CHAPTER IX.

FROM THE FLOOD TO THE CALL OF ABRAHAM.

1. _The law against murder and its death-penalty._

When the waters of the great deluge had subsided and Noah and his family found themselves once more upon the face of the solid earth――an unpeopled solitude――that which we read in Gen. 9, was beautifully in place:――“_And God blessed Noah and his sons._” So long imprisoned in the ark; so long in the presence of this fearful visitation of a righteous God upon a hopelessly corrupt generation, how naturally must their view of human life take on a somber hue, and how refreshing to be assured that the Great God was still their loving Father! “God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth,’”――for God would have it filled again with living men. Moreover, though few and feeble, they need not fear the violence of the animal creation, for “the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth; ... into your hand are they delivered.” Then by special provision, apparently never made before, God sanctioned the use of animal flesh for human food. Yet lest this sanction should make them dangerously familiar with the shedding of blood, and tend to lesson the sacredness of human life, God solemnly forbade the use of blood for food, and then proceeded to ordain that human blood shed by ferocious animals should be avenged with their life. Then follows special legislation against murder by guilty human hands: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man.”――――That this is precept and not merely prophecy is so apparent that argument in proof might seem almost an insult to the common understanding of mankind. Yet the passage has been wrested in this way from its obvious significance. It should be construed in harmony with the scope of the context. Note therefore, that its close connection with the use of animals for the food of man and with the “requiring” of human blood shed by the violence of beasts compel us to find here precept and not prediction. Still more does the historic place of this precept, standing upon the ruins of the old world and in the presence of the yet unwasted bones of thousands whose wickedness had culminated in such recklessness of human life that “the earth was filled with violence.” In the presence of such gigantic iniquity, grown up under the experiment of pardoning and not punishing the crime of murder and giving unrestrained license to bloody passion, it was pertinent to lay a new and more effectual foundation for maintaining the peace of society and the sacredness of human life. The solemn lessons of the past required, not a prediction of retributive vengeance under the social law of self-preservation, but a divine precept demanding it and enforcing it with its logical reason――that “God made man in his own image.” You may take the life of the lower animals for no higher cause than human sustenance――food for man’s wants;――but let no man put forth his hand against the blood of man, for he bears the very “image of God.”――――To make this new law the more solemnly impressive, man must himself be the executioner of this divine behest――“_By man shall his blood be shed._” Society itself must commit to some of its members this solemn function and they must take the murderer’s life. Nothing less can shield the life of man from bloody violence; nothing less will duly honor God’s image in man.

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2. _The prophecy of Noah._

In Gen. 9: 25–27 we have the first of those patriarchal utterances of prophetic sort, in various strain――blessing and _not_ blessing――of which several examples occur subsequently, as in the case of Jacob (Gen. 49: 1–27); Moses (Deut. 33: 1–29). The form is thoroughly that of Hebrew poetry――the brief parallelism of sentiment and language being the prominent feature.――――The circumstances which called out these prophetic words are given briefly in the narrative. Noah having come forth from the ark soon commenced the culture of the vine and experimented (unfortunately) in the free use of its wine. While he lay overcome and personally exposed in his tent, his younger son Ham, lost to all sense of filial duty, reported the sad spectacle. Shem and Japheth, with filial pity and with the most delicate modesty, covered his shame. When Noah awoke to consciousness and came to know what his younger son had done unto him, he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren. Blessed be Jehovah, God of Shem, and let Canaan be servant to them. Let God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be servant to them.”――――It had been previously said (v. 18), that “Ham was the father of Canaan.” What part, if any, Canaan bore in this transaction, that the curse apparently due to Ham should fall so specially on him, the narrative does not say. The offense of Ham lay in the line of his relation as a son. Perhaps it was for this reason that his punishment lay in the humiliation of _his_ son. Be this as it may, the words were prophetic of the future relations of the posterity of Canaan to the posterity of both Shem and Japheth. The devoted nations of Canaan were terribly exterminated by the Hebrew people, sons of Shem; the remnant (_e. g._ the Gibeonites) were made hewers of wood and drawers of water; and in the age of Solomon, were subjected to the most severe labors. See Josh. 9: 20–27, and 2 Chron. 2: 17, 18 and 1 Chron. 22: 2.

When Noah’s prophetic eye fell on Shem, the blessings that rose to his view were too rich and grand for description. He could only give utterance to his grateful emotions and thanksgivings in the words――“Blessed be Jehovah, God of Shem”! Blessed be Jehovah, the God of the covenant with his professed people, the God of all blessings, of ever-enduring love and faithfulness! What will he not do for his chosen people, brought into relations to himself so near and so dear!――――In this line the sweep of his prophetic eye took in the Hebrew race――Abraham and the patriarchs; Moses and the pious kings and holy prophets; and above all, the Great Messiah――to be born of David’s line and to be the incarnation of God’s mercy to a lost world. No wonder his soul was moved to devoutest adoration――Blessed be Jehovah who reveals himself as the God of Shem!

Of Japheth he predicts enlargement in the sense of a numerous offspring――“God shall enlarge,” _i. e. multiply_ “Japheth,” with a play on the significance of his name which signifies _the enlarged one_. God will verify his name and enlarge the enlarged son; in Hebrew phrase, will _Japhetize_ Japheth.――――In the last clause of this verse, the original leaves us in doubt whether the subject of the verb is God or Japheth. Grammatically it might be either――God shall dwell, or Japheth shall dwell, in the tents of Shem. In favor of making Japheth the subject are these considerations:――(a.) The verse preceding gives the prophetic destiny of Shem; this, of Japheth.――――(b.) The expression is not altogether apposite when applied to God, for although God dwelt in the Hebrew temple and dwells by his Spirit in the bodies of his people, yet he is not elsewhere said to dwell _in the tents_ of his people. The phrase leads the mind to such dwelling as may be said of men but is not said of God.――――Applied to Japheth it had a most apposite and beautiful fulfillment when the Gentile races of Japheth came in as proselytes to the Hebrew communion, but far more when in the Christian age, the Jews were broken off from the old stock that the Gentiles might be grafted in, and they were; and may be almost said to have taken possession of the deserted tents of Shem as their own through all the Christian centuries to this hour. All Protestant Christendom is this day of Japheth’s line, fully at home in the tents of Shem.

A very extraordinary case of the wresting of Scripture to make it justify crime――so great a crime as the enslaving of men――is the attempt to force from this prophecy concerning Canaan a vindication of the enslaving of Africans by Americans. The wresting appears in these two broad facts:――(a.) That the Africans were not Canaanites, and therefore the prophecy said nothing about the negro race. Admitting for argument’s sake that it justified the enslaving of Canaanites, it did not in the least justify the enslaving of African negroes.――――(b.) If the passage had named the African negro instead of the Canaanite, even then a prediction _of what shall be_ might fall very far short of being a command as to what man _ought to do_. Prophetic predictions of war form not the least justification of war――fall utterly short of a divine command enjoining man’s duty. Predictions of the Savior’s death could never justify his murderers.

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3. _The genealogy of the great historic nations._

In Gen. 10 the Bible for once departs from its usual method and gives a chapter of _universal history_――the only one. Elsewhere it traces the history of the one nation which had “the oracles of God,” and in later ages, of the Christian church, touching the nations of the outside world only as they come into relations to the seed of Abraham or to the kingdom of Christ. But here we see the sons of Noah branching out to people the countries of the great Eastern Continent and to found the old historic nations of the earth.――――Japheth whom Prophecy was to “_enlarge_” (Gen. 9: 27) furnished the tribes from which grew the great nations of Northern and Eastern Asia and for the whole of Europe. At first they occupied the maritime regions bordering on the Caspian, Black and Mediterranean Seas, spoken of here as “the isles of the Gentiles”――conforming to the Hebrew usage which called all maritime countries “isles.”――――Next we have the sons of Ham, among whom were Nimrod, the builder of Babel; Mizraim with his seven sons who himself gave name to Egypt; Canaan whose posterity long held Palestine, and several names which appear either in the cities or the tribes of the valley of the Euphrates and of Arabia.――――Shem seems to have shared with Ham the possession of the great fertile basin of the Euphrates and the Tigris――the cradle of the race――together with portions of Arabia and in general of South-western Asia.

It is a matter of some interest to know that this remarkable record of the birth of the great nations of antiquity is perfectly sustained by the universal history of all subsequent ages. Whether Chaldean or Phenician, Egyptian or Arabian, Greek or Roman, Mongol or Tartar, Indo-Germanic, Celtic, Belgic or Briton――all find the germ of their nationality in this wonderful chapter, and all concur to swell and substantiate the proof that the human race sprang from Noah and that we have no occasion to look for pre-Adamic men or for tribes that escaped the flood and have no pedigree among the sons of Noah. While it was never the purpose of divine revelation to give to any great extent the universal history of the race, it is proper to note that what it does give bears the divine stamp of truth. All historic science does it homage. All the light that comes up from the comparative study of the languages of the race helps us still to follow the track of the emigrating tribes as they diverged from the ancient home of Noah’s family. The Science of Ethnography begins with this chapter of inspiration, Gen. 10.

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4. _Babel and the confusion of tongues._

Gen. 11: 1–9 records a very remarkable event, of far reaching consequences toward the geographical diffusion of the race. Up to this point there was but one language――as the record has it――“_one lip and one set of words_,” “lip” being (perhaps) used for the mode of speaking, including pronunciation and possibly inflection; while words are the _matter_ of language, the roots or ground-forms. The fact that the latter have been far less variable than the former, appearing to some extent in all subsequent ages throughout all the diversities of human tongues, favors this distinction.

Migrating from the Armenian hill country where the ark rested, Noah’s posterity reached the fertile plain of Shinar, halted there, and set themselves to the building of a magnificent and lofty tower. There being no stone at hand, they prepared brick, not sun-dried after the common Oriental method, but thoroughly burned for greater durability. As both consequence and proof of this durability, the supposed ruins of this great tower, known as “Birs Nimrood” [tower of Nimrod] are still extant within the area of ancient Babylon, silently witnessing alike to the labors of those fathers of the nations before their dispersion, and to the truthfulness of this sacred record.

This tower was not built for safety in case of another flood (as some have supposed) for, with such an object, a high mountain and not a plain would have been chosen for the site; it could at best have saved but few; and more than all, the record gives a very different view of the motive. This motive was _consolidation_――the aggregation of the masses into one vast nationality or kingdom――a thought due to the ambition of some controlling minds aspiring to power, distinction, fame. Foreseeing the tendency to dispersion they sought to forestall it, to find their own glory in having a multitude under their sway and in building monuments that could not perish. For wise reasons God blasted this scheme. Precisely what divine influence was interposed to confound the language of these men, I doubt if it is possible for us to know certainly. It is supposable that the many became restive under the domination of the few and the severe labor of this enterprise, so that diverse counsels and dissolving social bonds had some influence in blocking the progress of the work. Misunderstandings sprung up and found expression in diversities of tongue. What could be more natural when harmony gave place to discord? So this huge tower-building was arrested and men scattered abroad as they would.――――The new tongues which took their rise here had ample opportunity to diverge more and more widely in subsequent ages. The immense variety in language which the history of the world discloses has been a growth――the product of subtle causes, of segregation and non-intercourse in part, and in part also no doubt of diverse mental traits and various influences of culture.

What the original language was, common to the race up to this point, has been much debated by learned men without arriving at uniform and satisfactory results. Whether it was, as some suppose, the veritable Hebrew tongue; or as others think, the Aramaic, _i. e._ the Chaldee; or whether it is utterly lost――these are the alternatives; but for the choice between them we can have no very positive data. Those descendants of Noah who best preserved the religious faith of the fathers would stand most aloof from the scenes of Babel, and be naturally least affected by its many-tongued controversies and its resulting confusion of speech. That they escaped these influences altogether is perhaps too much to assume.――――That the Aramaic (Chaldee) tongue, closely allied to the Hebrew, held its place for ages in the valley of the Euphrates, strongly favors its claim to be, if not the very tongue of Noah, at least of the same family.――――These points suggest probabilities but fall short of certainty.