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Another thing which may be inferred from the history is, that slavery, or the subjection of one to the will of another, probably existed and was common before the flood; because it is threatened here as an evil well understood; but if the practice had never existed, the meaning of the prediction would scarcely have been understood.

Why the curse fell so heavily on Canaan has led to many critical conjectures. It has been observed that parents are never more severely punished than in the disasters of their favourite children. To others, it has seemed probable that Canaan participated in his father's crime; or, that he was the principal actor in the irreverent scene.

Noah reached the great age of nine hundred and fifty years, which did not fall short of the average age of the patriarchs who lived before the flood. Indeed, six hundred years of his life were spent before the flood. The cause of the great age of men before the flood has never been satisfactorily ascertained. If my conjecture is right, that some of the laws and conditions of the atmosphere, and of the surface of the earth, underwent an alteration, it will serve for a general reason: but the special reason why man's life was then so much longer than at present can never be discovered.

The moral reasons for shortening human life are obvious enough. Such length of years furnished both temptation and opportunity to enormous iniquity. It was needful to cut off the perpetrators of violence, that wickedness might cease. There may be some reason to doubt whether they were solar or lunar years; but the probability is, that they were years of twelve months each, and each month of thirty days.

SECTION VIII.

THE EARTH PEOPLED AGAIN FROM THE THREE SONS OF NOAH.

FROM the three sons of Noah the whole earth was peopled. The children of Japheth, the elder, spread themselves through Asia Minor, along the eastern borders of the Mediterranean sea, and the islands thereof, and towards the Black, and the Caspian sea; and thus became the founders of all the nations of Greece, and of the nations in Europe and Asia north of the 40th degree of latitude. The most powerful and polished nations now on earth are the descendants of Japheth. The Russians, Prussians, Poles, Finns, Danes, Swedes, Germans, Swiss, Belgians, Dutch, Greeks, Italians, French, Scotch, English, Irish, are, for the most part, the posterity of Noah's oldest son.

The descendants of Shem were very numerous, and migrated eastward; and to this day have retained their original habitations. Among them we must reckon the Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Persians, Hindoos, Burmese, Chinese, and Japanese, and most of the islanders in the Southern and Western Ocean.

The descendants of Ham seemed to have settled at first in various places, as in Philistia, or Canaan; in Mesopotamia, and southern Arabia. But Egypt seems to have attracted most of the children of Ham. It is therefore called "the land of Ham." And one of his sons had the honour of giving name to the country; for it was called in the Hebrew, MIZRAIM, which it appears was the name of one of the sons of Ham. The other Africans were probably descended from his other sons.

During this period of history, no mention is made of any very distinguished person except Nimrod. "He began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter." The commencement of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Arad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. In the English version, it is said, "Out of that land went forth Ashur, and builded Nineveh, Rehoboth, and Calah." But most interpreters, by Ashur, understand a country, and they render the passage"He (that is, Nimrod,) went into Ashur, or Assyria, and built Nineveh." And according to the tradition and testimony of all antiquity, Nimrod had Nineveh as the seat of his empire. There is no one fact in which ancient historians are more agreed; we conclude, therefore, that this is the true rendering of the passage. By his being a mighty hunter, it is commonly understood that he was a great warrior and tyrant. By a careful attention to the names in the tenth of Genesis, some learned men have proceeded far in tracing the nations of the earth to their respective stocks. This is a curious subject; and certainly there is not upon earth a document comparable to that contained in the tenth chapter of Genesis, both as it respects its antiquity and authority. The learned Bochart has found matter enough here to fill a large folio volume, and yet the mine is far from being exhausted.

SECTION IX.

BABEL-THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES.

THE only remarkable event in the history of the human race for many hundreds of years after the flood, was the confounding the language of the people, and thus putting an end to an impious attempt to build a tower whose top should reach to

heaven. The professed end of this tower was "to make to themselves a name, lest they should be scattered abroad on the face of the whole earth." Some have supposed that the people. were stupid enough to think that they could build a tower so high, that running up to its top, they would be able to escape a second deluge, if it should come. Others have, with more probability, supposed that the people being of one language, and all united in one body, they wished to erect a building so high that it might be the wonder of all posterity. A third opinion, entitled to fully as much regard as either of the former, was, that it was intended to be a temple for the worship of the heavens; and this accords with the undoubted historic fact, that, in aftertimes, there was at Babylon the temple of Belus, an immense structure, said to have been a mile in perpendicular height. From the description of this temple by Herodotus and others, it could be no other than the tower of Babel. A fourth opinion is, that this high tower was erected as a sort of landmark, which was raised so high as to be visible through the extensive plain of Shinar, that the people might not be scattered abroad, nor separated too far from each other.

Whatever might have been the real design of this structure, it was viewed as a rebellious act by the King of Heaven; therefore a stop was put to the work by a miracle. The account of Moses is the following. "And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold the people is one, and they have all one language, [lip;] and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, [lip,] that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel, [Confusion,] because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth."

This event must have occurred long after the flood, because the population of the earth was now great. No date, or era, is connected with this history; but it has been supposed that its time could be fixed by the birth of Peleg, the sixth in descent. from Noah, concerning whom it is said, "For in his days was the earth divided." Now, if it was certain that the division here referred to was the scattering of the people from Babel, the date of the event can be exactly ascertained; but this word [peleg] is never used in the history of the confusion of tongues, and in the whole Bible it always means a physical rupture or division. It has to some appeared probable, therefore, that the event here referred to was the rupture of the solid part of the globe, by which a vast chasm was made between lands

before united. The effects of the flood upon the shell of the earth were not all terminated in a few years, but large continents, which had by that convulsion been undermined and shaken, might about this time have fallen in, by which the different branches of the human family would be separated. For example, suppose that America was at first united to Africa, but was now divided by the water covering the land which once spread across the Atlantic Ocean. That such an event has once happened is rendered probable by many appearances. And this would remove all difficulty as to the manner in which human beings and animals found their way to the western continent, concerning which there has been so much conjec

ture.

But however plausible this interpretation may appear, it ought not to be received without the most urgent necessity, for it utterly confounds the chronology of the Bible, by taking away one of the essential links from the chain, and renders it impossible to ascertain the age of the world. And of such a convulsion of nature, by which continents once joined were severed, history is totally silent. It seems best, therefore, to adhere to the common understanding of this passage.

There has also been much diversity of opinion respecting the precise nature of the effect wrought in the confusion of tongues, at Babel. Many eminent critics are of opinion, that the confusion had no relation to words, but only to counsels. That, for a while, the people proceeded harmoniously in their work, but at length, providentially a dissension arose either as to the object of the work, or the proper mode of carrying it on. And so the simple interpretation is, they quarrelled and separated from one another. And in confirmation of this opinion they remark, that the word translated language, in this chapter, is not the one usually employed, but literally signifies lip, the meaning of which, in the Hebrew language, is more properly, counsel, or confession; often, worship. This opinion may be said to be the most prevalent among critics in the Hebrew tongue. And they plausibly allege, that for many hundreds of years after this event, we never read of any diversity of language; but, wherever the patriarchs travelled, they seemed to have experienced no difficulty on this score. We do, indeed, read of an interpreter between Joseph and his brethren; but they allege that he was merely a mediator, who conveyed the words of princes and other exalted personages to their inferiors; an office which is known to have had an existence in ancient times. The affinity of many ancient languages to the Hebrew is also considered as hostile to the common interpretation.

Others are of opinion, that while the words remained, by a miraculous influence upon the minds of the builders, they fell

into a great diversity in their mode of pronunciation; and this, they observe, would answer the end designed, just as effectually as a real diversity of tongues.

A third and more plausible opinion is, that the original language of man was at this time divided into a number of dialects; that one company used one of these, and a second, another; so that they were unable to hold intercourse in carrying on the work any longer, were obliged to abandon it, and were scattered abroad.

But the common opinion, and that which is favoured by our translators, and also by the Greek translators of the Bible is, that God produced miraculously, on this occasion, a number of languages radically different; from which have proceeded the various tongues spoken by the different nations of the earth. And this opinion is favoured by the fact, that several of the languages of men seem not to have the smallest resemblance to each other; but to be so different, that it is not conceivable that they all proceeded from one root. And it must be confessed, if the object was to scatter men over the face of the earth, by interrupting their intercourse with one another, this would be the most effectual of all. It is also in accordance with the tradition of the Jews, who have an opinion among them, that the number of languages produced on this occasion was just seventy-two; and that this precise number still remains unaltered. It would seem, therefore, that the common opinion is not only safest, but best supported by probable argu

ments.

It would seem, at first view, that all the inhabitants of the earth were engaged in the enterprise at Babel. Noah was probably still alive, and certainly Shem; but it does not seem probable that these patriarchs had any hand in the work. It is more likely, that the daring scheme was confined to the inhabitants of the neighbouring region. Noah and Shem, probably, never removed from the country where the ark rested. It is, however, useless to inquire what branch of the family of Noah was concerned in this transaction, as there is no history to cast any light on the subject.

SECTION X.

POSTERITY OF SHEM.

MOSES gives us no more than a table of the posterity of Shem, in that particular line from which the Hebrew nation sprang, and from which the Messiah was to descend. According to this table, Arphaxad, the son of Shem, was born two years after the

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