐧ), whom Yahwist describes as Canaanites. Apart from the assumption of an actual Amorite domination, it is difficult to suggest an explanation of Elohist’s usage, unless we can take it as a survival of the old Babylonian name Amurru (or at least its ideographic equivalent _MAR. TU_) for Palestine, Phœnicia and Cœle-Syria.――See, further, Müller, _Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern_, 218 ff., 229 ff.; Winckler _Geschichte Israels in Einzeldarstellungen_, i. 51‒54, _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 178 ff.; Meyer _Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, i. 122 ff.; Wellhausen _Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments_² 341; Budde _Die biblische Urgeschichte_ 344 ff.; Driver _Deuteronomy_ 11 f., _Genesis_ 125 f.; Sayce, _A Dictionary of the Bible_, i. 84 f.; Paton, _The Early History of Syria and Palestine_ 25‒46, 115 ff., 147 f.; Meyer _Geschichte des Alterthums_², 1. ii. § 396.

‎ (3) ה ַגִּרְגָּשִׁי‎] only mentioned in enumerations (15²¹, Deuteronomy 7¹, Joshua 3¹⁰ 24¹¹, Nehemiah 9⁸) without indication of locality. ‎ גרגש‎, גרגשים‎, גדגשי‎ occur as proper names on Punic inscriptions. (Lidzbarski, _Handbuch der nordsemitischen Epigraphik_ 405₄, 622₄_{f.}, 673₃; _Ephemeris für semitische Epigraphik_ i. 36, 308). Ewald conjectured a connexion with New Testament Γέργεσα.

‎ (4) הַחִוִּי‎ (τὸν Εὑαῖον)] a tribe of central Palestine, in the neighbourhood of Shechem (34²) and Gibeon (Joshua 9⁷); in Judges 3³, where they are spoken of in the North, הַחִתִּי‎ should be read, and in Joshua 11³ Hittites and Hivvites should be transposed in accordance with LXXᴮ. The name has been explained by Gesenius (_Thesaurus philologicus criticus Linguæ Hebrææ et Chaldææ Veteris Testamenti_) and others as meaning ‘dwellers in חַוֹּת‎’ (Bedouin encampments: compare Numbers 32⁴¹); but that is improbable in the case of a people long settled in Palestine (Moore). Wellhausen (_Reste arabischen Heidentums_ 154) more plausibly connects it with חַוָּה‎ = ‘serpent’ (see on 3²⁰), surmising that the Hivvites were a snake-clan. Compare Lagarde, _Onomastica Sacra_, 187, 174, line 97 (Εὑαῖοι σκολιοὶ ὡς ἐπὶ ὄφεις).

The 5 remaining names are formed from names of _cities_, 4 in the extreme North of Phœnicia, and the last in Cœle-Syria.

‎ (5) הָעַרְקִי‎ (_The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ הערוקי‎, LXX τὸν Ἀρουκαῖον)] is from the city Ἄρκη ἐν τῷ Λιβάνῳ (Josephus _Antiquities of the Jews_ i. 138), the ruins of which, still bearing the name _Tell ‛Arḳa_, are found on the coast about 12 miles North-east of Tripolis. It is mentioned by Thothmes III. (in the form _‛r-ka-n-tu_: see _Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern_, 247 f.), and in Tel-Amarna letters (_Irkata_: _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, v. 171, etc.); also by Shalmaneser II. (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, i. 173; along with Arvad and Sianu, _below_), and Tiglath-pileser IV. (_ib._ ii. 29; along with Ṣimirra and Sianu).

‎ (6) הַסִּינִי‎ (τὸν Ἁσενναῖον)] inhabitants of סִיָּן‎‎, Assyrian _Sianu_ (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, _ll.cc._). Jerome (_Quæstiones sive Traditiones hebraicæ in Genesim_) says it was not far from ‛Arḳa, but adds that only the name remained in his day. The site is unknown: see Cooke, _Encyclopædia Biblica_, iv. 4644 f.

‎ (7) הָאַרְוָדִי‎ (τὸν Ἀράδιον)] ’Arwad (Ezekiel 27⁸ᐧ ¹¹) was the most northerly of the Phœnician cities, built on a small island (Strabo, XVI. ii. 13; _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, i. 109) about 35 miles North of Tripolis (now _Ruād_). It is named frequently, in connexions which show its great importance in ancient times, in Egyptian inscriptions (_Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern_, 186 f.), on Tel-Amarna Tablets, and by Assyrian kings from Tiglath-pileser I. to Asshurbanipal (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_², 104 f.; Delitzsch _Wo lag das Paradies?_ 281); see also Herodotus vii. 98.

‎ (8) הַצְּמָרִי‎ (τὸν Σαμαραῖον)] Six miles South of Ruād, the modern village of _Ṣumra_ preserves the name of this city: Egyptian _Ṣamar_; Tel-Amarna Tablets _Ṣumur_; Assyrian _Ṣimirra_; Greek Σιμυρα. See Strabo, XVI. ii. 12; _Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern_, 187; _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_², 105; Delitzsch _Wo lag das Paradies?_ 281 f.

‎ (9) הַחֲמָתִי‎ (τὸν Ἁμαθί)] from the well-known Ḥamath on the Orontes; now _Ḥamā_.

The delimitation of the Canaanite boundary in verse ¹⁹ is very obscure. It describes two sides of a triangle, from Ẓidon on the North to Gaza or Gerar in the South-west; and from thence to a point near the South end of the Dead Sea. The terminus לֶשֶׂע‎ (LXX Δασα) is, however, unknown. The traditional identification (Targumᴶᵒⁿᵃᵗʰᵃⁿ, Jerome) with Καλλιῤῥόη, near the North end of the Dead Sea, is obviously unsuitable. Kittel, _Biblia Hebraica_ (very improbably), suggests בֶּלַע‎ (14²). Wellhausen (_Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments_² 15) reads לֵשָׁה‎ or לֵשָׁם‎ (Joshua 19⁴⁷ לֶשֶׁם‎) = ‘to Dan’ (לַיִשׁ‎), the conventional _northern_ limit of Canaan,――thus completing the East side of the triangle.――Gerar were certainly further South than Gaza (see on 20¹); hence we cannot read ‘_as far as_ (_v.i._) Gerar, up to Gaza,’ while the rendering ‘_in the direction of_ Gerar, as far as Gaza,’ would only be intelligible if Gerar were a better known locality than Gaza. Most probably עַד־עַזָּה‎ is a gloss (Gunkel al.).――On the situation of Sodom, etc., see on chapter 19.――On any construction of the verse the northern cities of ¹⁷ᐧ ¹⁸ᵃ are excluded.――_The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ has an entirely different text: מנהר מצרים עד הנהר הגדול נהר פרת ועד הים האחרון‎,――an amalgam of 15¹⁸ and Deuteronomy 11²⁴.

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‎ =15.= בְּכֹרוֹ‎] compare 22²¹ (Yahwist).――=18.= אַחַר‎] adverb of time, as 18⁵ 24⁵⁵ 30²¹ etc. = אַֽחֲרֵי־כֵן‎: see Brown-Driver-Briggs, 29 f.――נָפֹצוּ‎] Niphal from √ פוץ‎; see on 9¹⁹: compare 11⁴ᐧ ⁸ᐧ ⁹.――מִשְׁפְּחֹת הַכְּנַֽעֲנִי‎] can hardly, even if the clause be a gloss, denote the Phœnician colonies on the Mediterranean (Brown, _Encyclopædia Biblica_, ii. 1698 f.).――=19.= בֹּֽאֲכָה‎] ‘as one comes’ (see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 144 _h_) might be taken as ‘in the direction of’ (so Dillmann, Driver, al.); but there does not appear to be any clear case in which the expression differs from עַד־בּֽוֹאֲךָ‎ = ‘as far as’ (compare 10³⁰ 13¹⁰ 25¹⁸ [all Yahwist], 1 Samuel 15⁷ with Judges 6⁴ 11³³, 1 Samuel 17⁵², 2 Samuel 5²⁵, 1 Kings 18⁴⁶).――עַד־עַזָּה‎] LXX καὶ Γάζαν.

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=21, 24, 25-30. The Shemites.=――The genealogy of Shem in Yahwist resolves itself entirely into a classification of the peoples whose origin was traced to ‛Eber. These fall into two main branches: the descendants of Peleg (who are not here enumerated), and the Yoḳṭanites or South Arabian tribes. Shem is thus nothing more than the representative of the unity of the widely scattered Hebraic stock: Shemite and ‘Hebrew’ are convertible terms. This recognition of the ethnological affinity of the northern and southern Semites is a remarkable contrast to Priestly-Code, who assigns the South Arabians to Ḥam,――the family with which Israel had least desire to be associated.

‎ עֵבֶר‎ is the eponym of עִבְרִים‎ (Hebrews), the name by which the Israelites are often designated in distinction from other peoples, down to the time of Saul¹ (see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 2 b: the passages are cited in Brown-Driver-Briggs, _s.v._). It is strange at first sight that while the בני עבר‎ of verse ²¹ include all Shemites known to Yahwist, the gentilic word is historically restricted to Israelites. The difficulty is perhaps removed by the still disputed, but now widely accepted, theory that _Ḫabiri_ in the Tel-Amarna letters is the cuneiform equivalent of the Old Testament עִבְרִים‎. The equation presents no philological difficulty: Assyrian _ḫ_ often represents a foreign ע‎; and Eerdmans’ statement (_Alttestamentliche Studien_, ii. 64), that the sign _ḫa_ never stands for עִ‎ (if true) is worthless, for _Ḫa-za-ḳi-ya-u_ = חִזקיהו‎ shows that Assyrian _a_ may become in the Old Testament _i_, and this is all that it is necessary to prove. The historical objections vanish if the Ḫabiri be identified, not with the Israelitish invaders after the Exodus, but with an earlier immigration of Semitic nomads into Palestine, amongst whom the ancestors of Israel were included. The chief uncertainty arises from the fact that the phonetic writing _Ḫa-bi-ri_ occurs only in a limited group of letters,――those of ‛Abd-ḫiba of Jerusalem (179, 180 [182], 183, 185). The ideogram _SA. GAS_ (‘robbers’) in other letters is conjectured to have the same value, but this is not absolutely demonstrated. Assuming that Winckler and others are right in equating the two, the Ḫabiri are in evidence over the whole country, occasionally as auxiliaries of the Egyptian government, but chiefly as its foes. The inference is very plausible that they were the roving Bedouin element of the population, as opposed to the settled inhabitants,――presumably a branch of the great Aramæan invasion which was then overflowing Mesopotamia and Syria (see above, page 206; compare Winckler _Altorientalische Forschungen_, iii. 90 ff., _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 196 ff.; Paton, _The Early History of Syria and Palestine_ 111 ff.). There is thus a strong probability that עברים‎ was originally the name of a group of tribes which invaded Palestine in the 15th century B.C., and that it was afterwards applied to the Israelites as the sole historic survivors of the immigrants.――Etymologically, the word has usually been interpreted as meaning ‘those from beyond’ the river (compare ‎ עֵבֶר הַנָּהָר‎, Joshua 24² ᶠᐧ ¹⁴ ᶠᐧ); and on that assumption, the river is certainly not the Tigris (Delitzsch), and almost certainly not the Jordan (Wellhausen, Kuenen, Stade), but (in accordance with prevailing tradition) _the_ נהר‎ of the Old Testament, the Euphrates, ‘beyond’ which lay Ḥarran, the city whence Abraham set out. Hommel’s view (_The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as illustrated by the Monuments_, 252 ff.) has no probability (compare Driver 139²). The verb עבר‎, however, does not necessarily mean to ‘cross’ (a stream); it sometimes means simply to ‘traverse’ a region (Jeremiah 2⁶); and in this sense Spiegelberg has recently (1907) revived an attractive conjecture of Goldziher (_Mythos_, page 66), that עברים‎ signifies ‘wanderers’――nomads (_Orientalische Litteraturzeitung_ x. 618 ff.).²

¹ After 1 Samuel it occurs only Deuteronomy 15¹², Jeremiah 34⁹ᐧ ¹⁴, Jonah 1⁹. But see the cogent criticisms of Weinheimer in _Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, 1909, 275 ff., who propounds the view that Hebrews and Israelites were distinct strata of the population.

² In Egyptian texts from Thothmes III. to Ramses IV., the word _‛Apuriu_ (_‛Apriu_) occurs as the name of a foreign population in Egypt; and had been identified by Chabas with the Hebrews of the Old Testament. The identification has been generally discarded, on grounds which seemed cogent; but has recently been revived by Hommel (_The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as illustrated by the Monuments_, 259), and (with arguments which seem very convincing) by Heyes (_Bibel und Ägypten: Abraham und seine Nachkommen in Ägypten_, 1904, 146 ff.). In view of the striking resemblance to _Ḫabiri_, and the new facts brought to light by the Tel-Amarna Tablets, the hypothesis certainly deserves to be reconsidered (compare Eerdmans, _l.c._ 52 ff., or _The Expositor_, 1909, ii. 197 ff.).

=21.= _The father of all the sons of ‛Ēber_] The writer has apparently borrowed a genealogical list of the descendants of Eber which he was at a loss to connect with the name of Shem. Hence he avoids the direct assertion that Shem begat Eber, and bridges over the gap by the vague hint that Shem and Eber stand for the same ethnological abstraction.――_the elder brother of Yepheth_] The Hebrew can mean nothing else (_v.i._). The difficulty is to account for the selection of Japheth for comparison with Shem, the oldest member of the family. Unless the clause be a gloss, the most obvious inference is that the genealogy of Japheth had immediately preceded; whether because in the Table of Yahwist the sequence of age was broken (Budde 305 f.), or because Japheth was really counted the second son of Noah (Dillmann). The most satisfactory solution is undoubtedly that of Gunkel, who finds in the remark an indication that this Table followed the order: Canaan――Japheth――Shem (see page 188).――=24= is an interpolation (based on 11¹²⁻¹⁴) intended to harmonise Yahwist with Priestly-Code. It cannot be the continuation of ²¹ as it stands (since we have not been informed who Arpakšad was), and still less in the form suggested below. It is also obviously inconsistent with the plan of Priestly-Code’s Table, which deals with nations and not with individual genealogies (note also יָלַד‎ instead of הוֹלִיד‎).

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=21.= It is doubtful if the text is in order. First, it is extremely likely that the introduction to the section on Shem in. Yahwist would require modification to prevent contradiction with verse ²² ᶠᐧ (Priestly-Code). Then, the omission of the logical subject to יֻלַּד‎ is suspicious. The Pual of this verb never dispenses with the subject nor does the Hophal; the Niphal does so once (Genesis 17¹⁷ [Priestly-Code]); but there the ellipsis is explained by the emphasis which lies on the fact of birth. Further, a הוּא‎ is required as subject of the clause אבי וגו׳‎. The impression is produced that originally עֵבֶר‎ was expressly named as the son of Shem, and that the words הוא אבי וגו׳‎ referred to him (perhaps ולשם יֻלַּד את־ע֑בר הוא אבי וגו׳‎). Considering the importance of the name, the tautology is not too harsh. It would then be hardly possible to retain the clause אחי וגו׳‎; and to delete it as a gloss (although it has been proposed by others: see _Oxford Hexateuch_) I admit to be difficult, just because of the obscurity of the expression.――גם הוא‎] compare 4²⁶.――אחי יפת הגדול‎] Vulgate correctly _fratre Yahwist majore_. The Massoretic accentuation perhaps favours the grammatically impossible rendering of LXX (ἀδελφῷ Ἰαφεθ τοῦ μείζονος), Symmachus, al.; which implies that Japheth was the oldest of Noah’s sons,――a notion extorted from the chronology of 11¹⁰ coupled with 5³² 7¹¹ (see Rashi, Abraham Ibn Ezra). It is equally inadmissible (with Abraham Ibn Ezra) to take הגדול‎ absolutely (= Japheth the great). See Budde 304 ff.――=24.= את־שלח] LXX prefers את־קינן וקינן ילד‎.

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=25.= The two sons of Eber represent the Northern and Southern Semites respectively, corresponding roughly to Aramæans and Arabs: we may compare with Jastrow (_A Dictionary of the Bible_, v. 82 a) the customary division of Arabia into _Šām_ (Syria) and _Yemen_. The older branch, to which the Israelites belonged, is not traced in detail: we may assume that a Yahwistic genealogy (∥ to 11¹⁶ ᶠᶠᐧ [Priestly-Code]) existed, showing the descent of Abraham from Peleg; and from scattered notices (19³⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ 22²⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ 25¹ ᶠᶠᐧ etc.) we can form an idea of the way in which the northern and central districts were peopled by that family of ‘Hebrews.’――On פֶּלֶג‎, see below.――_For in his days the earth was divided_ (נִפְלְגָה‎)] a popular etymology naturally suggested by the root, which in Hebrew (as in Aramaic, Arabic, etc.) expresses the idea of ‘division’ (compare the verb in Psalms 55¹⁰, Job 38²⁵). There is no very strong reason to suppose that the dispersion (פלוגתא‎, Targumᴶᵒⁿᵃᵗʰᵃⁿ etc.) of the Tower of Babel is referred to; it is possible that some other tradition regarding the distribution of nations is followed (_e.g._ _Jubilees_ viii. 8 ff.), or that the allusion is merely to the separation of the Yoḳṭanites from their northern kinsmen.

‎ פֶּלֶג‎ (Φαλεκ, Φαλεγ, Φαλεχ)] as a common noun means ‘watercourse’ or artificial canal (Assyrian _palgu_): Isaiah 30²⁵, Psalms 1³ 65¹⁰, Job 29⁶ etc. Hence it has been thought that the name originally denoted some region intersected by irrigating channels or canals, such as Babylonia itself. Of geographical identifications there are several which are sufficiently plausible: _Phalga_ in Mesopotamia, at the junction of the Chaboras and the Euphrates (Knobel); _’el-Falǧ_, a district in North-east Arabia near the head of the Persian Gulf (Lagarde _Orientalia_ ii. 50); _’el-Aflāǧ_ South of Ǧebel Tuwaiḳ in central Arabia (Hommel _Aufsätze und Abhandlungen arabistisch-semitologischen Inhalts_, 222²).

‎ יָקְטָן‎ (Ἰεκταν)] otherwise unknown, is derived by Fleischer (Goldziher _Der Mythos bei den Hebräern_, page 67) from √ _ḳaṭana_ = ‘be settled.’ The Arab genealogists identified him with _Ḳaḥtān_, the legendary ancestor of a real tribe, who was (or came to be) regarded as the founder of the Yemenite Arabs (Margoliouth, _A Dictionary of the Bible_, ii. 743). On the modern stock of ’el-Ḳaḥṭan, and its sinister reputation in the more northerly parts of the Peninsula, see Doughty, _Travels in Arabia Deserta_ i. 129, 229, 282, 343, 389, 418, ii. 39 ff., 437.

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‎ =25.= יֻלַּד‎] _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_, LXX ילדו‎; but שְׁנֵי בָנִים‎ is possibly accusative after passive, as 4¹⁸ etc. (Gesenius-Kautzsch § 121 _a_, _b_)――האחד――אחיו‎] similarly 22²¹ (Yahwist).

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=26‒30.= The sons of Yoḳṭan number 13, but in LXX (see on עובל‎ below) only 12, which may be the original number. The few names that can be satisfactorily identified (_Sheleph, Ḥaẓarmaweth, Sheba, Ḥavilah_) point to South Arabia as the home of these tribes.

‎ (1) אַלְמוֹדָד‎ (Ἐλμωδαδ)] unknown. The אל‎ is variously explained as the Arabic article (but this is not Sabæan), as _’Ēl_ = ‘God, ’ and as _’āl_ = ‘family’; and מודד‎ as a derivative of the verb for ‘love’ (_wadda_), equivalent to Hebrew יָדִיד‎ (Winckler _Mittheilungen der vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft_, vi. 169); compare Glaser, _Skizze der Geschichte und Geographie Arabiens_, ii. 425; _A Dictionary of the Bible_, i. 67.

‎ (2) שֶׁלֶף‎ (Σαλεφ)] A Yemenite tribe or district named on Sabæan inscriptions, and also by Arabic geographers: see Hommel _Süd-arabische Chrestomathie_ 70; Osiander in _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, xi. 153 ff., perhaps identical with the Salapeni of Roman writers. Cognate place-names are said to be still common in South Arabia (Glaser).

‎ (3) חֲצַרְמָוֶת‎ (Ἁσαρμωθ)] The modern province of _Ḥaḍramaut_, on the South coast, East of Yemen. The name appears in Sabæan inscriptions of 5th and 6th centuries A.D., and is slightly disguised in the Χατραμωτῖται of Strabo (XVI. iv. 2), the _Chatramotitæ_ of Pliny, vi. 154 (_Atramitæ_, vi. 155, xii. 52?).

‎ (4) יֶרַח‎ (Ἰαραδ)] uncertain. The attempts at identification proceed on the appellative sense of the word (= ‘moon’), but are devoid of plausibility (see Dillmann).

‎ (5) הֲדוֹרָם‎ (_The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ אדורם‎, LXX Ὁδορρα)] likewise unknown. A place called _Dauram_ close to Ṣan‛a has been suggested: the name is found in Sabæan (Glaser, 426, 435).

‎ (6) אוּזָל‎ (_The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ איזל‎, LXX Αἰζηλ)] mentioned by Ezekiel (27¹⁹: read מֵאוּזָל‎) as a place whence iron and spices were procured. It is commonly taken to be the same as _’Azāl_, which Arabic tradition declares to be the old name of Ṣan’a, now the capital of Yemen. Glaser (310, 427, 434, etc.) disputes the tradition, and locates ’Ûzāl in the neighbourhood of Medina.¹

¹ In view of the uncertainty of the last three names, it is worthy of attention that the account of Asshurbanipal’s expedition against the Nabatæans (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, ii. 221) mentions, in close conjunction, three places, _Ḥurarina_, _Yarki_, and _Azalla_, which could not, of course, be as far South as Yemen, but might be as far as the region of Medina. In spite of the phonetic differences, the resemblance to Hadoram, Yeraḥ, and ’Ûzāl is noteworthy. See, however, Glaser, 273 ff., 309 ff.

‎ (7) דִּקְלָה‎ (Δεκλα)] Probably the Arabic and Aramaic word (_daḳal_, ‎ דקלא‎, (‡ Syriac word)) for ‘date-palm,’ and therefore the name of some noted palm-bearing oasis ofArabia. Glaser (_Mittheilungen der vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft_, 1897, 438) and Hommel (_Aufsätze und Abhandlungen ar abistisch-semitologischen Inhalts_, 282 f.) identify it with the Φοινικων of Procopius, and the modern _Ǧōf es-Sirhān_, 30° North latitude (as far North as the head of the Red Sea).

‎ (8) עוֹבָל‎ (_The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ and 1 Chronicles 1²² עֵיבָל‎, LXXᴸᵘᶜⁱᵃⁿ Γαιβαλ)] supposed to be the word _‛Abil_, a frequent geographical name in Yemen (Glaser, 427). The name is omitted by many MSS of LXX, also by LXXᴮ in 1 Chronicles 1²² (see Nestle, _Marginalien und Materialien_, 10), where some Hebrew MSS and Peshiṭtå have עובל‎.

‎ (9) אֲבִימָאֵל‎ (Ἀβιμεηλ)] apparently a tribal name (= ‘father is God’), of genuine Sabæan formation (compare אבמעתֿתר‎, _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, xxxvii. 18), not hitherto identified.

‎ (10) שְׁבָא‎] see on verse ⁷ (page 203). The general connexion suggests that the Sabæans are already established in Yemen; although, if ’Ûzāl be as far North as Medina, the inference is perhaps not quite certain.

‎ (11) אוֹפִר‎ (Οὐφειρ)] known to the Israelites as a gold-producing country (Isaiah 13¹², Psalms 45¹⁰, Job 22²⁴ 28¹⁶, 1 Chronicles 29⁴ [Sirach 7¹⁸]), visited by the ships of Solomon and Hiram, which brought home not only gold and silver and precious stones, but almug-wood, ivory, apes and (?) peacocks (1 Kings 9²⁸ 10¹¹ᐧ ²²; compare 22⁴⁹). Whether this familiarity with the name implies a clear notion of its geographical position may be questioned; but it can hardly be doubted that the author of the Yahwistic Table believed it to be in Arabia; and although no name at all resembling Ophir has as yet been discovered in Arabia, that remains the most probable view (see Glaser, _Skizze der Geschichte und Geographie Arabiens_, ii. 357‒83). Of other identifications the most important are: _Abhira_ in India, East of the mouths of the Indus (Lassen); (2) the Sofala coast (opposite Madagascar), behind which remains of extensive gold-diggings were discovered around Zimbabwe in 1871: the ruins, however, have now been proved to be of native African origin, and not older than the 14th or 15th century A.D. (see D. Randall-Maciver, _Mediæval Rhodesia_ [1906]); (3) _Apir_ (originally _Hapir_), an old name for the ruling race in Elam, and for the coast of the Persian Gulf around Bushire (see Hommel _The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as illustrated by the Monuments_, 236⁴; Hüsing, _Orientalische Litteraturzeitung_, vi. 367 ff.; Jensen _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, l. 246). If we could suppose the name transferred to the opposite (Arabian) coast of the gulf, this hypothesis would satisfy the condition required by this passage, and would agree in particular with Glaser’s localisation. For a discussion of the various theories, see the excellent summary by Cheyne in _Encyclopædia Biblica_, iii. 3513 ff.; Price, _A Dictionary of the Bible_, iii. 626 ff.; and Driver _The Book of Genesis with Introduction and Notes_² XXVI. f., 131.

‎ (12) חֲוִילָה‎] see page 202.

‎ (13) יוֹבָב‎ (Ἰωβαβ)] unknown. Halevy and Glaser (ii. 303) compare the Sabæan name _Yuhaibab_.

The limits (probably from North to South) of the Yoḳṭanite territory are specified in verse ³⁰; but a satisfactory explanation is impossible owing to the uncertainty of the three names mentioned in it (Dillmann).――מֵשָׁא‎ (Μασσηε) has been supposed to be _Mesene_ ((‡ Syriac word), _Maisān_), within the Delta of the Euphrates-Tigris (Gesenius _Thesaurus philologicus criticus Linguæ Hebrææ et Chaldææ Veteris Testamenti_ 823; Tuch); but the antiquity of this name is not established. Dillmann, following LXX, reads מַשָּׂא‎ (see on 25¹⁴) in North Arabia. This as northern limit would just include Diḳlah, if Glaser’s identification, given above, be correct.――סְפָרָה‎ (Σωφηρα) is generally acknowledged to be _Ẓafār_ in the South of Arabia. There were two places of the name: one in the interior of Yemen, North of Aden; the other (now pronounced _’Iṣfār_ or _’Isfār_) on the coast of Mahra, near Mirbāt. The latter was the capital of the Himyarite kings (Gesenius _Thesaurus philologicus criticus Linguæ Hebrææ et Chaldææ Veteris Testamenti_ 968; _A Dictionary of the Bible_, iv. 437; _Encyclopædia Biblica_, iv. 4370). Which of the two is here meant is a matter of little consequence.――הַר הַקֶּדֶם‎] It is difficult to say whether this is an apposition to מוֹשָׁבָם‎ (Tuch al.), or a definition of ספר‎, or is a continuation of the line beyond ספר‎. On the first view the ‘mountain’ might be the highlands of central Arabia (_Neǧd_); the second is recommended by the fact that the _eastern_ Ẓafār lies at the foot of a high mountain, well adapted to serve as a landmark. The third view is not assisted by rendering בֹּאֲכָה‎ ‘in the direction of’ (see on verse ¹⁹); for in any case Ẓafār must have been the terminus in a southern direction. The commonly received opinion is that הר הקדם‎ is the name of the Frankincense Mountain between Ḥaḍramaut and Mahra (see Dillmann).

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=26.= Some MSS have חצר־מות‎, as if = ‘court of death.’

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XI. 1‒9. _The Tower of Babel_ (Yahwist).

A mythical or legendary account of the breaking up of the primitive unity of mankind into separate communities, distinguished and isolated by differences of language. The story reflects at the same time the impression made on Semitic nomads by the imposing monuments of Babylonian civilisation. To such stupendous undertakings only an undivided humanity could have addressed itself; and the existing disunitedness of the race is a divine judgement on the presumptuous impiety which inspired these early manifestations of human genius and enterprise.

Gunkel has apparently succeeded in disentangling two distinct but kindred legends, which are both Yahwistic (compare יהוה‎, ♦verses ⁵ᐧ ⁶ᐧ ⁸ᐧ ⁹), and have been blended with remarkable skill. One has crystallised round the name ‘Babel,’ and its leading motive is the “confusion” of tongues; the other around the memory of some ruined tower, which tradition connected with the “dispersion” of the race. Gunkel’s division will be best exhibited by the following continuous translations:

♦ removed duplicate “9”

A. The Babel-Recension: (¹) _And B. The Tower-Recension: ... (²) it was, when all the earth had _And when they broke up from one speech and one vocabulary,_ the East, they found a plain in (³ᵃ) _that they said to one the land of Shin‛ar, and settled another, Come! Let us make there._ [And they said, Let us bricks and burn them thoroughly._ build] (⁴ᵃ{β}ᵇ) _a tower, with (⁴ᵃ{α, γ}) _And they said, Come! its top reaching to heaven, lest Let us build us a city, and make we disperse over the face of ourselves a name._ (⁶ᵃ{α}) _And the whole earth._ (³ᵇ) _And they Yahwe said, Behold it is one had brick for stone and asphalt people, and all of one language._ for mortar._ (⁵) _And Yahwe came (⁷) _Come! Let us go down and down to see the tower which the confound there their language, sons of men had built._ [And so that they may not understand He said ...] (⁶ᵃ{β}ᵇ) _and this one another’s speech,_ (⁸ᵇ) _and is but the beginning of their that they may cease to build the enterprise; and now nothing city._ (⁹ᵃ) _Therefore is its will be impracticable to them name called ‘Babel’ (Confusion), which they purpose to do._ (8a) for there Yahwe confused the _So Yahwe scattered them over speech of the whole earth._ the face of the whole earth._ [?Therefore the name of the tower was called ‘Pîẓ’ (Dispersion), for] (⁹ᵇ) _from thence Yahwe dispersed them over the face of the whole earth._

It is extremely difficult to arrive at a final verdict on the soundness of this acute analysis; but on the whole it justifies itself by the readiness with which the various motives assort themselves in two parallel series. Its weak point is no doubt the awkward duplicate (⁸ᵃ ∥ ⁹ᵇ) with which B closes. Gunkel’s bold conjecture that between the two there was an etymological play on the name of the tower (פִּיץ‎ or פּוּץ‎) certainly removes the objection; but the omission of so important an item of the tradition is itself a thing not easily accounted for.¹ Against this, however, we have to set the following considerations: the absence of demonstrable lacunæ in A, and their infrequency even in B; the facts that only a single phrase (אָת־הָעִיר וְ‎ in verse ⁵) requires to be deleted as redactional, and there is only one transposition (³ᵇ); and the facility with which nearly all the numerous doublets (³ᵃ ∥ ³ᵇ; ⁴ᵃ{γ} ∥ ⁴ᵇ; וַיֵּרֶד‎ (⁵) ∥ נֵֽרְדָה‎ (⁷); ⁶ᵃ{α}, {β} ∥ ⁶ᵃ{γ}ᵇ; ⁹ᵃ ∥ ⁸ᵃ ⁺ ⁹ᵇ) can be definitely assigned to the one recension or the other. In particular, it resolves the difficulty presented by the twofold descent of Yahwe in ⁵ and ⁷, from which far-reaching critical consequences had already been deduced (see the notes). There are perhaps some points of style, and some general differences of conception between the two strata, which go to confirm the hypothesis; but these also may be reserved for the notes.

¹ In _Jubilees_ x. 26, the name of the tower, as distinct from the city, is “Overthrow” (καταστροφή).

The section, whether simple or composite, is independent of the Ethnographic Table of chapter 10, and is indeed fundamentally irreconcilable with it. There the origin of peoples is conceived as the result of the natural increase and partition of the family, and variety of speech as its inevitable concomitant (compare ללשנתם‎, etc., in Priestly-Code, 10⁵ᐧ ²⁰ᐧ ³¹). Here, on the contrary, the division is caused by a sudden interposition of Yahwe; and it is almost impossible to think that either a confusion of tongues or a violent dispersion should follow genealogical lines of cleavage. It is plausible, therefore, to assign the passage to that section of Yahwist (if there be one) which has neither a Flood-tradition nor a Table of Nations (so Wellhausen, Budde, Stade, al.); although it must be said that the idea here is little less at variance with the classification by professions of 4²⁰⁻²² than with chapter 10. The truth is that the inconsistency is not of such a kind as would necessarily hinder a collector of traditions from putting the two in historical sequence.

1‒4. The Building of the City and the Tower.

(Compare the translation given above.) =1, 2.= The expression suggests that in A mankind is already spread far and wide over the earth, though forming one great nation (עַם‎, verse ⁶), united by a common language. In B, on the other hand, it is still a body of nomads, moving all together in search of a habitation (verse ²; compare בְּנֵי הָאָדָה‎, verse ⁵).――_broke up from the East_] _v.i._――_a plain_] the Euphrates-Tigris valley; where Babylon κέεται ἐν πεδίῳ μεγάλῳ (Herodotus i. 178).――_the land of Shin‛ar_] see on 10¹⁰.――=3a.= With great naïveté, the (city-) legend describes first the invention of bricks, and then (verse ⁴) as an afterthought the project of building with them. The bilingual Babylonian account of creation (see page 47 above) speaks of a time when “no brick was laid, no brick-mould (_nalbantu_) formed”: see _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, vi. 1, 38 f., 360.――=3b= shows that the legend has taken shape amongst a people familiar with stone-masonry. Compare the construction of the walls of Babylon as described by Herodotus (i. 179).¹ The accuracy of the notice is confirmed by the excavated remains of Babylonian houses and temples (_Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 279)――=4.= _With its top reaching to heaven_] The expression is not hyperbolical (as Deuteronomy 1²⁸), but represents the serious purpose of the builders to raise their work to the height of the dwelling-place of the gods (_Jubilees_ x. 19, etc.).

¹ Compare Josephus _Against Apion_ i. 139, 149; Diodorus. ii. 9; Pliny, _Naturalis Historia_, xxxv. 51.

The most conspicuous feature of a Babylonian sanctuary was its _zikkurat_,――a huge pyramidal tower rising, often in 7 terraces, from the centre of the temple-area, and crowned with a shrine at the top (Herodotus i. 181 f.: see Jastrow _The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, 615‒22). These structures appear to have embodied a half-cosmical, half-religious symbolism: the 7 stories represented the 7 planetary deities as mediators between heaven and earth; the ascent of the tower was a meritorious approach to the gods; and the summit was regarded as the entrance to heaven (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 616 f.; _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 52 f., 281 f.). Hence it is probably something more than mere hyperbole when it is said of these _zikkurats_ that the top was made to reach heaven (see page 228 f. below); and, on the other hand, the resemblance between the language of the inscriptions and that of Genesis is too striking to be dismissed as accidental. That the tower of Genesis 11 is a Babylonian _zikkurat_ is obvious on every ground; and we may readily suppose that a faint echo of the religious ideas just spoken of is preserved in the legend; although to the purer faith of the Hebrews it savoured only of human pride and presumption.――The idea of storming heaven and making war on the gods, which is suggested by some late forms of the legend (compare Homer _Odyssey_ xi. 313 ff.), is no doubt foreign to the passage.

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‎ 1. וַיְהִי‎ is not verbal predicate to כל־הארץ‎, but merely introduces the circumstantial sentence, as in 15¹⁷ 42³⁵ etc. (Davidson § 141 and _R._¹). Such a sentence is usually followed by וְהִנֵּה‎, but see 1 Kings 13²⁰. It may certainly be doubted if it could be followed by another ויהי‎ with infinitive clause (verse ²); and this may be reckoned a point in favour of Gunkel’s analysis.――If there be any distinction between שָׂפָה‎ and דְּבָרִים‎, the former may refer to the pronunciation and the latter to the vocabulary (Dillmann), or (Gunkel) ש׳‎ to language as a whole, and ד׳‎ to its individual elements.――דְּבָרִים אֲחָדִים‎] ‘a single set of vocables’; LXX φωνὴ μία (+ πᾶσιν = לְכֻלָּם‎, as verse ⁶). Elsewhere (27⁴⁴ 29²⁰ [with ‎ יָמִים‎]) אחדים‎ means ‘single’ in the sense of ‘few’; in Ezekiel 37¹⁷ the text is uncertain (see Cornill).――On the juxtaposition of subject and predicate in the nominal sentence, see Davidson § 29 (_e_).――=2.= בְּנָסְעָם מִקֶּדֶם‎] rendered as above by LXX, Vulgate, Peshiṭtå, Targumᴶᵒⁿᵃᵗʰᵃⁿ. Nearly all moderns prefer ‘as they wandered in the east’ or ‘eastward’; justifying the translation by 13¹¹, which is the only place where מקדם‎ means ‘eastward’ with a verb of motion. That מק׳‎ _never_ means ‘from the east’ is at least a hazardous assertion in view of Isaiah 2⁶ 9¹¹. נסע‎ (compare Assyrian _nisû_, ‘remove,’ ‘depart,’ etc.) is a nomadic term, meaning ‘pluck up [tent-pegs]’ (Isaiah 33²⁰); hence ‘break up the camp’ or ‘start on a journey’ (Genesis 33¹² 35⁵ᐧ ¹⁶ᐧ ²¹ 37¹⁷ etc.); and, with the _possible_ exception of Jeremiah 31²³ (but _not_ Genesis 12⁹), there is no case where this primary idea is lost sight of. Being essentially a verb of departure, it is more naturally followed by a determination of the starting-point than of the direction or the goal (but see 33¹⁷); and there is no difficulty whatever in the assumption that the cradle of the race was further East than Babylonia (see 2⁸; and compare Stade _Ausgewählte akademische Reden und Abhandlungen_ 246, and _n._ 43).――בִּקְעָה‎] (Syrian (‡ Syriac word), Arabic _baḳ‛at_) in usage, a wide, open valley, or plain (Deuteronomy 34³, Zechariah 12¹¹, Isaiah 40⁴, etc.). The derivation from √ ‎ בקע‎, ‘split,’ is questioned by Barth (_Etymologische Studien zum semitischen insbesondere zum hebraischen Lexicon_, 2), but is probable nevertheless.――=3.= הָבָה‎] imperative of √ יהב‎, used interjectionally (Gesenius-Kautzsch § 69 _o_), as in verses ⁴ᐧ ⁷ 38¹⁶, Exodus 1¹⁰ (all Yahwist), is given by Gunkel as a stylistic mark of the recension A (Jehovistᴱˡᵒʰⁱˢᵗ?). Contrast the verbal use 29²¹ 30¹ (both Elohist), 47¹⁵, and plural (הָבוּ‎) 47¹⁶, Deuteronomy 1¹³ 32³, Joshua 18⁴. On the whole, the two uses are characteristic of Yahwist and Elohist respectively; see Holzinger _Einleitung in den Hexateuch_ 98 f.――נִלְבְּנָה לְבֵנִים‎] Exodus 5⁷ᐧ ¹⁴. So in Assyrian _labânu libittu_ (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, ii. 48, etc.), although _libittu_ is used only of the _un_burned, sun-dried brick. See Nöldeke _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, xxxvi. 181; Hoffmann, _Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, ii. 70.――לִשְׂרֵפָה‎] dative of product (Dillmann); שׂ׳‎ = ‘burnt mass’ (compare Deuteronomy 29²², Jeremiah 51²⁵).――חֵמָר‎ (14¹⁰, Exodus 2³)] the native Hebrew name for bitumen (see on ‎ 6¹⁴).――חֹמֶר‎] (note the play on words) is strictly ‘clay,’ used in Palestine as mortar.――=4.= וְרֹאשׁוֹ בַשָּׁמַיִם‎] בְּ‎ of contact, as in נָגַע בְּ‎ (Delitzsch).――וְנַֽעֲשֶׂה――שֵׁם‎] ‘acquire lasting renown’; compare 2 Samuel 8¹³, Jeremiah 32²⁰, Nehemiah 9¹⁰. The suggestion that שֵׁם‎ here has the sense of ‘monument,’ though defended by Delitzsch, Budde (_Die biblische Urgeschichte_ 375²), al. (compare Siegfried-Stade _s.v._), has no sufficient justification in usage. In Isaiah 55¹³ 56⁵ (compare 2 Samuel 18¹⁸), as well as the amended text of 2 Samuel 8¹³ (see Driver _Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel_ 217 f.), the ordinary sense suffices.――נָפוּץ‎] the word, accusative to Gunkel, is distinctive of the recension B: compare verses ⁸ᵃᐧ ⁹ᵇ.

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=4b.= _Lest we disperse_] The tower was to be at once a symbol of the unity of the race, and a centre and rallying-point, visible all over the earth (Abraham Ibn Ezra). The idea is missed by LXX, Vulgate and Targumᴶᵒⁿᵃᵗʰᵃⁿ, which render ‘_ere_ we be dispersed.’

5‒9. Yahwe’s Interposition.

The turning-point in the development of the story occurs at verses ⁵ᐧ ⁶, where the descent of Yahwe is _twice_ mentioned, in a way which shows some discontinuity of narration.――On heaven as the dwelling-place of Yahwe, compare 28¹² ᶠᐧ, Exodus 19¹¹ᐧ ²⁰ 34⁵ 24¹⁰, 1 Kings 22¹⁹, 2 Kings 2¹¹; and with verse ⁵ compare 18²¹, Exodus 3⁸.

On the assumption of the unity of the passage, the conclusion of Stade (_Ausgewählte akademische Reden und Abhandlungen_ 274 ff.) seems unavoidable: that a highly dramatic polytheistic recension has here been toned down by the omission of some of its most characteristic incidents. In verse ⁵ the name Yahwe has been substituted for that of some envoy of the gods sent down to inspect the latest human enterprise; verse ⁶ is his report to the heavenly council on his return; and verse ⁷ the plan of action he recommends to his fellow immortals. The main objection to this ingenious solution is that it involves, almost necessarily, a process of conscious literary manipulation, such as no Hebrew writer is likely to have bestowed on a document so saturated with pagan theology as the supposed Babylonian original must have been. It is more natural to believe that the elimination of polytheistic representations was effected in the course of oral transmission, through the spontaneous action of the Hebrew mind controlled by its spiritual faith.――On Gunkel’s theory the difficulty disappears.

=6.= _This is but the beginning, etc._] The reference is not merely to the completion of the tower, but to other enterprises which might be undertaken in the future.――=9.= _Babel_] LXX rightly Σύγχυσις; _v.i._

* * * * *

‎ =6.=――הֵן עַם אֶחָד וגו׳‎] incomplete interjectional sentence (Gesenius-Kautzsch § 147 _b_).――זֶה הַֽחִלָּם לַֽעֲשׂוֹת‎] literally ‘this is their beginning to act.’ On the pointing הַֽח׳‎, see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 67 _w_.――לֹא יִבָּצֵר――יָֽזְמוּ‎] imitated in Job ‎ 42².――בצר‎] literally ‘be inaccessible’ (compare Isaiah 22¹⁰, Jeremiah 51⁵³); hence ‘impracticable.’――יָֽזְמוּ‎] contrast for יָזֹמּוּ‎ (Gesenius-Kautzsch § 67 _dd_).――=7.= נרדה וגו׳‎] LXX retains the plural in spite of the alleged reading in _Mechilta_ ארדה אבלה‎ (see page 14 above).――נָֽבְלָה‎] (see last note): from √ בלל‎ = ‘mix’ (not ‘divide,’ as Peshiṭtå [(‡ Syriac word)]).――אֲשֶׁר לֹא‎] Gesenius-Kautzsch § 165 _b_.――שׁמע‎] = ‘understand’: 42²³, Deuteronomy 28⁴⁹, Isaiah 33¹⁹, Jeremiah 5¹⁵ etc.――=8.= It is perhaps better, if a distinction of sources is recognised, to point וְיֶחְדְּלוּ‎ (jussive of purpose: Gesenius-Kautzsch § 109 _f_), continuing the direct address of ⁷ᵇ.――העיר‎] _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ prefers את‎, and (with LXX) adds ‎ ואת־המגדל‎.――=9.= קָרָא‎] ‘_one_ called’ (Gesenius-Kautzsch § 144 _d_).――בָּבֶל‎] ‘mxture’ or ‘confusion.’ The name is obviously treated as a contraction from בַּֽלְבֵּל‎, a form not found in Hebrew, but occurring in Aramaic (compare Peshiṭtå verse ⁹, and Targumᴼⁿᵏᵉˡᵒˢ verse ⁷) and Arabic. On the Babylonian etymology of the name, see 10¹⁰.――=9b.=――יהוה‎] LXX + ὁ θεός.

* * * * *

_Origin and Diffusion of the Legends._

1. The double legend is a product of naïve reflexion on such facts of experience as the disunity of mankind, its want of a common language, and its consequent inability to bend its united energies to the accomplishment of some enduring memorial of human greatness. The contrast between this condition of things and the ideal unity of the race at its origin haunted the mind with a sense of fate and discomfiture, and prompted the questions, When, and where, and for what reason, was this doom imposed on men? The answer naturally assumed the legendary form, the concrete features of the representation being supplied by two vivid impressions produced by the achievements of civilisation in its most ancient centre in Babylonia. On one hand the city of Babylon itself, with its mixture of languages, its cosmopolitan population, and its proud boast of antiquity, suggested the idea that here was the very fountainhead of the confusion of tongues; and this idea, wrapped up in a popular etymology of the name of the city, formed the nucleus of the first of the two legends contained in the passage. On the other hand, the spectacle of some ruined or unfinished Temple-tower (_zikkurat_), built by a vast expenditure of human toil, and reported to symbolise the ascent to heaven (page 226), appealed to the imagination of the nomads as a god-defying work, obviously intended to serve as a landmark and rallying-point for the whole human race. In each case mankind had measured its strength against the decree of the gods above; and the gods had taken their revenge by reducing mankind to the condition of impotent disunion in which it now is.

It is evident that ideas of this order did not emanate from the official religion of Babylonia. They originated rather in the unsophisticated reasoning of nomadic Semites who had penetrated into the country, and formed their own notions about the wonders they beheld there: the etymology of the name Babel (= _Balbēl_) suggests an Aramæan origin (Cheyne, Gunkel). The stories travelled from land to land, till they reached Israel, where, divested of their cruder polytheistic elements, they became the vehicle of an impressive lesson on the folly of human pride, and the supremacy of Yahwe in the affairs of men.

It is of quite secondary interest to determine which of the numerous Babylonian _zikkurats_ gave rise to the legend of the Dispersion. The most famous of these edifices were those of E-sagil, the temple of Marduk in Babylon,¹ and of E-zida, the temple of Nebo at Borsippa on the opposite bank of the river (see Tiele, _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, ii. 179‒190). The former bore the (Sumerian) name _E-temen-an-ki_ (= ‘house of the foundations of heaven and earth’). It was restored by Nabo-polassar, who says that before him it had become “dilapidated and ruined,” and that he was commanded by Marduk to “lay its foundations firm in the breast of the underworld, and _make its top equal to heaven_” (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, iii. 2. 5). The latter expression recurs in an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar (_Beiträge zur Assyriologie und semitischen Sprachwissenschaft_, iii. 548) with reference to the same _zikkurat_, and is thought by Gunkel (² 86) to have been characteristic of E-temen-an-ki; but that is doubtful, since similar language is used by Tiglath-pileser I. of the towers of the temple of Anu and Ramman, which had been allowed to fall gradually into disrepair for 641 years before his time (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, i. 43). The _zikkurat_ of E-zida was called _E-ur-imin-an-ki_ (‘house of the seven stages (?) of heaven and earth’); its restorer Nebuchadnezzar tells us, in an inscription found at its four corners, that it had been built by a former king, and raised to a height of 42 cubits; its top, however, had not been set up, and it had fallen into disrepair (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, iii. 2. 53, 55). The temple of Borsippa is entombed in _Birs Nimrûd_――a huge ruined mound still rising 153 feet above the plain (see Hilprecht _Explorations in Bible Lands during the 19th century_, 13, 30 f.)――which local (and Jewish) tradition identifies with the tower of Genesis 11. This view has been accepted by many modern scholars (see _Encyclopædia Biblica_, i. 412), by others it is rejected in favour of E-temen-an-ki, chiefly because E-zida was not _in_ but only near Babylon. But if the two narratives are separated, there is nothing to connect the tower specially with the _city_ of Babylon; and it would seem to be mainly a question which of the two was the more imposing ruin at the time when the legend originated. It is possible that neither was meant. At Uru (Ur of the Chaldees) there was a smaller _zikkurat_ (about 70 feet high) of the moon-god Sin, dating from the time of Ur-bau (_circa_ 2700 B.C.) and his son Dungi, which Nabuna’id tells us he rebuilt on the old foundation “with asphalt and bricks” (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, iii. 2. 95; _Explorations in Bible Lands during the 19th century_, 173 ff.). The notice is interesting, because, according to one tradition, which is no doubt ancient, though it cannot be proved to be Yahwistic, this city was the starting-point of the Hebrew migration (see below, page 239). If it was believed that the ancestors of the Hebrews came from Ur, it may very well have been the _zikkurat_ of that place which figured in their tradition as the Tower of the Dispersion.

¹ On its recently discovered site, see Langdon, _The Expositor_, 1909, ii. page 91 ff.

2. In regard to its _religious content_, the narrative occupies the same standpoint as 3²⁰ᐧ ²² and 6¹⁻³. Its central idea is the effort of the restless, scheming, soaring human mind to transcend its divinely appointed limitations: it “emphasises Yahwe’s supremacy over the world; it teaches how the self-exaltation of man is checked by God; and it shows how the distribution of mankind into nations, and diversity of language, are elements in His providential plan for the development and progress of humanity” (Driver). The pagan notion of the envy of the gods,――their fear lest human greatness should subvert the order of the world,――no doubt emerges in a more pronounced form than in any other passage. Yet the essential conception is not mere paganism, but finds an obvious point of contact in one aspect of the prophetic theology: see Isaiah 2¹²⁻¹⁷. To say that the narrative is totally devoid of religious significance for us is therefore to depreciate the value for modern life of the Old Testament thought of God, as well as to evince a lack of sympathy with one of the profoundest instincts of early religion. Crude in form as the legend is, it embodies a truth of permanent validity――the futility and emptiness of human effort divorced from the acknowledgment and service of God: hæc perpetua mundi dementia est, neglecto cœlo immortalitatem quærere in terra, ubi nihil est non caducum et evanidum (Calvin).

3. _Parallels._――No Babylonian version of the story has been discovered; and for the reason given above (page 226) it is extremely unlikely that anything resembling the biblical form of it will ever be found there.¹ In Greek mythology there are dim traces of a legend ascribing the diversities of language to an act of the gods, whether as a punishment on the creatures for demanding the gift of immortality (Philo, _De Confusione Linguarum_), or without ethical motive, as in the 143rd fable of Hyginus.² But while these myths are no doubt independent of Jewish influence, their resemblance to the Genesis narrative is too slight to suggest a common origin. It is only in the literature of the Hellenistic period that we find real parallels to the story of the Tower of Babel; and these agree so closely with the biblical account that it is extremely doubtful if they embody any separate tradition.³ The difference to which most importance is attached is naturally the polytheistic phraseology (‘the gods’) employed by some of the writers named (Polyhistor, Abydenus); but the polytheism is only in the language, and is probably nothing more than conscious or unconscious Hellenising of the scriptural narrative. Other differences――such as the identification of the tower-builders with the race of giants (the Nephîlîm of 6⁴?), and the destruction of the tower by a storm――are easily explicable as accretions to the legend of Genesis.⁴ The remarkable Mexican legend of the pyramid of Cholula, cited by Jeremias from von Humboldt,⁵ has a special interest on account of the unmistakable resemblance between the Mexican pyramids and the Babylonian _zikkurats_. If this fact could be accepted as proof of direct Babylonian influence, then no doubt the question of a Babylonian origin of the legend and its transmission through non-biblical channels would assume a new complexion. But the inference, however tempting, is not quite certain.

¹ The fragment (K 3657) translated in Smith-Sayce, _The Chaldean Account of Genesis_ 163 ff. (compare _The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments_², 153 f.), and supposed to contain obscure allusions to the building of a tower in Babylon, its overthrow by a god during the night, and a confusion of speech, has since been shown to contain nothing of the sort: see King, _Creation Tablets_, i. 219 f.; Jeremias _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 286.

² “Sed postquam Mercurius sermones hominum interpretatus est ... id est nationes distribuit, tum discordia inter mortales esse cœpit, _quod Jovi placitum non est_.”

³ Compare Sibylline Oracles iii. 98 ff. (Kautzsch, _Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments_, 187); Alexander Polyhistor (Eusebius _Chronicon_ i. 23 [edited by Schoene]); Abydenus (_ib._ i. 33); Josephus _Antiquities of the Jews_ i. 118; Eupolemos (Eusebius _Præparatio Evangelica_ ix. 17); and _Book of Jubilees_ x. 18‒27. The lines of the Sibyl (iii. 99 f.) may be quoted as a typical example of this class of legends:

ὁμόφωνοι δ’ ἦσαν ἅπαντες καὶ βούλοντ’ ἀναβῆναι εἰς οὐρανὸν ἀστερόεντα. αὐτίκα δ’ ἀθάνατος μεγάλην ἐπέθηκεν ἀνάγκην πνεύμασιν· αὐτὰρ ἔπειτ’ ἄνεμοι μέγαν ὕψοθι πύργον ῥίψαν, καὶ θνητοῖσιν ἐπ’ ἀλλήλοις ἔριν ὦρσαν· τοὔνεκά τοι Βαβυλῶνα βροτοὶ πόλει οὔνομ’ ἔθεντο.

⁴ So Gunkel² 88 f. On the other side, compare Gruppe, _Griechische Culte und Mythen_, i. 677 ff.; Stade _Ausgewählte akademische Reden und Abhandlungen_ 277 f.; Jeremias _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 383 ff.

⁵ _Vues des Cordilleres_ (Paris, 1810), 24, 32 ff.

XI. 10‒26. _The Genealogy of Shem_ (Priestly-Code).

Another section of the _Tôlĕdôth_, spanning the interval between the Flood and the birth of Abraham. It is the most carefully planned of Priestly-Code’s genealogies next to chapter 5; with which it agrees in form, except that in Massoretic Text the framework is lightened by omitting the total duration of each patriarch’s life. In _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ this is consistently supplied; while LXX merely adds to Massoretic Text the statement καὶ ἀπέθανεν. The number of generations in Massoretic Text is 9, but in LXX 10, corresponding with chapter 5. Few of the names can be plausibly identified; these few are mostly geographical, and point on the whole to North-west Mesopotamia as the original home of the Hebrew race.

In LXX the number 10 is made up by the addition of Ḳênān between Arpakšad and Shelaḥ (so 10²⁴). That this is a secondary alteration is almost certain, because (a) it is wanting in 1 Chronicles 1¹⁸ᐧ ²⁴ LXX; (b) Ḳênān already occurs in the former genealogy (5⁹ ᶠᶠᐧ); and (c) the figures simply duplicate those of Shelaḥ. It has been proposed to count Noah as the first name (Budde 412 f.), or Abraham as the 10th (Tuch, Delitzsch); but neither expedient brings about the desired formal correspondence between the lists of chapter 5 and 11¹⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ An indication of the artificial character of these genealogies is found in the repetition of the name Nāḥôr, once as the father, and again as the son, of Teraḥ (see Bosse, _Die chronologischen Systeme im Alten Testament und bei Josephus_, 7 ff.). It is not improbable that here, as in chapter 5 (corresponding with 4²⁵ ᶠᐧ), Priestly-Code has worked up an earlier Yahwistic genealogy, of which a fragment may have been preserved in verses ²⁸⁻³⁰. Wellhausen (_Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments_² 9, _Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_⁶ 313) has conjectured that it consisted of the 7 names left of Priestly-Code’s list when Arpakšad and Shelaḥ (see on 10²¹ᐧ ²⁴) and the first Nāḥôr are omitted (Abraham counting as the 7th). But there is no proof that the Yahwistic genealogy lying behind chapter 5 was 7-membered; and Yahwist’s parallel to 11¹⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ could not in any case be the continuation of 4¹⁶⁻²².

‎ =10.= אַרְפַּכְשֶׂד‎] see on 10²². He is here obviously the oldest son of Shem; which does not _necessarily_ involve a contradiction with chapter 10, the arrangement there being dictated by geographical considerations. Hommel (_Aufsätze und Abhandlungen arabistisch-semitologischen Inhalts_, 222¹), maintaining his theory that Arpakšad = Ur-Kasdîm, comes to the absurd conclusion that in the original list it was not the name of Shem’s son, but of his birthplace: ‘Shem _from_ Arpakshad’!――שְׁנָתַיִם אַהַר הַמַּבּוּל‎] The discrepancy between this statement and the chronology of 5³² 7¹¹ 9²⁸ ᶠᐧ is not to be got rid of either by wire-drawn arithmetical calculations (Rashi al.), or by the assumption that in the other passages round numbers are used (Tuch, Delitzsch). The clause is evidently a gloss, introduced apparently for the purpose of making the birth of Arpakšad, rather than the Flood, the commencement of a new era. It fits in admirably with the scheme of the Book of Jubilees, which gives an integral number of year-weeks from the Creation to the birth of Arpakšad, and from the latter event to the birth of Abraham (see page 234 below).――=12.= שֶׁלַח‎ (Σαλα)] probably the same word which forms a component of מְתוּשֶׁלַח‎ (5²¹ ᶠᶠᐧ), and therefore originally a divine name. This need not exclude a tribal or geographical sense, the name of a deity being frequently transferred to his worshippers or their territory. A place _Ṣalaḥ_ or _Salaḥ_ in Mesopotamia is instanced by Knobel (Dillmann). Others regard it as a descriptive name = ‘offshoot’ or ‘dismissal’; but very improbably.――=14.= עֵבֶר‎] see on 10²¹.――=16.= פֶּלֶג‎] 10²⁵. Hommel (_l.c._) combines the two names and takes the compound as a notice of Shelaḥ’s birthplace: ‘Shelaḥ _from_ Eber-peleg’ = Eber-hannāhār, the region West of the lower Euphrates (see pages 218, 220 above).――=18.= רְעוּ‎ (Ῥαγαυ)] unknown; certainly not (‡ Syriac word) (Edessa). It is possibly abbreviated from ‎ רְעוּאֵל‎ (36⁴, Exodus 2¹⁸ etc.: so Hommel); and Mez considers it a divine name. An Aramæan tribe _Ru’ua_ is frequently mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions as dwellers on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, in or near Babylonia (Delitzsch _Wo lag das Paradies?_ 238 ff.).――=20.= שְׂרוּג‎ (Σερουχ)] a well-known city and district about half-way between Carchemish and Ḥarran, mentioned by Syrian and Arabic writers under the name _Saruǧ_. The name (_Saruǧi_) also occurs several times in the census of the district round Ḥarran (7th century B.C.), published by Johns under the title of _An Assyrian Domesday Book_: see pages 29, ‎ 30, 43, 48, 68.――=22.= נָחוֹר‎ (Ναχωρ)] is in Yahwist the brother of Abraham (22²⁰; compare Joshua 24²); in Priestly-Code he is both the grandfather and the brother (11²⁶). The name must have been that of an important Aramæan tribe settled in or around Ḥarran (27⁴³ 28¹⁰ 29⁴). Johns compares the place-name _Til-Naḥiri_ in the neighbourhood of Saruǧi; also the personal names _Naḥirî_ and _Naḥarâu_ found in Assyrian Deeds (_l.c._ 71; _Assyrian Deeds_, iii. 127; compare _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 477 f.). As a divine name Ναχαρ is mentioned along with other Aramæan deities on a Greek inscription from Carthage (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 477); and Jensen (_Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, xi. 300) has called attention to the theophorous name (‡ Syriac phrase) in the ‘Doctrine of Addai,’ as possibly a corruption of (‡ Syriac phrase).――=24.= ‎ תֶּרַח‎ (Θαῤῥα)] is instanced by William Robertson Smith¹ as a totem clan-name; (‡ Syriac word) (?) being the Syrian and _turâḥû_ the Assyrian word for ‘wild goat.’ Similarly Delitzsch (_Prolegomena eines neuen hebräisch-aramäischen Wörterbuchs zum Alten Testament_ 80), who also refers tentatively to _Til-ša-turâḥi_, the name of a Mesopotamian town in the neighbourhood of Ḥarran. Knobel compares a place _Tharrana_, South of Edessa (Dillmann); Jensen (_Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, vi. 70; _Hittiter und Armenier_, 150 ff. [especially 154]) is inclined to identify Teraḥ with the Hittite and North Syrian god (or goddess) _Tarḫu_, Ταρκο, etc. (compare _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 484).――=26.= Peshiṭtå reads 75 instead of 70.

¹ _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_¹, 220 (afterwards abandoned). Compare Nöldeke, _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, xl. 167 f.: “sicher unmöglich.”

_The Chronology._――The following Table shows the variations of the three chief recensions (Massoretic Text, _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_, and LXX), together with the chronology of the Book of Jubilees, which for this period parts company with the Samaritan, and follows a system peculiar to itself (see page 134 ff. above):

MT. │ Sam. │ LXX. │ Jub. 1st │ 1st │ 1st │ 1st Son After │ Son After Total │ Son After │ Son ─── ───── │ ─── ───── ───── │ ─── ───── │ ─── 1. Shem 100 500 │ 100 500 600 │ 100 500 │ 102? 2. Arpakšad 35 403 │ 135 303 438 │ 135 430 │ 66? Καιναν │ 130 │ 330 57 │ 3. Shelaḥ 30 403 │ 130 303 433 │ 130 330 │ 71 4. Eber 34 430 │ 134 270 404 │ 134 370 │ 64 5. Peleg 30 209 │ 130 109 239 │ 130 │ │ [L.│ 134] 209 │ 61 6. Reu 32 207 │ 132 107 239 │ 132 207 │ 59 7. Serug 30 200 │ 130 100 230 │ 130 200 │ 57 8. Nāḥôr 29 119 │ 79 69 148 │ 79 129 │ │ │ [L. 125] │ 62 9. Teraḥ 70 135 │ 70 75 145 │ 70 135 │ 70 ─── ───── │──── ───── ───── │──── ───── │ ─── 390 │1040 │1170 │ 669 From Flood │ [L. 1174] │ (or birth │ │ │ of Arp.) │ │ │ to b. of │ │ │ Abr. 290 │ 940 │1070 │ 567

The three versions plainly rest on a common basis, and it is not easy to decide in favour of the priority of any one of them. On the application to this period of the general chronological theories described on page 135 f. it is unnecessary to add much. Klostermann maintains his scheme of Jubilee-periods on the basis of LXX, (a) by allowing a year for the Flood; (b) by adopting the reading of Peshiṭtå, 75 instead of 70, in the case of Teraḥ; and (c) by following certain MSS which give 179 for 79 as the age of Naḥor at the birth of Teraḥ. This makes from the Flood to the birth of Abraham 1176 years = 2 × 12 × 49. By an equally arbitrary combination of data of Massoretic Text and LXX a similar period of 1176 years is then made out from the birth of Abraham to the Dedication of the Temple.――The seemingly eccentric scheme of _Jubilees_ shows clear indications of a reckoning by year-weeks. Since the birth of Arpakšad is said (vii. 18) to have occurred two years after the Flood, we may conclude that it was assigned to A.M. 1309, the 102nd year of Shem. This gives a period of 187 year-weeks from the Creation to the birth of Arpakšad, followed by another of 81 (567 ÷ 7) to the birth of Abraham. We observe further that the earlier period embraces 11 generations with an average of exactly 17 year-weeks, and the later 9 generations with an average of exactly 9: _i.e._, as nearly as possible one-half: the author accordingly must have proceeded on the theory that after the Flood the age of paternity suddenly dropped to one-half of what it had formerly been.

[It is possible that the key to the various systems has been discovered by A. Bosse, whose paper¹ became known to me only while these sheets were passing through the press. His main results are as follows: (1) In Massoretic Text he finds two distinct chronological systems, (a) One reckons by generations of 40 years, its _termini_ being the birth of Shem and the end of the Exile. In the Shemite table, Teraḥ is excluded entirely, and the two years between the Flood and the birth of Arpakšad are ignored. This gives: from the birth of Shem to that of Abraham 320 (8 × 40) years; thence to birth of Jacob 160 (4 × 40); to Exodus 560 (14 × 40); to _founding_ of Temple 480 (12 × 40); to end of Exile 480: in all 2000 (50 × 40). This system is, of course, later than the Exile; but Bochartus concedes the probability that its middle section, with 1200 (30 × 40) years from the birth of Abraham to the founding of the Temple, may be of earlier origin.――(b) The other scheme, with which we are more immediately concerned, operates with a Great Month of 260 years (260 = the number of weeks in a five-years’ _lustrum_). Its period is a Great Year from the Creation to the _dedication_ of the Temple, and its reckoning includes Teraḥ in the Shemite table, but excludes the 2 years of Arpakšad. This gives 1556 years to birth of Shem + 390 (birth of Abraham) + 75 (migration of Abraham) + 215 (descent to Egypt) + 430 (Exodus) + 480 (founding of Temple) + 20 (_dedication_ of temple) = 3166. Now 3166 = 12 × 260 + 46. The odd 46 years are thus accounted for: the chronologist was accustomed to the Egyptian reckoning by months of 30 days, and a solar year of 365¼ days, requiring the interposition of 5¼ days each year; and the 46 years are the equivalent of these 5¼ days in the system here followed. (For, if 30 days = 260 years, then 5¼ days = (5¼ × 260) / 30 = (21 × 26) / (4 × 3) = (7 × 13) / 2 = 45½ [say 46] _years_.) The first third of this Great Year ends with the birth of Noah 1056 = 4 × 260 + 16 (⅓ of 46). The second third _nearly_ coincides with the birth of Jacob; but here there is a discrepancy of 5 years, which Bochartus accounts for by the assumption that the figure of the older reckoning by generations has in the case of Jacob been allowed to remain in the text.――(2) LXX reckons with a Great Month of 355 years (the number of days in the _lunar_ year), and a Great Year of 12 × 355 = 4260 years from the Creation to the _founding_ of the Temple, made up as follows: 2142 + 1173² + 75 + 215 + 215 + 440³ = 4260. Significant subdivisions cannot be traced.――(3) _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ returns to the earlier Hebrew reckoning by generations, its _terminus ad quem_ being the measuring out of Gerizim, which, according to the _Samaritan Chronicle_ published by Neubauer, took place 13 years after the Conquest of Canaan. Thus we obtain 1207 + 1040 + 75 + 215 + 215 + 42 (desert wandering)⁴ + 13 (measurement of Gerizim) = 2807 = 70 × 40 + 7.⁵――(4) The Book of _Jubilees_ counts by Jubilee-periods of 49 years from the Creation to the Conquest of Palestine: 1309 + 567 + 75 + 459 (Exodus) + 40 (entrance to Canaan) = 2450 = 50 × 49.]

¹ _Die chronologischen Systeme im Alten Testament und bei Josephus_ (_Mittheilungen der vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft_, 1908, 2).

² Allowing a year for the Flood, and two years between it and the birth of Arpakšad.

³ See 1 Kings.6¹ (LXX).

⁴ After Joshua 5⁶ (LXX).

⁵ The odd 7 years still remain perplexing (see page 136). One cannot help surmising that the final 13 was _originally_ intended to get rid of it, though the textual data do not enable us now to bring out a round number.

XI. 27‒32. _The Genealogy of Teraḥ_ (Priestly-Code and Yahwist).

The verses are of mixed authorship; and form, both in Priestly-Code and Yahwist, an introduction to the Patriarchal History. In Priestly-Code (²⁷ᐧ ³¹ᐧ ³²), genealogical framework encloses a notice of the migration of the Teraḥites from Ur-Kasdîm to Ḥarran, to which 12⁴ᵇᐧ ⁵ may be the immediate sequel. The insertion from Yahwist (²⁸⁻³⁰) finds an equally suitable continuation in 12¹ ᶠᶠᐧ, and is very probably the conclusion of Yahwist’s lost Shemite genealogy. The suppression of the preceding context of Yahwist is peculiarly tantalising because of the uncertainty of the tradition which makes Ur-Kasdîm the home of the ancestors of the Hebrews (see concluding note, page 239).

On the _analysis_, compare especially Budde _Die biblische Urgeschichte_ 414 ff.――Verses ²⁷ and ³² belong quite obviously to Priestly-Code; and ³¹, from its diffuse style and close resemblance to Priestly-Code’s regular manner in recording the patriarchal migrations (12⁵ 31¹⁸ 36⁶ 46⁶: see Hupfeld _Die Quellen der Genesis und die Art ihrer Zusammensetzung_ 19 f.), may be confidently assigned to the same source. ²⁸ᵃ presents nothing distinctive of either document; but in ²⁸ᵇ ארץ מולדת‎ is peculiar to Jehovist (see the footnote on the verse). ²⁹ is Yahwist because presupposed in 22²⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ; and its continuation (³⁰) brings as an additional criterion the word עֲקָרָה‎ (compare 25²¹ 29³¹), which is never used by Priestly-Code.――The extract from Yahwist is supplementary to Priestly-Code, and it might be argued that at least ²⁸ᵃ was necessary in the latter source to explain why Loṭ and not Haran went with Teraḥ. Budde points out in answer (page 420) that with still greater urgency we desiderate an explanation of the fact that Nāḥôr was left behind: if the one fact is left unexplained, so _a fortiori_ might the other.

The formula וְאֵלָּה תֹּלְדוֹת‎ does not occur again till 25¹²; and it is very widely held that in verse ²⁷ it stands as the heading of the section of Priestly-Code dealing with the life of Abraham. That is wholly improbable. It is likely enough that a heading ‎ (א׳ ת׳ אברהם‎) has been somewhere omitted (so Wellhausen, Budde, Holzinger, al.); but the truth is that from this point onwards no consistent principle can be discovered in the use of the formula. The hypothesis that an originally independent book of Tôledôth has been broken up and dislocated by the redaction, is as plausible a solution as any that can be thought of. See, further, on 25¹⁹.

=27.= On the name _Abram_, see on 17⁵; on _Nāḥôr_, verse ²² above.――_Haran begat Loṭ_] A statement to the same effect must have been found in Yahwist (see 12⁴ᵃ). Haran has no significance in the tradition except as expressing the relationship of Lôṭ, Milkah, and Yiṣkah within the Hebraic group.

That הרן‎ is formed from חָרָן‎ (_v.i._) by a softening of the initial guttural (Wellhausen _Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_⁶ 313) is an improbable conjecture (see Budde 443²). The name occurs elsewhere only in בֵּית־ה׳‎ (Numbers 32³⁶: compare בֵּית־הָרָם‎, Joshua 13²⁷)¹ in the tribe of Gad: this has suggested the view that הָרָן‎ was the name of a deity worshipped among the peoples represented by Lot (Mez: compare Winckler _Altorientalische Forschungen_, ii. 499).――The name לוֹט‎ is also etymologically obscure (? Arabic _lāṭ_ = ‘cleave to’). A connexion with the Ḥorite clan לוֹטָן‎ in Genesis 36²⁰ᐧ ²²ᐧ ²⁹ is probable.

¹ Though Winckler (_Altorientalische Forschungen_, ii. 499) contends that both names are corruptions of חורנים‎.

=28.= The premature death of Haran (which became the nucleus of some fantastic Jewish legends) took place _in the land of his nativity_; _i.e._, according to the present text, _Ur of the Chaldees_, where his grave was shown down to the time of Josephus (_Antiquities of the Jews_ i. 151; Eusebius. _Onomasticon_, 285, 50 ff.).

‎ אוּר כַּשְׂדּים‎ (verse ³¹ 15⁷, Nehemiah 9⁷: LXX χώρα τῶν Χαλδαίων) is now almost universally identified with the ancient South Babylonian city of _Uru_, whose remains have been discovered in the mounds of _’el-Muḳayyar_, on the right bank of the Euphrates, about 25 miles South-east from Erech and 125 from Babylon (see Hilprecht _Explorations in Bible Lands during the 19th century_, 172 ff.). The evidence for this view is very strong. Uru is the only city of the name known from Assyriology (although the addition of the genitive כשדים‎ suggests that others were known to the Israelites: Gesenius-Kautzsch § 125 _h_): it was situated in the properly Chaldæan territory, was a city of great importance and vast antiquity, and (like Ḥarran, with which it is here connected) was a chief centre of the worship of the moon-god Sin (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_², 129 ff.). The only circumstance that creates serious misgiving is that the prevalent tradition of Genesis points to the North-east as the direction whence the patriarchs migrated to Canaan (see below); and this has led to attempts to find a northern Ur connected probably with the Mesopotamian Chaldæans of 22²² (see Kittel, _Geschichte Der Hebräer_ i. 163 ff.). Syrian tradition identifies it with Edessa (_Urhåi_, _Urfa_). It is generally recognised, however, that these considerations are insufficient to invalidate the arguments in favour of Uru.――כַּשְׂדִּים‎] = Babylonian _Kašdu_, Assyrian _Kaldu_ (Χαλδ-αίοι), is the name of a group of Semitic tribes, distinguished from the Arabs and Aramæans, who are found settled to the South-east of Babylonia, round the shore of the Persian Gulf. In the 11th century or earlier they are believed to have penetrated Babylonia, at first as roving, pastoral nomads (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 22 ff.), but ultimately giving their name to the country, and founding the dynasty of Nabopolassar.――By the ancients כשדים‎ was rightly understood of Babylonia (Nicolaus of Damascus in Josephus _Antiquities of the Jews_ i. 152; Eupolemos in Eusebius _Præparatio Evangelica_ ix. 17; Jerome, al.); but amongst the Jews אוּר‎ came to be regarded as an appellative = ‘fire’ (_in igne Chaldæorum_, which Jerome accepts, though he rejects the legends that were spun out of the etymology). This is the germ of the later Haggadic fables about the ‘fire’ in which Haran met an untimely fate, and the furnace into which Abraham was cast by order of Nimrod (_Jubilees_ xii. 12‒14; Jerome _Quæstiones sive Traditiones hebraicæ in Genesim_, _ad loc._; Targumᴶᵒⁿᵃᵗʰᵃⁿ, _Bereshith Rabba_ § 38, Rashi).

* * * * *

‎ =28.= עַל־פְּנֵי‎] is _coram_ (LXX ἐνώπιον‎), rather than _ante_ (Vulgate: so Tuch), or ‘in the lifetime of’ (Peshiṭtå (‡ Syriac word)); compare Numbers 3⁴: see Brown-Driver-Briggs and Gesenius-Buhl _s.v._ אֶרֶץ מוֹלַדְתּוֹ――.פָּנִים‎ so 24⁷ (Yahwist), 31¹³ (Elohist); compare Jeremiah 22¹⁰ 46¹⁶, Ezekiel 23¹⁵, Ruth 2¹¹. A commoner phrase in Pentateuch is אר׳ ומו׳‎, 12¹ 24⁴ 31³ 32¹⁰, Numbers 10³⁰ (all Yahwist). From the way in which the two expressions alternate, it is probable that they are equivalent; and since מ׳‎ alone certainly means ‘kindred’ (43⁷ [Yahwist], compare Esther 2¹⁰ᐧ ²⁰ 8⁶), it is better to render ‘land of one’s parentage’ than ‘land in which one was born’ [Peshiṭtå here and 12¹] (compare Budde 419²). Priestly-Code has the word, but only in the sense of ‘progeny’ (48⁶, Leviticus 18⁹ [H]).

* * * * *

=29.= While we are told that Nāḥôr’s wife was his brother’s daughter, it is surprising that nothing is said of the parentage of Sarai. According to Elohist (20¹²), she was Abraham’s half-sister; but this does not entitle us to suppose that words expressing this relationship have been omitted from the text of Yahwist (Ewald). It would seem, however, that tradition represented marriage between near relations as the rule among the Teraḥites (20¹² 24³ ᶠᶠᐧ 29¹⁹).

With regard to the names, שָׂרַי‎ seems to be an archaic form of ‎ שָׂרָה‎ = ‘princess’ (see on 17¹⁵), while מִלְכָּה‎ means ‘queen.’ In Babylonian the relations are reversed, _šarratu_ being the queen and _malkatu_ the princess. It cannot be a mere coincidence that these two names correspond to two personages belonging to the pantheon of Ḥarran, where Šarratu was a title of the moon-goddess, the consort of Sin, and Malkatu a title of Ištar, also worshipped there (Jensen _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, xi. 299 f.; _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 364 f.). It is needless to say that these associations, if they existed, are forgotten in the Hebrew legend.――If, as is not improbable, the tradition contains ethnographic reminiscences, verse ²⁸ ᶠᐧ express (1) the dissolution of an older tribal group, Haran; (2) the survival of one of its subdivisions (Loṭ) through the protection of a stronger tribe; and (3) the absorption of another (Milkah) in a kindred stock.――Of יִסְכָּה‎ nothing is known. The Rabbinical fiction that she is Sarah under another name (implied in Josephus _Antiquities of the Jews_ i. 151; Targumᴶᵒⁿᵃᵗʰᵃⁿ, Jerome, Rashi, Abraham Ibn Ezra, al.) is worthless. Ewald’s conjecture that she was the wife of Loṭ is plausible, but baseless.

* * * * *

‎ =29.= וַיִּקַּח‎] singular, according to Gesenius-Kautzsch § 146 _f_.――=30.= עקרה‎] as 25²¹ 29³¹ (Yahwist); not in Priestly-Code (see 16¹ᵃ).――וָלָד‎] _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ ילד‎. Only again as Kethîb of Or. MSS in 2 Samuel 6²³. It is possibly here a scribal error, which eventually influenced the other passages.

* * * * *

=31, 32.= The migration from Ur-Kasdîm to Canaan is accomplished in two stages. Teraḥ, as patriarchal head of the family, conducts the expedition as far as Ḥarran, where he dies. The obvious implication is that after his death the journey is resumed by Abram (12⁵); although _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ alone gives a chronology consistent with this view (_v. supra_). Nāḥôr, we are left to infer, remained behind in Ur-Kasdîm; and in the subsequent narratives Priestly-Code (in opposition to Yahwist) seems carefully to avoid any suggestion of a connexion between Nāḥôr and the city of Ḥarran.

‎ חָרָן‎ (with virtually doubled ר‎: compare LXX Χαρραν; Greek Κάῤῥαι; Latin _Carræ_, _Charra_; Assyrian _Ḫarrânu_; Syrian and Arabic _Ḥarrān_) was an important centre of the caravan trade in North-west Mesopotamia, 60 miles East of Carchemish, situated near the Baliḫ, 70 miles due North from its confluence with the Euphrates. Though seldom mentioned in Old Testament (12⁴ ᶠᐧ [Priestly-Code], 27⁴³ 28¹⁰ 29⁴ [Yahwist], 2 Kings 19¹², Ezekiel 27²³†), and now ruined, it was a city of great antiquity, and retained its commercial importance in classical and mediæval times. The name in Assyrian appears to be susceptible of several interpretations――‘way,’ ‘caravan’ (Tel-Amarna Tablets), ‘joint-stock enterprise’ (Delitzsch _Assyrisches Handwörterbuch_ _s.v._, _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 29²)――any one of which might denote its commercially advantageous position at the parting of the route to Damascus from the main highway between Nineveh and Carchemish. Ḥarran was also (along with Ur) a chief seat of the worship of Sin, who had there a temple, _E-ḫul-ḫul_, described by Nabuna’id as “from remote days” a “dwelling of the joy of his (Sin’s) heart” (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, iii. 2. 97), and who was known in North-west Asia as the “Lord of Ḥarran” (Zinjirli inscription: compare Lidzbarski, _Handbuch der nordsemitischen Epigraphik_ 444, _An._). See, further, Mez, _Geschichte der Stadt Ḥarrân in Mesopotamien_; Tomkins, _Times of Abraham_, 55 ff. etc. This double connexion of Abraham with centres of lunar religion is the most plausible argument advanced by those who hold the mythical view of his figure as an impersonation of the moon-god.

It will be observed that while both Priestly-Code and Yahwist (in the present text) make Ur-Kasdîm the starting-point of the Abrahamic migration, Yahwist has no allusion to a journey from Ur to Ḥarran. His language is perfectly consistent either (a) with a march directly from Ur to Canaan, or (b) with the view that the real starting-point was Ḥarran, and that באור כשדים‎ is here a gloss intended to harmonise Yahwist and Priestly-Code. Now, there is a group of passages in Yahwist which, taken together, unmistakably imply that Abraham was a native of Ḥarran, and therefore started from thence to seek the promised land. In 24⁴ᐧ ⁷ᐧ ¹⁰, the place of Abraham’s nativity is Aram-Naharaim, and specially the ‘city of Nāḥôr’; while a comparison with 27⁴³ 28¹⁰ 29⁴ leaves no doubt that the ‘city of Nāḥôr’ was Ḥarran. Priestly-Code, on the other hand, nowhere deviates from his theory of a double migration with a halt at Ḥarran; and the persistency with which he dissociates Laban and Rebecca from Nāḥôr (25²⁰ 28²ᐧ ⁵ ᶠᶠᐧ) is a proof that the omission of Nāḥôr from the party that left Ur was intentional (Budde 421 ff.). It is evident, then, that we have to do with a divergence in the patriarchal tradition; and the only uncertainty is with regard to the precise point where it comes in. The theory of Priestly-Code, though consistently maintained, is not natural; for (1) all the antecedents (11¹⁰⁻²⁶) point to Mesopotamia as the home of the patriarchs; and (2) the twofold migration, first from Ur and then from Ḥarran, has itself the appearance of a compromise between two conflicting traditions. The simplest solution would be to suppose that both the references to Ur-Kasdîm in Yahwist (11²⁸ 15⁷) are interpolations, and that Priestly-Code had another tradition which he harmonised with that of Yahwist by the expedient just mentioned (so Wellhausen, Dillmann, Gunkel, Driver, al.). Budde holds that both traditions were represented in different strata of Yahwist (Yahwist¹ Ḥarran, Yahwist² Ur), and tries to show that the latter is a probable concomitant of the Yahwistic account of the Flood. In that he can hardly be said to be successful; and he is influenced by the consideration that apart from such a discrepancy in his sources Priestly-Code could never have thought of the circuitous route from Ur to Canaan by way of Ḥarran. That argument has little weight with those who are prepared to believe that Priestly-Code had other traditions at his disposal than those we happen to know from Yahwist and Elohist.¹ In itself, the hypothesis of a dual tradition within the school of Yahwist is perfectly reasonable; but in this case, in spite of Budde’s close reasoning, it appears insufficiently supported by other indications. The view of Wellhausen is on the whole the more acceptable.

¹ The suggestion has, of course, been made (Winckler _Altorientalische Forschungen_ i. 98 ff.; Paton, _The Early History of Syria and Palestine_ 42) that Elohist is the source of the Ur-Kasdîm tradition; but in view of Joshua 24² that is not probable.

* * * * *

‎ =31.= כלתו‎] כַּלָּה‎ (Syrian (‡ Syriac word), Arabic _kannat_) means both ‘spouse’ and ‘daughter-in-law’: in Syrian and Arabic also ‘sister-in-law,’――a fact adduced by William Robertson Smith as a relic of Baal polyandry (_Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_², ‎ 161, 209¹).――ויצאו אתם‎] gives no sense. Read with _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_, LXX (καὶ ἐξήγαγεν αὐτούς) Vulgate, ‎ וַיּוֹצֵא אֹתָם‎, or Peshiṭtå, וַיֵּצֵא אִתָּם‎.――=32.= יְמֵי־תֶרַח‎] LXX + Χαῤῥάν.

* * * * *

THE PATRIARCHAL HISTORY.

ABRAHAM.

CHAPTERS XII‒XXV. 18.

_Critical Note._――In this section of Genesis the broad lines of demarcation between Yahwist, Elohist, and Priestly-Code are so clear that there is seldom a serious diversity of opinion among critics. The real difficulties of the analysis concern the composition of the Yahwistic narrative, and the relation of its component parts to Elohist and Priestly-Code respectively. These questions have been brought to the front by the commentary of Gunkel, who has made it probable that the Yahwistic document contains two main strata, one (Yahwistᴴᵉᵇʳᵒⁿ) fixing Abraham’s residence at Hebron, and the other (Yahwistᴮᵉᵉʳˢʰᵉᵇᵃ) regarding him as a denizen of the Negeb.

1. The kernel of Yahwistᴴᵉᵇʳᵒⁿ is a cycle of legends in which the fortunes of Abraham and Lot are interlinked: viz. 12¹⁻⁸; 13²ᐧ ⁵⁻¹⁸; 18; 19¹⁻²⁸; 19³⁰⁻³⁸. If these passages are read continuously, they form an orderly narrative, tracing the march of Abraham and Lot from Ḥarran through Shechem to Bethel, where they separate; thence Abraham proceeds to Hebron, but is again brought into ideal contact with Lot by visits of angels to each in turn; this leads up to the salvation of Lot from the fate of Sodom, his flight to the mountains, and the origin of the two peoples supposed to be descended from him. In this sequence 12⁹‒13¹ is (as will be more fully shown later) an interruption. Earlier critics had attempted to get rid of the discontinuity either by seeking a suitable connexion for 12⁹ ᶠᶠᐧ at a subsequent stage of Yahwist’s narrative, or by treating it as a redactional expansion. But neither expedient is satisfactory, and the suggestion that it comes from a separate source is preferable on several grounds. Now 12⁹ ᶠᶠᐧ is distinguished from Yahwistᴴᵉᵇʳᵒⁿ, not only by the absence of Lot, but by the implication that Abraham’s home was in the Negeb, and perhaps by a less idealised conception of the patriarch’s character. These characteristics reappear in chapter 16, which, as breaking the connexion of chapter 18 with 13, is plausibly assigned to Yahwistᴮᵉᵉʳˢʰᵉᵇᵃ. (To this source Gunkel also assigns the Yahwistic component of chapter 15; but that chapter shows so many signs of later elaboration that it can hardly have belonged to either of the primary sources.)――After chapter 19, the hand of Yahwist appears in the accounts of Isaac’s birth (21¹⁻⁷*) and Abraham’s treaty with Abimelech (21²²⁻³⁴*): the latter is probably Yahwistᴮᵉᵉʳˢʰᵉᵇᵃ (on account of the Negeb), while the former shows slight discrepancies with the prediction of chapter 18, which lead us (though with less confidence) to assign it also to Yahwistᴮᵉᵉʳˢʰᵉᵇᵃ. With regard to chapter 24, it is impossible to say whether it belongs to Yahwistᴴᵉᵇʳᵒⁿ or Yahwistᴮᵉᵉʳˢʰᵉᵇᵃ: we assign it provisionally to the latter.¹ The bulk of the Yahwistic material may therefore be disposed in two parallel series as follows:

Yahwistᴴᵉᵇʳᵒⁿ: 12¹⁻⁸*; 13²⁻¹⁸*; 18¹⁻¹⁶ᐧ ²⁰⁻²²ᵃᐧ ³³ᵇ; 19¹⁻²⁸; 19³⁰⁻³⁸;

Yahwistᴮᵉᵉʳˢʰᵉᵇᵃ: 12⁹‒13¹; 16; 21¹⁻⁷*; 21²²⁻³⁴*; 24*.²

The Yahwistic sections not yet dealt with are chapter 15* (see above); and the two genealogies, 22²⁰⁻²⁴ and 25¹⁻⁶, both inserted by a Yahwistic editor from unknown sources. Other passages (13¹⁴⁻¹⁷ 18¹⁷⁻¹⁹ᐧ ²²ᵇ⁻³³ᵃ 22¹⁵⁻¹⁸) which appear to have been added during the redaction (Redactorᴶᵃʰʷⁱˢᵗ or Redactorᴶᵉʰᵒᵛⁱˢᵗ) will be examined in special notes _ad locc._

¹ Gunkel analyses 24 into two narratives, assigning one to each source. The question is discussed in the Note, pages 340 f., where the opinion is hazarded that the subordinate source may be Elohist, in which case the other would naturally be Yahwistᴮᵉᵉʳˢʰᵉᵇᵃ.

² It is interesting to compare this result with the analysis of the Yahwistic portions of chapters 1‒11 (pages 2‒4). In each case Yahwist appears as a complex document, formed by the amalgamation of prior collections of traditions; and the question naturally arises whether any of the component narratives can be traced from the one period into the other. It is impossible to prove that this is the case; but certain affinities of thought and expression suggest that Yahwistᴴᵉᵇʳᵒⁿ in the biography of Abraham may be the continuation of Jehovistᴱˡᵒʰⁱˢᵗ in the primitive history. Both use the phrase ‘call by the name of Yahwe’ (4²⁶ 12⁸ [13⁴], [but compare 21³³ (Yahwistᴮᵉᵉʳˢʰᵉᵇᵃ))]); and the optimistic religious outlook expressed in the blessing of Noah (9²⁶ ᶠᶠᐧ) is shared in a marked degree by the writer of Yahwistᴴᵉᵇʳᵒⁿ. Have we here fragments of a work whose theme was the history of the Yahwe-religion, from its commencement with Enosh to its establishment in the leading sanctuaries of Palestine by Abraham and Isaac? See 12⁷ (Shechem), 12⁸ (Bethel), 13¹⁸ (Hebron), 26²⁵ (Beersheba).

2. The hand of Elohist is recognised in the following sections: 15*; 20; 21¹⁻⁷*; 21⁸⁻²¹; 21²²⁻³⁴*; 22¹⁻¹⁹ (24*?). Gunkel has pointed out that where Yahwist and Elohist run parallel to one another, Elohist’s ♦affinities are always with Yahwistᴮᵉᵉʳˢʰᵉᵇᵃ and never with Yahwistᴴᵉᵇʳᵒⁿ (compare the variants 12⁹ ᶠᶠᐧ ∥ 20; 16 ∥ 21⁸⁻²¹; and the compositions in 21¹⁻⁷ and 21²²⁻³⁴). This, of course, might be merely a consequence of the fact that Elohist, like Yahwistᴮᵉᵉʳˢʰᵉᵇᵃ, makes the Negeb (Beersheba) the scene of Abraham’s history. But it is remarkable that in chapter 26 we find unquestionable Yahwistic parallels to Elohist and Yahwistᴮᵉᵉʳˢʰᵉᵇᵃ, with Isaac as hero instead of Abraham. These are probably to be attributed to the writer whom we have called Yahwistᴴᵉᵇʳᵒⁿ, who thus succeeded in preserving the Negeb traditions, while at the same time maintaining the theory that Abraham was the patron of Hebron, and Isaac of Beersheba.

♦ “affinites” replaced with “affinities”

Putting all the indications together, we are led to a tentative hypothesis regarding the formation of the Abrahamic legend, which has some value for the clearing of our ideas, though it must be held with great reserve. The tradition crystallised mainly at two great religious centres, Beersheba and Hebron. The Beersheba narratives took shape in two recensions, a Yahwistic and an Elohistic, of which (it may be added) the second is ethically and religiously on a higher level than the first. These were partly amalgamated, probably before the union of Yahwistᴴᵉᵇʳᵒⁿ and Yahwistᴮᵉᵉʳˢʰᵉᵇᵃ (see on chaapter 26). The Hebron tradition was naturally indifferent to the narratives which connected Abraham with the Negeb, or with its sanctuary Beersheba; hence the writer of Yahwistᴴᵉᵇʳᵒⁿ, who attaches himself to this tradition, excludes the Beersheba stories from his biography of Abraham, but finds a place for some of them in the history of Isaac.

3. The account of Priestly-Code (12⁴ᵇᐧ ⁵ 13⁶ᐧ ¹¹ᵇᐧ ¹²ᵃᵇ{α}; 16¹ᵃᐧ ³ᐧ ¹⁵; 17; 19²⁹; 21¹ᵇᐧ ²ᵇ⁻⁵; 23; 25⁷⁻¹¹ᵃ; 25¹²⁻¹⁷) consists mostly of a skeleton biography based on the older documents, and presupposing a knowledge of them. The sole _raison d’être_ of such an outline is the chronological scheme into which the various incidents are fitted: that it fills some gaps in the history (birth of Ishmael, death of Abraham) is merely an accident of the redaction. Priestly-Code’s affinities are chiefly with Yahwistᴴᵉᵇʳᵒⁿ, with whom he shares the idea that Hebron was the permanent residence of Abraham. Of the sections peculiar to Priestly-Code, chapter 17 is parallel to 15, and 25¹²⁻¹⁷ has probably replaced a lost Yahwistic genealogy of Ishmael. Chapter 23 stands alone as presumably an instance where Priestly-Code has preserved an altogether independent tradition.