Chapter X (1)

_The Table of Peoples_
(Priestly-Code and Yahwist).

In its present form, the chapter is a redactional composition, in which are interwoven two (if not three) successive attempts to classify the known peoples of the world, and to exhibit their origin and mutual relationships in the form of a genealogical tree.

_Analysis._――The separation of the two main sources is due
to the lucid and convincing analysis of Wellhausen (_Die
Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des
Alten Testaments_² 6 ff.). The hand of Priestly-Code is easily
recognised in the superscription (¹ᵃ אֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת), and the methodical
uniformity of the tripartite scheme, with its recurrent opening
and closing formulæ. The headings of the three sections are: בְּנֵי
יֶפֶת (²), וּבְנֵי חָם (⁶), and בְּנֵי שֵׁם (²²); the respective conclusions are
found in ⁵ᐧ (mutilated) ²⁰ᐧ ³¹, verse ³² being a final summary.
This framework, however, contains several continuous sections
which obviously belong to Yahwist. (a) ⁸⁻¹²; the account of
Nimrod (who is not even mentioned by Priestly-Code among the
sons of Kush) stands out both in character and style in strong
contrast to Priestly-Code: note also יָלַד; instead of הוֹלִיד (⁸),
יהוה (⁹). (b) ¹³ ᶠᐧ: the sons of Mizraim (_verb_ יָלַד). (c) ¹⁵⁻¹⁹:
the Canaanites (יָלַד). (d) ²¹ᐧ ²⁵⁻³⁰: the Shemites (יֻלַּד ²¹ᐧ ²⁵;
יָלַד ²⁶).――Duplication of sources is further proved by the twofold
introduction to Shem (²¹ ∥ ²²), and the discrepancy between ⁷
and ²⁸ ᶠᐧ regarding חֲוִילָה and שְׁבָא. The documents, therefore, assort
themselves as follows:

Priestly-Code: ¹ᵃ; ²⁻⁵; ⁶ ᶠᐧ ²⁰; ²² ᶠᐧ ³¹; ³².
Yahwist: ¹ᵇ (?); ⁸⁻¹²; ¹³ ᶠᐧ; ¹⁵⁻¹⁹; ²¹ᐧ ²⁵⁻³⁰.

Verses ⁹ᐧ ¹⁶⁻¹⁸ᵃ and ²⁴ are regarded by Wellhausen and most
subsequent writers as interpolations: see the notes. The
framework of Priestly-Code is made the basis of the Table;
and so far as appears that document has been preserved in its
original order. In Yahwist the genealogy of Shem (²¹ᐧ ²⁵⁻³⁰)
is probably complete; that of Ham (¹³ ᶠᐧ ¹⁵ ᶠᶠᐧ) is certainly
curtailed; while every trace of Japheth has been obliterated
(see, however, page 208). Whether the Yahwistic fragments stand
in their original order, we have no means of determining.

The analysis has been carried a step further by Gunkel (² 74 f.),
who first raised the question of the unity of the Yahwistic
Table, and its connexion with the two recensions of Yahwist
which appear in chapter 9. He agrees with Wellhausen, Dillmann,
al. that 9¹⁸ ᶠᐧ forms the transition from the story of the Flood
to a list of nations which is partly represented in chapter 10;
10¹ᵇ being the immediate continuation of 9¹⁹ in that recension
of Yahwist (Jehovistᴶᵃʰʷⁱˢᵗ). But he tries to show that
9²⁰⁻²⁷ was also followed by a Table of Nations, and that
to it most of the Yahwistic fragments in chapter 10 belong
(⁸ᐧ ¹⁰⁻¹²ᐧ ¹⁵ᐧ ²¹ᐧ ²⁵⁻²⁹ = Jehovistᴱˡᵒʰⁱˢᵗ). This conclusion is
reached by a somewhat subtle examination of verse ²¹ and verses
¹⁵⁻¹⁹. In verse ²¹ Shem is the ‘elder brother of Japheth,’ which
seems to imply that Japheth was the _second_ son of Noah as in
9²⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ; hence we may surmise that the third son was not Ham but
Canaan. This is confirmed by the apparent contradiction between
¹⁵ and ¹⁸ᵇᐧ ¹⁹. In ¹⁹ the northern limit of the Canaanites is
Ẓidon, whereas in ¹⁵ Canaan includes the Ḥittites, and has
therefore the wider geographical sense which Gunkel postulates
for 9²⁰⁻²⁷ (see page 186 above). He also calls attention to
the difference in language between the eponymous כְּנַעַן in ¹⁵ and
the gentilic הַכְּנַֽעֲנִי in ¹⁸ᵇᐧ ¹⁹, and considers that this was a
characteristic distinction of the two documents. From these
premises the further dissection of the Table follows easily
enough. Verses ⁸⁻¹² may be assigned to Jehovistᴱˡᵒʰⁱˢᵗ because
of the peculiar use of הֵחֵל in ⁸ (compare 9²⁰ 4²⁶). verse ¹³ ᶠᐧ
must in any case be Jehovistᴶᵃʰʷⁱˢᵗ, because it is inconceivable
that Egypt should ever have been thought of as a son of Canaan;
²⁵⁻²⁹ follow ²¹ (Jehovistᴱˡᵒʰⁱˢᵗ). Verse ³⁰ is assigned to
Jehovistᴶᵃʰʷⁱˢᵗ solely on account of its resemblance to ¹⁹. It
cannot be denied that these arguments (which are put forward
with reserve) have considerable cumulative force; and the theory
may be correct. At the same time it must be remembered (1) that
the distinction between a wider and a narrower geographical
conception of Canaan remains a brilliant speculation, which is
not absolutely required either by 9²⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ or 10¹⁵; and (2) that
there is nothing to show that the story of Noah, the vine-grower,
was followed by a Table of Nations at all. A genealogy connecting
Shem with Abraham was no doubt included in that document; but a
writer who knows nothing of the Flood, and to whom Noah was not
the head of a new humanity, had no obvious motive for attaching
an ethnographic survey to the name of that patriarch. Further
criticism may be reserved for the notes.

The names in the Table are throughout eponymous: that is to say, each nation is represented by an imaginary personage bearing its name, who is called into existence for the purpose of expressing its unity, but is at the same time conceived as its real progenitor. From this it was an easy step to translate the supposed affinities of the various peoples into the family relations of father, son, brother, etc., between the eponymous ancestors; while the origin of the existing ethnic groups was held to be accounted for by the expansion and partition of the family. This vivid and concrete mode of representation, though it was prevalent in antiquity, was inevitably suggested by one of the commonest idioms of Semitic speech, according to which the individual members of a tribe or people were spoken of as ‘sons’ or ‘daughters’ of the collective entity to which they belonged. It may be added that (as in the case of the Arabian tribal genealogies) the usage could only have sprung up in an age when the patriarchal type of the family and the rule of male descent were firmly established (see William Robertson Smith _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_², 3 ff.).

That this is the principle on which the Tables are constructed
appears from a slight examination of the names, and is
universally admitted. With the exception of Nimrod, all the
names that can be identified are those of peoples and tribes
(Madai, Sheba, Dedan, etc.) or countries (Miẓraim, Ḥavilah,
etc.――in most cases it is impossible to say whether land or
people is meant) or cities (Zidon); some are _gentilicia_
(Jebusite, Ḥivvite, etc.); and some are actually retained
in the plural (Rodanim, Ludim, etc.). Where the distinctions
between national and geographical designations, between singular,
plural, and collective names, are thus effaced, the only common
denominator to which the terms can be reduced is that of the
eponymous ancestor. It was the universal custom of antiquity in
such matters to invent a legendary founder of a city or state;¹
and it is idle to imagine any other explanation of the names
before us.――It is, of course, another question how far the
Hebrew ethnographers believed in the analogy on which their
system rested, and how far they used it simply as a convenient
method of expressing racial or political relations. When a
writer speaks of Lydians, Lybians, Philistines, etc., as ‘sons’
of Egypt, or ‘the Jebusite,’ ‘the Amorite,’ ‘the Arvadite’ as
‘sons’ of Canaan, it is difficult to think, _e.g._, that he
believed the Lydians to be descended from a man named ‘Lydians’
(לוּדִים), or the Amorites from one called ‘the Amorite’ (הָֽאֱמֹרִי); and
we may begin to suspect that the whole system of eponyms is a
conventional symbolism which was as transparent to its authors
as it is to us.² That, however, would be a hasty and probably
mistaken inference. The instances cited are exceptional,――they
occur mostly in two groups, of which one (¹⁶ ᶠᶠᐧ) is interpolated,
and the other (¹³ ᶠᐧ) may very well be secondary too; and over
against them we have to set not only the names of Noah, Shem,
etc., but also Nimrod, who is certainly an individual hero,
and yet is said to have been ‘begotten’ by the eponymous Kush
(Gunkel). The bulk of the names lend themselves to the one view
as readily as to the other; but on the whole it is safer to
assume that, in the mind of the genealogist, they stand for real
individuals, from whom the different nations were believed to be
descended.

¹ “An exactly parallel instance ... is afforded by the ancient
Greeks. The general name of the Greeks was Hellenes; the
principal subdivisions were the Dorians, the Æolians, the
Ionians, and the Achæans; and accordingly the Greeks traced
their descent from a supposed eponymous ancestor Hellen, who
had three sons, Dorus and Aeolus, the supposed ancestors of
the Dorians and Æolians, and Xuthus, from whose two sons,
Ion and Achæus, the Ionians and Achæans were respectively
supposed to be descended” (Driver 112).

² See Guthe, _Geschichte des Volkes Israel_, 1 ff.

The geographical horizon of the Table is very restricted; but is considerably wider in Priestly-Code than in Yahwist.¹ Yahwist’s survey extends from the Hittites and Phœnicians in the North to Egypt and southern Arabia in the South; on the Elohist he knows Babylonia and Assyria and perhaps the Kašši, and on the West the Libyans and the south coast of Asia Minor.² Priestly-Code includes in addition Asia Minor, Armenia, and Media on the North and North-east, Elam on the East, Nubia in the South, and the whole Mediterranean coast on the West. The world outside these limits is ignored, for the simple reason that the writers were not aware of its existence. But even within the area thus circumscribed there are remarkable omissions, some of which defy reasonable explanation.

¹ Judging, that is, from the extracts of Yahwist that are
preserved.

² _Kaphtorim_ (verse ¹⁴): according to others the island of
Crete.

The nearer neighbours and kinsmen of Israel (Moabites,
Ishmaelites, Edomites, etc.) are naturally reserved for the
times when they broke off from the parent stem. It would appear,
further, that as a rule only contemporary peoples are included
in the lists; extinct races and nationalities like the Rephaim,
Zuzim, etc., and possibly the Amalekites, being deliberately
passed over; while, of course, peoples that had not yet played
any important part in history are ignored. None of these
considerations, however, accounts for the apparent omission
of the Babylonians in Priestly-Code,――a fact which has perhaps
never been thoroughly explained (see page 205).

From what has just been said it ought to be possible to form
some conclusion as to the age in which the lists were drawn
up. For Priestly-Code the _terminus a quo_ is the 8th century,
when the Cimmerian and Scythian hordes (² ᶠᐧ) first make their
appearance south of the Caucasus: the absence of the Minæans
among the Arabian peoples, if it has any significance, would
point to the same period (see page 203). A lower limit may with
less certainty be found in the circumstance that the names פָּרַם
and עֲרָב, עֲרָבִי (Persians and Arabs, first mentioned in Jeremiah
and Ezekiel) do not occur. It would follow that the Priestly
List is pre-exilic, and represents, not the viewpoint of the
Priestly-Code (5th century), but one perhaps two centuries
earlier (so Gunkel). Hommel’s opinion (_Aufsätze und Abhandlungen
arabistisch-semitologischen Inhalts_ 314 ff.), that the Table
contains the earliest ethnological ideas of the Hebrews fresh
from Arabia, and that its “Grundstock” goes back to Mosaic
times and even the 3rd millennium B.C., is reached by arbitrary
excisions and alterations of the names, and by unwarranted
inferences from those which are left¹ (see Jeremias _Das Alte
Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 252).――The lists of
Yahwist, on the other hand, yield no definite indications of
date. The South Arabian tribes (²⁵⁻³⁰) might have been known
as early as the age of Solomon (Brown, _Encyclopædia Biblica_,
ii. 1699),――they might even have been known earlier,――but
that does not tell us when they were systematically tabulated.
The (interpolated) list of Canaanites (¹⁶⁻¹⁸) is assigned by
Jeremias (_l.c._ 256) to the age of Tiglath-pileser III.; but
since a considerable percentage of the names occurs in the
Tel-Amarna letters (_v.i._), the grounds of that determination
are not apparent. With regard to the section on Nimrod (⁸⁻¹²),
all that can fairly be said is that it is probably later than
the Kaššite conquest of Babylonia: how much later, we cannot
tell. On the attempt to deduce a date from the description of
the Assyrian cities, see page 212.――There are, besides, two
special sources of error which import an element of uncertainty
into all these investigations. (a) Since only two names (שְׁבָא
and חֲוִילָה) are really duplicated in Priestly-Code and Yahwist,²
we may suppose that the redactor has as a general practice
omitted names from one source which he gives in the other; and
we cannot be quite sure whether the omission has been made in
Priestly-Code or in Yahwist. (b) According to Jewish tradition,
the total number of names is 70; and again the suspicion arises
that names may have been added or deleted so as to bring out
that result.³

¹ It has often been pointed out that there is a remarkable
agreement between the geographical horizon of Priestly-Code
in Genesis 10 and that of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Of the
34 names of nations in Priestly-Code’s Table, 22 occur
in Ezekiel and 14 in the _book_ of Jeremiah; it has to
be remembered, however, that a large part of the book of
Jeremiah is later than that prophet. Ezekiel has perhaps
6 names which might have been expected in Priestly-Code
if they had been known (עֲרָב, כַּשְׂדִּים, קוֹעַ, שׁוֹעַ, פָּרַס, פְּקוֹד), and
Jeremiah (book) has 5 (עֲרָבִ[י], כַּשְׂדּים, פָּרַס, פְּקוֹד, מִנִּי). The
statistics certainly do not bear out the assertion that
Priestly-Code compiled his list from these two books between
538 and 526 B.C. (see Dillmann page 166); they rather
suggest that while the general outlook was similar, the
knowledge of the outer world was in some directions more
precise in the time of Ezekiel than in the Table.

² אַשּׁוּר, כּוּשׁ, מִצְרַיִם and כְּנַעַן do not count, because they are so
introduced that the two documents supplement one another.

³ For the official enumeration see Zunz, _Die
gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden_², 207; Steinschneider,
_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_,
iv. 150 f.; Krauss, _Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche
Wissenschaft_, 1899, 6 (1900, 38 ff.); compare Poznański,
_ib._ 1904, 302.

The threefold division of mankind is a feature common to Priestly-Code and Yahwist, and to both recensions of Yahwist if there were two (above, page 188 f.). It is probable, also, though not certain, that each of the Tables placed the groups in the reverse order of birth: Japheth――Ham――Shem; or Canaan――Japheth――Shem (see verse ²¹). The basis of the classification may not have been ethnological in any sense; it may have been originally suggested by the tradition that Noah had just three sons, in accordance with a frequently observed tendency to close a genealogy with three names (4¹⁹ ᶠᶠᐧ 5³² 11²⁶ etc.). Still, the classification must follow some ethnographic principle, and we have to consider what that principle is. The more obvious distinctions of _colour_, _language_, and _race_ are easily seen to be inapplicable.

The ancient Egyptian division of foreigners into Negroes
(black), Asiatics (light brown), and Libyans (white) is as much
geographical as chromatic (Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, 32);
but in any case the survey of Genesis 10 excludes the true
negroes, and differences of colour amongst the peoples included
could not have been sufficiently marked to form a basis of
classification. It is certainly noteworthy that the Egyptian
monuments represent the Egyptians, Kōš, Punt, and Phœnicians
(Priestly-Code’s Hamites) as dark brown (Dillmann 167); but the
characteristic was not shared by the offshoots of Kush in Arabia;
and a colour line between Shem and Japheth could never have been
drawn.――The test of _language_ also breaks down. The perception
of linguistic affinities on a wide scale is a modern scientific
attainment, beyond the apprehension of an antique people, to
whom as a rule all foreign tongues were alike ‘barbarous.’ So
we find that the most of Priestly-Code’s Hamites (the Canaanites
and nearly all the Kushites) are Semitic-speaking peoples,
while the language of Elam among the sons of Shem belongs to an
entirely different family; and Greek was certainly not spoken
in the regions assigned to sons of Javan.――Of _race_, except
in so far as it is evidenced by language, modern science knows
very little; and attempts have been made to show that where
the linguistic criterion fails the Table follows authentic
ethnological traditions: _e.g._ that the Canaanites came from
the Red Sea coast and were really related to the Cushites; or
that Babylonia was actually colonised from central Africa, etc.
But none of these speculations can be substantiated; and the
theory that true racial affinity is the main principle of the
Table has to be abandoned. Thus, while most of the Japhetic
peoples are Indo-European, and nearly all the Shemitic are
Semites in the modern sense, the correspondence is no closer
than follows necessarily from the geographic arrangement to be
described presently. The Hamitic group, on the other hand, is
destitute alike of linguistic and ethnological unity.――Similarly,
when Yahwist assigns Phœnicians and Hittites (perhaps also
Egyptians) to one ethnic group, it is plain that he is not
guided by a sound ethnological tradition. His Shemites are,
indeed, all of Semitic speech; what his Japhetic peoples may
have been we cannot conjecture (see page 188).

So far as Priestly-Code is concerned, the main principle is undoubtedly _geographical_: Japheth representing the North and West, Ham the South, and Shem the East. Canaan is the solitary exception, which proves the rule (see pge 201 f.). The same law appears (so far as can be ascertained) to govern the distribution of the subordinate groups; although too many of the names are uncertain to make this absolutely clear. There is very little ground for the statement that the geographical idea is disturbed here and there by considerations of a historical or political order.

The exact delimitation of the three regions is, of course,
more or less arbitrary: Media _might_ have been reckoned to
the Eastern group, or Elam to the Southern; but the actual
arrangement is just as natural, and there is no need to
postulate the influence of ethnology in the one case or of
political relations in the other. Lûd would be a glaring
exception if the Lydians of Asia Minor were meant, but that is
probably not the case (page 206). The Mediterranean coasts and
islands are appropriately enough assigned to Javan, the most
westerly of the sons of Japheth. It can only be the assumption
that Shem represents a _middle zone_ between North and South
that makes the position of Kittîm appear anomalous to Dillmann.
Even if the island of Cyprus be meant (which, however, is
doubtful; page 199), it must, on the view here taken, be
assigned to Japheth. It is true that in Yahwist traces of
politico-historical grouping do appear (אַשּׁוּר and בָּבֶל in ⁸⁻¹²;
כַּפתֹּרִים, פְּלִשְׁתִּים in ¹³ ᶠᐧ).――As to the order within the principal
groups (of Priestly-Code), it is impossible to lay down any
strict rule. Jensen (_Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, x. 326)
holds that it always proceeds from the remoter to the nearer
nations; but though that may be true in the main, it cannot
be rigorously carried through, nor can it be safely used as an
argument for or against a particular identification.

The defects of the Table, from the standpoint of modern ethnology, are now sufficiently apparent. As a scientific account of the origin of the races of mankind, it is disqualified by its assumption that nations are formed through the expansion and genealogical division of families; and still more by the erroneous idea that the historic peoples of the old world were fixed within three or at most four generations from the common ancestor of the race. History shows that nationalities are for the most part political units, formed by the dissolution and re-combination of older peoples and tribes; and it is known that the great nations of antiquity were preceded by a long succession of social aggregates, whose very names have perished. Whether a single family has ever, under any circumstances, increased until it became a tribe and then a nation, is an abstract question which it is idle to discuss: it is enough that the nations here enumerated did not arise in that way, but through a process analogous to that by which the English nation was welded together out of the heterogeneous elements of which it is known to be composed.――As a historical document, on the other hand, the chapter is of the highest importance: first, as the most systematic record of the political geography of the Hebrews at different stages of their history; and second, as expressing the profound consciousness of the unity of mankind, and the religious primacy of Israel, by which the Old Testament writers were animated. Its insertion at this point, where it forms the transition from primitive tradition to the history of the chosen people, has a significance, as well as a literary propriety, which cannot be mistaken (Dillmann 164; Gunkel 77; Driver 114).

The Table is repeated in 1 Chronicles 1⁴⁻²³ with various
omissions and textual variations. The list is still further
abridged in LXX of 1 Chronicles, which omits ¹³⁻¹⁸ᵃ and all
names after Arpachshad in ²².――On the extensive literature on
the chapter, see especially the commentaries of Tuch (159 f.)
and Dillmann (170 f.). See also the map at the end of _Das Alte
Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_.

_The Table of Priestly-Code._

=1a. Superscription.=――_Shēm_, _Ḥām_, and _Yepheth_] compare 5³² (Priestly-Code), 9¹⁸ (Yahwist).

On the original sense of the names only vague conjectures can
be reported. שֵׁם is supposed by some to be the Hebrew word for
‘name,’ applied by the Israelites to themselves in the first
instance as בְּנֵי שֵׁם = ‘men of name’ or ‘distinction’――the titled
or noble race (compare ὀνομαστός): “perhaps nothing more than
the ruling caste in opposition to the aborigines.” So Wellhausen
(_Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher
des Alten Testaments_² 14), who compares the name ‘Aryan,’
and contrasts בני בלי שם (Job 30⁸); compare Budde _Die biblische
Urgeschichte_ 328 f.; al. Gunkel (73) mentions a speculation of
Jensen that שׁם is the Babylonian _šumu_, in the sense of ‘eldest
son,’ who perpetuates the father’s _name_.

חָם must, at a certain stage of tradition, have supplanted the
earlier כְּנַעַן as the name of Noah’s third son (page 182). The
change is easily explicable from the extension of geographical
knowledge, which made it impossible any longer to regard the
father of the Canaanites as the ancestor of one-third of the
human race; but the origin of the name has still to be accounted
for. As a Hebrew word it might mean ‘hot’ (Joshua 9¹², Job 37¹⁷):
hence it has been taken to denote the hot lands of the south
(Lepsius, al.; compare _Jubilees_ viii. 30: “the land of Ham is
hot”). Again, since in some late Psalms (78⁵¹ 105²³ᐧ ²⁷ 106²²)
חם is a poetic designation of Egypt, it has been plausibly
connected with the native _keme_ or _chemi_ = ‘black,’ with
reference to the black soil of the Nile valley (Bochart, Ebers,
Budde, 323 ff.).¹ A less probable theory is that of Glaser,
cited by Hommel (_The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as illustrated
by the Monuments_, 48), who identifies it with Egyptian _‛amu_,
a collective name for the neighbouring Semitic nomads, derived
by Müller (_Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern_,
123 ff.) from their distinctive primitive weapon, the boomerang.

¹ Compare the rare word חוּם, ‘black,’ 30³² ᶠᶠᐧ

יֶפֶת is connected in 9²⁷ with √ פתה, and no better etymology
has been proposed. Cheyne (_Encyclopædia Biblica_, ii. 2330)
compares the theophorous personal name _Yapti-‛Addu_ in
Tel-Amarna Tablets, and thinks it a modification of יִפְתַּח־אֵל,
‘God opens.’ But the form פתה (_pitû_) with the probable
sense of ‘open’ also occurs in the Tablet (_Keilinschriftliche
Bibliothek_, v. 290 [last line]). The derivation from √ יפה
(beautiful), favoured by Budde (358 ff.), in allusion to
the beauty of the Phœnician cities, is very improbable.
The resemblance to the Greek _Iapetos_ was pointed out by
Buttmann, and is undoubtedly striking. Ἰάπετος was the father of
Prometheus, and therefore (through Deukalion) of post-diluvian
mankind. The identification is approved by Weizsäcker (Roscher’s
_Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie_
ii. 55 ff.), who holds that Ἰάπετος, having no Greek etymology,
may be borrowed from the Semites (compare Lenormant ii. 173‒193).
See, further, Meyer _Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme_, 221.

A curiously complicated astro-mythical solution is advanced by
Winckler in _Mittheilungen der vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft_,
vi. 170 ff.

=2‒5. The Japhetic or Northern Peoples=: fourteen in number, chiefly concentrated in Asia Minor and Armenia, but extending on either side to the Caspian and the shores of the Atlantic. It will be seen that though the enumeration is not ethnological in principle, yet most of the peoples named do belong to the same great Indo-Germanic family.

=Japheth.=

1. Gomer.
2. Ashkenaz.
3. Riphath.
4. Togarmah.
5. Magog.
6. Madai.
7. Javan.
8. Elishah.
9. Tarshish.
10. Kittim.
11. Rodanim.
12. Tubal.
13. Meshech.
14. Tiras.

(1) גֹּמֶר (LXX Γαμερ): named along with Togarmah as a confederate
of Gog in Ezekiel 38⁶, is identified with the Galatians by
Joshua, but is really the _Gamir_ of the Assyrian inscription,
the Cimmerians of the Greeks. The earliest reference to the
Κιμμέριοι (_Odyssey_ xi. 13 ff.) reveals them as a northern
people, dwelling on the shores of the Northern Sea. Their
irruption into Asia Minor, by way of the Caucasus, is
circumstantially narrated by Herodotus (i. 15, 103, iv. 11 f.),
whose account is in its main features confirmed by the Assyrian
monuments. There the _Gimirrai_ first appear towards the end of
the reign of Sargon, attacking the old kingdom of Urarṭu (see
Johns, _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, xvii.
223 f., 226). Thence they seem to have moved westwards into Asia
Minor, where (in the reign of Sennacherib) they overthrew the
Phrygian Empire, and later (under Asshur-bani-pal, _circa_ 657)
the Lydian Empire of Gyges (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, ii.
173‒7). This last effort seems to have exhausted their strength,
and soon afterwards they vanish from history.¹ A trace of their
shortlived ascendancy remained in _Gamir_, the Armenian name
for Cappadocia;² but the probability is that the land was named
after the people, and not _vice versâ_; and it is not safe to
assume that by גֹּמֶר Priestly-Code meant Cappadocia. It is more
likely that the name is primarily ethnic, and denotes the common
stock of which the three following peoples were branches.

¹ Compare Winckler _Altorientalische Forschungen_, i. 484‒496;
_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 76 f.,
101 ff.; Jeremias _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten
Orients_², 253.

² Compare Eusebius _Chronicon_, _Armenian translation_ (edited
by Aucher) i. page 95² (_Gimmeri_ = Cappadocians), and ii.
page 12 (Γόμερ, ἐξ οὗ Καππάδοκες).

(2) אַשְׁכְּנַז (Ἀσχαναζ): Jeremiah 51²⁷, after Ararat and Minni.¹
It has been usual (Bochart, al.) to connect the name with the
Ascania of _Iliad_ ii. 863, xiii. 793; and to suppose this
was a region of Phrygia and Bithynia indicated by a river,
two lakes, and other localities bearing the old name.² Recent
Assyriologists, however, find in it the _Ašguza_³ of the
monuments,――a branch of the Indo-Germanic invaders who settled
in the vicinity of lake Urumia, and are probably identical with
the Scythians of Herodotus i. 103, 106. Since they are first
mentioned by Esarhaddon, they might readily appear to a Hebrew
writer to be a younger people than the Cimmerians. See Winckler
_ll.cc._; _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_²,
259 f.

¹ Assyrian _Mannai_, between lakes Van and Urumia, mentioned
along with Ašguza in _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, ii.
129, 147.

² Lagarde (_Gesammelte Abhandlungen_ 254) instances Ashken as
an Armenian proper name; and the inscription μὴν Ἄσκηνος on
Græco-Phrygian coins.

³ Whether the Hebrew word is a clerical error for אַשְׁכּוּז
(Winckler, Jeremias), or the Assyrian, a modification of
_Ašgunza_, the Assyriologists may decide (see Schmidt,
_Encyclopædia Biblica_, iv. 4330 f.).

(3) רִיפַת (Ῥιφαθ, Ἐριφαθ: but 1 Chronicles 1⁶ דִּיפַת): otherwise
unknown. According to Josephus, it denotes the Paphlagonians.
Bochart and Lagarde (_Gesammelte Abhandlungen_ 255) put it
further west, near the Bosphorus, on the ground of a remote
resemblance in name to the river Ῥήβαζ and the district Ῥηβαντία.
Cheyne (_Encyclopædia Biblica_, 4114) favours the transposition
of Halevy (פירת), and compares _Bit Burutaš_, mentioned by Sargon
along with the Muški and Tabali (Schrader _Keilinschriften und
Geschichtsforschung_, 176).

(4) תֹּגַרְמָה (Θεργαμα, Θοργαμα) = בית תוגרמה, Ezekiel 38⁶ 27¹⁴: in the
latter passage as a region exporting horses and mules. Josephus
identifies with the Phrygians. The name is traditionally
associated with Armenia, Thorgom being regarded as the mythical
ancestor of the Armenians; but that legend is probably derived
from LXX of this passage (Lagarde _Gesammelte Abhandlungen_ 255
ff.; _Symmicta_ i. 105). The suggested Assyriological equivalent
_Til-Garimmu_ (Delitzsch _Wo lag das Paradies?_ 246; _Das Alte
Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 260; al.), a city on
the frontier of the Tabali mentioned by Sargon and Sennacherib,
is not convincing; even though the _Til-_ should be a fictitious
Assyrian etymology (Lenormant _Les Origines de l’histoire_² ii.
410).

(5) מָגוֹג (Μαγωγ): Ezekiel 38² 39⁶. The generally accepted
identification with the Scythians dates from Joshua and Jeremiah,
but perhaps reflects only a vague impression that the name is a
comprehensive designation of the barbarous races of the north,
somewhat like the _Umman-manda_ of the Assyrians. In one of
the Tel-Amarna letters (_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, v. 5),
a land _Ga-ga_ is alluded to in a similar manner. But how the
author differentiated Magog from the Cimmerians and Medes, etc.,
does not appear. The name מגוג is altogether obscure. That it
is derived from גּוֹג = Gyges, king of Lydia (Meyer _Geschichte
des Alterthums_¹, i. page 558), is most improbable; and the
suggestion that it is a corruption of Assyrian _Mât Gôg_ (_Mât
Gagaia_),¹ must also be received with some caution.

¹ Delitzsch _Wo lag das Paradies?_ 246 f.; Streck, _Zeitschrift
für Assyriologie_, 321; Sayce, _The Higher Criticism and the
Verdict of the Monuments_², 125.

(6) מָדַי (Μαδαι): the common Hebrew name for Media and the Medes;
2 Kings 17⁶ 18¹¹, Isaiah 13¹⁷ 21², Jeremiah 25²⁵ 51¹¹ᐧ ²⁸, Esther
1³ᐧ ¹⁴ᐧ ¹⁸ ᶠᐧ 10², Daniel 8²⁰ 9¹ [11¹] (Assyrian _Madai_). The
formation of the Median Empire must have taken place about the
middle of the 7th century, but the existence of the people in
their later seats (East of the Zagros mountains and South of
the Caspian Sea) appears to be traceable in the monuments back
to the 9th century. They are thus the earliest branch of the
Aryan family to make their mark in Asiatic history. See Meyer
_Geschichte des Alterthums_¹, i. § 422 ff.; _Die Keilinschriften
und das Alte Testament_³, 100 ff.; _Das Alte Testament im Lichte
des alten Orients_², 254.

(7) יָוָן (Ἰωυαν) is the Greek Ἰάϝων-ονες, and denotes primarily
the Greek settlements in Asia Minor, which were mainly Ionian:
Ezekiel 27¹³, Isaiah 66¹⁹. After Alexander the Great it was
extended to the Hellenes generally: Joel 4⁶, Zechariah 9¹³,
Daniel 8²¹ 10²⁰ 11². In Assyrian _Yamanai_ is said to be used
but once (by Sargon, _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, ii. 43);
but the Persian _Yauna_ occurs, with the same double reference,
from the time of Darius (compare Æschylus _The Persians_ 176,
562). Whether the word here includes the European Greeks cannot
be positively determined.¹――The ‘sons’ of Javan are (verse ⁴) to
be sought along the Mediterranean, and probably at spots known
to the Hebrew as commercial colonies of the Phœnicians (on which
see Meyer _Encyclopædia Biblica_, 3736 f.). Very few of them,
however, can be confidently identified.

¹ Against the theory of a second יָוָן in Arabia (which in any
case would not affect the interpretation of this passage),
see Stade _Ausgewählte akademische Reden und Abhandlungen_
125‒142. Compare, further, _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des
alten Orients_², 255.

(8) אֱלִישָׁה (Ἐλισα, Ἐλισσα) is mentioned only in Ezekiel 27⁷
(אִיֵּי א׳) as a place supplying Tyre with purple. The older
verbal identifications with the Αἰολεῖς (Josephus, Jerome; so
Delitzsch), Ἑλλάς (Targumᴶᵒⁿᵃᵗʰᵃⁿ), Ἠλίς, etc., are valueless;
and modern opinion is greatly divided. Some favour Carthage,
because of _Elissa_, the name of the legendary foundress of the
city (Stade, Winckler, Jeremias, al.); others (Dillmann al.)
southern Italy with Sicily.¹ The most attractive solution is
that first proposed by Conder (Palestine Exploration Fund:
_Quarterly Statements._, 1892, 45; compare 1904, 170), and
widely accepted, that the _Alašia_ of the Tel-Amarna Tablets
is meant (see _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, v. 80‒92). This
is now generally recognised as the name of Cyprus, of which
the Tyrian purple was a product:² see below on כתּים. Jensen now
(_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, vi. 1, 507) places אלישה beyond
the Pillars of Hercules on the African coast, and connects it
with the Elysium of the Greeks.

¹ Compare Targumᴼⁿᵏᵉˡᵒˢ on Ezekiel 27⁷ ממדינת איטליא; and Eusebius
_Chronicon_, _Armenian translation_ ii. page 13: Ἐλισσὰ, ἐξ
οὗ Σικελοί + et Athenienses [Armenian].

² See Müller, _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, x. 257 ff.;
_Orientalische Litteraturzeitung_ iii. 288 ff.; Jensen
_Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, 379 f.; Jastrow _A
Dictionary of the Bible_, v. 80 b.

(9) תַּרְשִׁישׁ (Θαρσις) is identified (since Bochart) with Ταρτησσός
(Tartesos), the Phœnician mining and trading station in the
South of Spain;¹ and no other theory is nearly so plausible.
The Old Testament Tarshish was rich in minerals (Jeremiah 10⁹,
Ezekiel 27¹²), was a Tyrian colony (Isaiah 23¹ᐧ ⁶ᐧ ¹⁰), and a
remote coast-land reached by sea (Isaiah 66¹⁹, Jonah 1³ 4²,
Psalms 72¹⁰); and to distinguish the Tarshish of these passages
from that of Genesis 10 (Delitzsch, Jastrow, al.), or to
consider the latter a doublet of תירס (Cheyne, Müller), are but
counsels of despair. The chief rival theory is Tarsus in Cilicia
(Josephus, Jerome, al.); but this in Semitic is תרז (_Tarzi_).
Compare Winckler _Altorientalische Forschungen_, i. 445 f.;
Müller, _Orientalische Litteraturzeitung_ iii. 291.

¹ Herodotus i. 163, iv. 152; Strabo, iii. 151; Pliny
_Naturalis Historia_, iii. 7, iv. 120, etc.

(10) כִּתִּים (Κητιοι, Κιτιοι)] compare Jeremiah 2¹⁰, Ezekiel 27⁶,
Isaiah 23¹ᐧ ¹², Daniel 11³⁰, 1 Maccabees 1¹ 8⁵, Numbers 24²⁴.
Against the prevalent view that it denotes primarily the island
of Cyprus, so called from its chief city Κίτιον (Larnaka),
Winckler (_Altorientalische Forschungen_, ii. 422¹; compare
_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 128) argues that
neither the island nor its capital¹ is so named in any ancient
document, and that the older biblical references demand a site
further West. The application to the Macedonians (1 Maccabees)
he describes as one of those false identifications common in
the Egypt of the Ptolemaic period. His argument is endorsed by
Müller (_Orientalische Litteraturzeitung_ iii. 288) and Jeremias
(_Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 261): they
suggest South Italy, mainly on the authority of Daniel 11³⁰. The
question is obviously bound up with the identity of אלישה――Alašia
(_v.s._).

¹ The city, however, is called כתי in Phœnician inscriptions
and coins from the 4th century B.C. downwards; see Cooke,
_A Textbook of North-Semitic Inscriptions_, pages 56, 66?,
78, 352.

(11) דֹּדָנִים or רוֹדָנִים (_The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_
LXX [Ῥοδιοι] and 1 Chronicles 1⁷)] a name omitted by Josephus.
If LXX be right, the Rhodians are doubtless meant (compare
_Iliad_ ii. 654 f.): the singular is perhaps disguised in
the corrupt דדן of Ezekiel 27¹⁵ (compare LXX). The Massoretic
Text has been explained of the Dardanians (Targumᴶᵒⁿᵃᵗʰᵃⁿ,
Delitzsch, al.), “properly a people of Asia Minor, not far from
the Lycians” (Cheyne _Encyclopædia Biblica_, 1123). Winckler
(_l.c._) proposes דרנים, the Dorians; and Müller ד(ו)ננים, Egyptian
_Da-nô-na_ = Tel-Amarna Tablets, _Da-nu-na_ (_Keilinschriftliche
Bibliothek_, v. 277), on the West coast of Asia Minor.

(12) תֻּבַל (Θοβελ)] and

(13) מֶשֶׁךְ (Μοσοχ)] are mentioned together in Ezekiel 27¹³
(as exporting slaves and copper), 32²⁶ (a warlike people of
antiquity), 38² ᶠᐧ 39¹ (in the army of Gog), Isaiah 66¹⁹ (LXX);
משך alone in Psalms 120⁵. Josephus arbitrarily identifies them
with the Iberians and Cappadocians respectively; but since
Bochart no one has questioned their identity with the Τιβαρηνοί
and Μόσχοι, first mentioned in Herodotus iii. 94 as belonging
to the 19th satrapy of Darius, and again (vii. 78) as furnishing
a contingent to the host of Xerxes (compare Strabo, XI. ii. 14,
16). Equally obvious is their identity with the _Tabali_ and
_Muški_ of the Assyrian Monuments, where the latter appear as
early as Tiglath-pileser I. (_circa_ 1100), and the former under
Shalmaneser II. (_circa_ 838),――both as formidable military
states. In Sargon’s inscriptions they appear together;¹ and
during this whole period their territory evidently extended much
further South and West than in Græco-Roman times. These stubborn
little nationalities, which so tenaciously maintained their
identity, are regarded by Winckler and Jeremias as remnants
of the old Hittite population which were gradually driven
(probably by the Cimmerian invasion) to the mountainous district
South-east of the Black Sea.

¹ See _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, i. 18 f., 64 f., 142 f.,
ii. 40 f., 56 f.; and Delitzsch _Wo lag das Paradies?_ 250 f.

(14) תִּירָס (Θειρας)] not mentioned elsewhere, was almost
unanimously taken by the ancients (Jerome, Targumᴶᵒⁿᵃᵗʰᵃⁿ,
Jerome, etc.; and so Bochartus, al.) to be the Thracians
(Θρᾶκ-ες); but the superficial resemblance vanishes when the
nominative ending ς is removed. Tuch was the first to suggest
the Τυρσ-ηνιοί, a race of Pelasgian pirates, who left many
traces of their ancient prowess in the islands and coasts of the
Ægean, and who were doubtless identical with the E-_trus_-cans
of Italy.¹ This brilliant conjecture has since been confirmed by
the discovery of the name _Turuša_ amongst the seafaring peoples
who invaded Egypt in the reign of Merneptah (Meyer _Geschichte
des Alterthums_¹, i. § 260; W. M. Müller, _Asien und Europa nach
altägyptischen Denkmälern_, 356 ff.).

¹ Thucydides iv. 109; Herodotus i. 57, 94; Strabo, V. ii. 2,
iii. 5: other references in Tuch _ad loc._

* * * * *

=5.= The subscription to the first division of the Table is not
quite in order. We miss the formula אלה בני יפת (compare verses ²⁰ᐧ
³¹), which is here necessary to the sense, and must be inserted,
not (with Wellhausen) at the beginning of the verse, but
immediately before בארצתם. The clause מאלה――הגוים is then seen to
belong to verse ⁴, and to mean that the Mediterranean coasts
were peopled from the four centres just named as occupied by
sons of Javan. Although these places were probably all at one
time Phœnician colonies, it is not to be inferred that the
writer confused the Ionians with Phœnicians. He may be thinking
of the native population of regions known to Israel through
the Phœnicians, or of the Mycenean Greeks, whose colonising
enterprise is now believed to be of earlier date than the
Phœnician (Meyer _Encyclopædia Biblica_, 3736 f.).――נפרדו]
construed like נפצה in 9¹⁹ (Yahwist); contrast 10³².――איי הגוים]
only again Zephaniah 2¹¹. Should we read איי הים (Isaiah 11¹¹ 24¹⁵,
Esther 10¹)? אִי (for אֱוִי, perhaps from √ _’awaʸ_, “betake oneself”)
seems to be a seafarer’s word denoting the place one makes for
(for shelter, etc.); hence both “coast” and “island” (the latter
also in Phœnician). In Hebrew the plural came to be used of
distant lands in general (Isaiah 41¹ᐧ ⁵ 42⁴ 51⁵ etc., Jeremiah
31¹⁰ etc.)

* * * * *

=6, 7, 20. The Hamitic or Southern Group=: in Africa and South Arabia, but including the Canaanites of Palestine.

=Ḥam.=

1. Kush.
5. Ṣeba.
6. Ḥavilah.
7. Ṣabtah.
8. Ra‛mah.
10. Sheba.
11. Dedan.
9. Ṣabtekah.
2. Miẓraim.
3. Puṭ.
4. Canaan.

(1) כּוּשׁ (LXX Χους, but elsewhere, Αἰθίοπ-ες, -ία)] the land
and people South of Egypt (Nubia),――the Ethiopians of the
Greeks, the _Kôš_ of the Egyptian monuments:¹ compare Isaiah
18¹, Jeremiah 13²³, Ezekiel 29¹⁰, Zephaniah 3¹⁰ etc. Assyrian
_Kusu_ occurs repeatedly in the same sense on inscriptions
of Esarhaddon and Asshurbanipal; and only four passages of
Esarhaddon are claimed by Winckler for the hypothesis of a south
Arabian _Kusu_ (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³,
144). There is no reason to doubt that in this verse the African
Kush is meant. That the ‘sons’ of Kush include Arabian peoples
is quite naturally explained by the assumption that the writer
believed these Arabs to be of African descent. As a matter of
fact, intercourse, involving intermixture of blood, has at all
times been common between the two shores of the Red Sea; and
indeed the opinion that Africa was the original cradle of the
Semites has still a measure of scientific support (see Barton,
_A Sketch of Semitic Origins_¹, 6 ff., 24).――See, further, on
verse ⁸ (page 207 f.).

¹ See Steindorff, _Beiträge zur Assyriologie und semitischen
Sprachwissenschaft_, i. 593 f.

(2) מִצְרַים (Μεσραιν)] the Hebrew form of the common Semitic name
of Egypt (Tel-Amarna Tablets, _Miṣṣari_, _Miṣri_, _Mašri_,
_Mizirri_; Assyrian [from 8th and 7th century] _Muṣur_;
Babylonian _Miṣir_; Syrian (‡ Syriac phrase); Arabic _Miṣr_).
Etymology and meaning are uncertain: Hommel’s suggestion
(_Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens_ 530; compare Winckler
_Altorientalische Forschungen_, i. 25) that it is an Assyrian
appellative = ‘frontier,’ is little probable. The dual form of
Hebrew is usually explained by the constant distinction in the
native inscriptions between Upper and Lower Egypt, though מצרַיִם is
found in connexions (Isaiah 11¹¹, Jeremiah 44¹⁵) which limit it
to Lower Egypt; and many scholars now deny that the termination
is a real dual (Meyer _Geschichte des Alterthums_, i. § 42, An.;
Jensen _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_,
xlviii. 439).――On the vexed question of a North Arabian _Muṣri_,
it is unnecessary to enter here. There may be passages of Old
Testament where that view is plausible, but this is not one of
them; and the idea of a wholesale confusion between Egypt and
Arabia on the part of Old Testament writers is a nightmare which
it is high time to be quit of.

(3) פּוּט (Φουδ, but elsewhere Λιβυες)] mentioned 6 times
(including LXX of Isaiah 66¹⁹) in Old Testament, as a warlike
people furnishing auxiliaries to Egypt (Nahum 3⁹, Jeremiah 46⁹,
Ezekiel 30⁵) or Tyre (Ezekiel 27¹⁰) or the host of Gog (38⁵),
and frequently associated with כּוּשׁ and לוּד. The prevalent view
has been that the Lybians, on the North coast of Africa West
of Egypt, are meant (LXX, Josephus al.), although Nahum 3⁹
and probably Ezekiel 30⁵ (LXX) show that the two peoples were
distinguished. Another identification, first proposed by Ebers,
has recently been strongly advocated: viz. with the _Pwnt_ of
Egyptian monuments, comprising ‘the whole African coast of the
Red Sea’ (W. M. Müller, _Asien und Europa nach altägyptischen
Denkmälern_, 114 ff., and _A Dictionary of the Bible_, iv. 176
f.; Jeremias 263 f.). The only serious objection to this theory
is the order in which the name occurs, which suggests a place
further north than Egypt (Jensen _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_,
x. 325 ff.).

(4) כְּנַעַן (Χανααν)] the eponym of the pre-Israelitish inhabitants
of Palestine, is primarily a geographical designation. The
etymology is doubtful; but the sense ‘lowland’ has still the
best claim to acceptance (see, however, Moore, _Proceedings
[Journal] of the American Oriental Society_, 1890, lxvii ff.).
In Egyptian monuments the name, in the form _pa-Ka-n-‛sand-land_
is the article), is applied to the strip of coast from Phœnicia
to the neighbourhood of Gaza; but the ethnographic derivative
extends to the inhabitants of all Western Syria (Müller, _Asien
und Europa nach altägyptischen Denkmälern_, 205 ff.). Similarly
in Tel-Amarna Tablets _Kinaḫḫi_, _Kinaḫna_, etc., stand for
Palestine proper (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³,
181), or (according to Jastrow _Encyclopædia Biblica_, 641)
the northern part of the seacoast.――The fact that Canaan, in
spite of its geographical situation and the close affinity of
its language with Hebrew, is reckoned to the Hamites is not to
be explained by the tradition (Herodotus i. 1, vii. 89, etc.)
that the Phœnicians came originally from the Red Sea; for that
probably implies no more than that they were connected with the
Babylonians (Ἐρυθρὴ Θάλασσα = the Persian Gulf). Neither is it
altogether natural to suppose that Canaan is thus placed because
it had for a long time been a political dependency of Egypt: in
that case, as Dillmann observes, we should have expected Canaan
to figure as a son of Mizraim. The belief that Canaan and Israel
belonged to entirely different branches of the human family
is rooted in the circumstances that gave rise to the blessing
and curse of Noah in chapter 9. When, with the extension of
geographical knowledge, it became necessary to assign the
Canaanites to a larger group (page 187 above), it was inevitable
that they should find their place as remote from the Hebrews as
possible.

Of the descendants of Kush (verse ⁷) a large proportion――all,
indeed, that can be safely identified――are found in Arabia.
Whether this means that Kushites had crossed the Red Sea,
or that Arabia and Africa were supposed to be a continuous
continent, in which the Red Sea formed an inland lake (_Die
Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 137, 144), it is
perhaps impossible to decide.

(5) סְבָא (Σαβα)] Isaiah 43³ 45¹⁴, Psalms 72¹⁰; usually taken
to be Meröe¹ (between Berber and Khartoum). The tall stature
attributed to the people in Isaiah 45¹⁴ (but compare 18²ᐧ ⁷) is
in favour of this view; but it has nothing else to recommend it.
Dillmann al. prefer the Saba referred to by Strabo (XVI. iv. 8,
10; compare Ptolemy, iv. 7. 7 f.) on the African side of the Red
Sea (South of Suakim). Jeremias (_Das Alte Testament im Lichte
des alten Orients_², 265) considers the word as the more correct
variant to שׁבא (see below).

¹ Josephus _Antiquities of the Jews_ ii. 249. In i. 134 f. he
seems to confuse סבא and שׁבא.

(6) חֲוִילָה (Εὑ[ε]ιλα[τ])] often (since Bochart) explained as
‘sand-land’ (from חוֹל); named in verse ²⁹ (Yahwist) as a
Joḳṭanite people, and in 25¹⁸ (also Yahwist) as the eastern
limit of the Ishmaelite Arabs. It seems impossible to harmonise
these indications. The last is probably the most ancient, and
points to a district in North Arabia, not too far to the East.
We may conjecture that the name is derived from the large tract
of loose red sand (_nefūd_) which stretches North of Teima and
South of el-Ǧōf. This is precisely where we should look for the
Χαυλοταῖοι whom Eratosthenes (Strabo, XVI. iv. 2) mentions
(next to the Nabateans) as the second of three tribes on the
route from Egypt to Babylon; and Pliny (vi. 157) gives Domata
(= Dûmāh = el-Ǧōf: see page 353) as a town of the _Avalitæ_. The
name might easily be extended to other sandy regions of Arabia,
(perhaps especially to the great sand desert in the southern
interior): of some more southerly district it must be used
both here and verse ²⁹ (see Meyer _Die Israeliten und ihre
Nachbarstämme_, 325 f.). To distinguish further the Cushite from
the Joktanite ח׳, and to identify the former with the Ἀβαλῖται,
etc., on the African coast near Bab-el-mandeb, is quite
unnecessary. On the other hand, it is impossible to place either
of these so far Nprth as the head of the Persian Gulf (Glaser)
or the East-North-east part of the Syrian desert (Friedrich
Delitzsch). Nothing can be made of Genesis 2¹¹; and in 1 Samuel
15⁷ (the only other occurrence) the text is probably corrupt.

(7) סַבְתָּה (Σαβαθα)] not identified. Possibly Σάβατα, Sabota,
the capital of Ḥaḍramaut (see on verse ²⁶) (Strabo, XVI. iv. 2;
Pliny, _Naturalis Historia_, vi. 155, xii. 63),――though in
Sabæan this is written שבות (see Osiander, _Zeitschrift der
deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, xix. 253; Hommel
_Süd-arabische Chrestomathie_ 119); or the Σάφθα of Ptolemy vi.
7. 30, an inland town lying (according to Glaser, 252) West of
El-Ḳaṭīf.

(8) רַעְמָה (Ῥεγμα or Ῥεγχμα)] coupled with שׁבא (? and חוילה) in
Ezekiel 27²² as a tribe trading in spices, precious stones,
and gold. It is doubtless the רעֿמה (_Raǧmat_) of a Minæan
inscription,¹ which speaks of an attack by the hosts of Saba
and Ḥaulân on a Minæan caravan _en route_ between Ma‛ân and
Ra‛mat. This again may be connected with the Ῥαμμανῖται of
Strabo (XVI. iv. 24) North of Ḥaḍramaut. The identification with
the Ῥεγ[α]μα πόλις (a seaport on the Persian Gulf) of Ptolemy
vi. 7. 14 (Bochartus al.; so Glaser) is difficult because of its
remoteness from Sheba and Dedan (_v.i._), and also because this
appears on the inscription as _Rǧmt_ (Glaser, 252).

¹ Halevy, 535, 2 (given in Hommel _Süd-arabische Chrestomathie_
103) = Glaser, 1155: translated by Müller, _Zeitschrift der
deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, xxx. 121 f., and
Hommel _Aufsätze und Abhandlungen arabistisch-semitologischen
Inhalts_, 322, _The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as illustrated
by the Monuments_, 249 f.

(9) סַבְתְּכָא (Σαβακαθα)] unknown. Σαμυδάκη in Carmania¹ (Ptolemy. vi.
8. 7 f., 11) is unsuitable both geographically and phonetically.
Jeremias suggests that the word is a duplicate of סַבְתָּה.

¹ Bochartus: so Glaser, ii. 252; but see his virtual
withdrawal on page 404.

(10) שְׁבָא (Σαβα)] (properly, as inscriptions show, סבא: see Number
5 above) is assigned in verse ²⁹ to the Joḳṭanites, and in 25³
to the Ḳetureans. It is the Old Testament name of the people
known to the classical geographers as Sabæans, the founders
of a great commercial state in South-west Arabia, with its
metropolis at _Marib_ (Mariaba), some 45 miles due East of San’a,
the present capital of Yemen (Strabo, XVI. iv. 2, 19; Pliny,
_Naturalis Historia_, vi. 154 f., etc.). “They were the centre
of an old South Arabian civilisation, regarding the former
existence of which the Sabæan inscriptions and architectural
monuments supply ample evidence” (Dillmann 182). Their history
is still obscure. The native inscriptions commence about 700
B.C.; and, a little earlier, Sabæan princes (not kings)¹ appear
on Assyrian monuments as paying tribute to Tiglath-pileser IV.
(B.C. 738) and Sargon (B.C. 715).² It would seem that about that
time (probably with the help of the Assyrians) they overthrew
the older Minæan Empire, and established themselves on its
ruins. Unlike their precursors, however, they do not appear
to have consolidated their power in North Arabia, though their
inscriptions have been found as far North as el-Ǧōf. To the
Hebrews, Sheba was a ‘far country’ (Jeremiah 6²⁰, Joel 4⁸),
famous for gold, frankincense, and precious stones (1 Kings
10¹ ᶠᶠᐧ, Isaiah 60⁶, Jeremiah 6²⁰, Ezekiel 27²², Psalms 72¹⁵):
in all these passages, as well as Psalms 72¹⁰, Job 6¹⁹, the
reference to the southern Sabæans is clear. On the other hand,
the association with Dedan (25³, Ezekiel 38¹³ and here) favours
a more northern locality; in Job 1¹⁵ they appear as Bedouin of
the northern desert; and the Assyrian references appear to imply
a northerly situation. Since it is undesirable to assume the
existence of two separate peoples, it is tempting to suppose
that the passage last quoted preserve the tradition of an
earlier time, before the conquest of the Minæans had led to a
settlement in Yemen. Verse ²⁸ (Yahwist), however, presupposes
the southern settlement.³

¹ It is important that neither in their own nor in the
Assyrian inscriptions are the earliest rulers spoken of as
_kings_.

² Compare _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, ii. 21, 55.

³ See Meyer _Geschichte des Alterthums_¹, i. § 403; Glaser,
ii. 399 ff.; Sprenger, _Zeitschrift der deutschen
morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, xliv. 501 ff.; Margoliouth,
_A Dictionary of the Bible_, i. 133, iv. 479 ff.; Hommel
_The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as illustrated by the
Monuments_, 77 ff., and in _Explorations in Bible Lands
during the 19th century_, 728 ff.; _Die Keilinschriften und
das Alte Testament_³, 148 ff.; _Das Alte Testament im Lichte
des alten Orients_², 265.

(11) דְּדָן (Δαδαν, Δεδαν; but elsewhere Δαιδαν, etc.)] a merchant
tribe mentioned along with Sheba in 25³ (= 1 Chronicles 1³²)
and Ezekiel 38¹³; with Tema (the modern _Teima_, _c._ 230 miles
North of Medina) in Isaiah 21¹³, Jeremiah 25²³, and LXX of
Genesis 25³; and in Jeremiah 49⁸, Ezekiel 25¹³ as a neighbour
of Edom. All this points to a region in the North of Arabia; and
as the only other reference (Ezekiel 27²⁰)――in 27¹⁵ the text is
corrupt――is consistent with this, there is no need to postulate
another Dedan on the Persian Gulf (Bochartus al.) or anywhere
else. Glaser (397) very suitably locates the Dedanites “in the
neighbourhood of Khaibar, el-Ola, El-Hiǧr, extending perhaps
beyond Teima,”――a region intersected by the trade-routes from
all parts of Arabia (see the map in _Encyclopædia Biblica_,
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.