These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.
These are the families of the sons of Noah after their generations, in their nations. The tendency of a certain class of critics in the present day is to throw ridicule on most of these names as fabulous-to regard them as similar to the ethnographic mythology of the Greeks, in which the individual is epically introduced for the people (Havernick); or as holding the same place in the primitive traditions of the Jews as the myths relating to Romulus and Remus in the early history of Rome. But the researches of travelers and historical inquirers have furnished ample data to prove that these names, as far as has been ascertained, are not only authentic, but are really the names of men, or of tribes of men, who once existed. There are difficulties, it must be admitted; but as in the geography of these countries, so in the names of individuals and tribes, every additional ray of light thrown upon them shows that they have a real value and great importance.
Sir H. Rawlinson says ('Asiatic Society's Journal'), 'The Toldoth Beni Noah is undoubtedly the most authentic record we possess for the affiliation of those branches of the human race which sprang from the triple stock of the Noachidae. It is probably of the very greatest antiquity; and instead of drawing ethnological inferences from the linguistic indications of a very early age, it will be far safer to follow in these early times the general scheme of ethnic affiliation which is given in the tenth chapter of Genesis.'
This register of the early colonization of the world is both interesting and vastly important. It was not drawn up, as has been alleged, by some Hebrew writer, to uphold the glory of his own countrymen by tracing their descent from Shem, nor to gratify his national hatred to the Canaanites, by placing them falsely in the genealogy of Ham. There is not discoverable throughout any appearance either of sympathy on one side or prejudice on the other. It is simply a historical view of the genesis of the nations as it existed at the time it was written, including all but such tribes as were either insignificant and obscure, or did not come within the horizon of the historian, such as the Rephaim, Avvim, etc. And the source whence it was drawn was probably patriarchal tradition, together with later accessions, which might have been obtained from the extensive knowledge of foreign nations, which, as appears from the monuments, was possessed in Egypt-all of which were embodied in this record under the superintendence and direction of the Spirit of inspiration.
It has been objected to on various grounds. Ewald in particular has pronounced it not only a dislocation of the sacred history, its proper position in the course of time and events being at the end of Genesis 11:9, but an unreliable record, because, in Genesis 10:29, and in other parts, it exhibits the state of geographical knowledge which existed not in the days of the paulo-postdiluvian patriarchs, but in the later age of Solomon. Both of those objections, however, are groundless; for, as a contribution to general history, it was properly interjected in this place before the narrative assumed the continuous form of a particular biography.
Moreover, while a genealogical table, constructed in the advanced times of the Hebrew monarchy, could have been little more than a work of invention or conjecture, the repetition of this register in 1 Chronicles 1:1-54 furnishes the strongest testimony to its exact truth. Still further, it bears internal evidence of being a very ancient document; because it not only speaks of Magog as a nation in actual existence, whereas Ezekiel, Ezekiel 38:1-23; Ezekiel 39:1-29, uses the term for an ideal people; of Tiras, which is not mentioned in any of the later Scriptures; of Nineveh, not as the "exceeding great city" which it afterward became; and of Sidon, before Tyre was in existence; but by a statement in Genesis 10:19 it fixes the date of its original compilation at an early period in the history of Abraham's settlement in Canaan-namely, before the destruction of the cities of the plain.
An additional proof of its antiquity arises from the consideration of how limited a radius is assigned to the great emigration. The territory described as occupied by the primeval colonists comprises only a small portion of Europe, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Arabia, Canaan, and Egypt. And this is just what might be expected would have been the case at the early period to which the record refers: for let the chronology of the deluge be removed as far back as some modern critics are disposed to fix it, still Abraham was the tenth in succession from Shem; and as the dispersion from the concentrated population of Shinar commenced in the days of Peleg, the fourth from Shem, it must have necessarily been confined within an area of comparatively small dimensions.
The world, after the deluge, was to be populated on a new plan, and civilization to be advanced, not as formerly by two great divisions, as the families of Cain and Seth, but by the distribution of mankind into a plurality of nations. Although the population in the years immediately subsequent to the flood probably increased at a very rapid rate, owing to a concurrence of favourable circumstances-the still protracted duration of human life, the occurence of few or no deaths, the vigour of the soil, active but not oppressive labour, and a high state of civilization at the starting point, Noah and his sons possessing a knowledge of the arts and chief acquirements of the antediluvians-yet the location of the Noachidae in their respective settlements must have been slow and gradual. We are not informed of the impelling motives which prompted one group to go in a particular direction rather than another; but we can take our position at the fountain-head of emigration, and survey the parting of the mighty streams as they flowed into contiguous regions. Their movements were not left to the blind direction of chance.
The world was all before them where to choose, And Providence their guide.'
Instead of advancing in vast bodies in one line, like the irruption into Europe of the northern hordes under Attila, overwhelming in successive waves those who had preceded them, the diffusion of mankind in the early post-diluvian age was a quiet and orderly process, the force of numbers being weakened through the various channels in which the current of emigration found an outlet. Separating into the great divisions, and though not absolutely unmixed, yet each preserving its chief distinctive features, they started in different directions.
The personal idiosyncrasies of the sons of Noah would be transmitted to their respective descendants, and become the characteristics of their posterity. But it must not be supposed that the forms of life were stereotyped at once; they could become generally fixed and complete only at an advanced period. The progress was probably something like this: A detachment of the emigrants found a suitable place for their habitation, and there they settled. In course of time, as their numbers outgrew the means of sustenance which that locality yielded, adventurers went off to form a new settlement more or less distant, where they were that locality yielded, adventurers went off to form a new settlement more or less distant, where they were socially disunited, or at least geographically divided.
Change of country, and of climate, gave rise to physical and intellectual peculiarities, which time and an insulated situation gradually rendered permanent and indelible; and thus, through the influence of natural causes operating in a constantly extending series of new colonies, originated those varieties of mankind in form, stature, colour, bodily constitution, and mental characteristics which constitute races.
In short, a work was then begun, not by human design or choice, but under the superintending, though unseen and unfelt direction, of the Providential Ruler who fixed for each branch of the human family the bounds of their habitation-a work tending not only to the diffusion of mankind over all the world, but to the production of those physical differences which adapt each nation to the region it was destined to inhabit.
The historical truth of this chapter has been surprisingly illustrated by modern science. 'It is no longer probable,' says Sir William Jones (Works, 1:, p. 137), 'it is absolutely certain, that the whole race of man proceeded from Iran as from a center, whence they migrated at first in three great colonies' Bunsen Gfrorer, Von Raumer, Wagner, Frederick Schlegel, Gesenius, and Knobel in Germany; Pritchard, Rawlinson, Carpenter, and other ethnologists of high authority in Britain, agree with that eminent linguist in declaring that all the conclusions to which their researches in the historical records of antiquity, as well as all their investigations into the recesses of language and mythology have led them, point to the tableland of Upper Asia as the original center whence the various branches of the human family diverged.
Comparative philology has thrown no small light on the early migrations of men, by discovering many strange and unexpected affinities between various nations, separated from each other by immense tracts of country, and differing from one another in almost every conceivable manner. Amid the apparent chaos of languages, patient and philosophic inquirers have traced affinities in structure and grammatical inflection, have grouped together tongues which, though separated by the distance of half the globe, seem very closely allied.
Of these different families, the two with which we are best acquainted are the Aramaic or Semitic and Indo-European or Aryan; the former, comprising the Hebrew, Arabic, the ancient Assyrian, Phoenician, Syriac, Chaldee, etc., derives its name from the real or supposed descent of the people who spoke these languages from Shem (excepting Elam, Genesis 10:22); and the latter, divided into six branches, two of which belong to Asia, and three to Europe, and through European colonies to other parts of the world, includes:
(1) The Indian branch, of which the Sanskrit is the principal;
(2) The Medo-Persic or Aryan, the most important of which is the Zend, the sacred dialect of the Parsees;
(3) The Teutonic, embracing the Gothic, and the various German dialects, the Anglo-Saxon, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic;
(4) The classical languages of ancient Greece and Rome;
(5) The Slavonic branch, to which belong the Lithuanian, Russian, Polish, Bohemian languages, with those of large tribes in Hungary and Saxony;
(6) The Celtic branch, comprehending the Erse, Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and the Bas Breton in France ('Journal of Education,' No. 18).
The languages which do not harmonize with either of these two large groups are ranged by Max Muller ('Last Results of Researches') under a separate class, called Turanian. It is impossible here to enter into details. Suffice it to remark, that so great and rapid is the progress of comparative philology, that many dialects in Europe, Africa, Polynesia, and America have now been found to be derivative, and can be traced to their original stock. Thus, Bunsen ('Philosophy of Universal History') says, in regard to the Indian tribes of America, 'The linguistic data, combined with the traditions and customs, and particularly with the system of pictorial or mnemonic writing, enable me to say that the Slavic origin of these tribes is as fully proved as the unity of a family among themselves.'
Humboldt pronounces the Polynesian languages to be evidently connected with the Malay, which is a leading class in the Turanian group. And Dr. Livingstone, after remarking on the many striking coincidences between the customs of ancient Egypt and Central Africa, enters into a lengthened comparison between the African dialects and the language of the Old Egyptians. He declares generally, that all the tongues now spoken to the south of the equator, with the exception of the Bush or Hottentot, are homogeneous, and in particular, that the Sichuana tongue, as elevated by the powerful Bechuana chieftains, bears in structure a very close resemblance to the language of Egyptian monuments ('Cambridge Lectures,' quoted by Hardwick).
Thus, as Rawlinson observes ('Herodotus,' vol. 1:, Appendix, Essay 11:), 'the original unity between the languages of Africa and Asia, a unity sufficiently shadowed out (Genesis 10:6-20), is confirmed by these linguistic resemblances, as well as by the manifold traditions concerning the two Ethiopias-the Cushites above Egypt, and the Cushites of the Persian Gulf. And the triple division corresponding to the sons of Noah, which the earlier ethnologers adopted, may still be retained-the Turanian being classed with the Hamite form of speech, of which it is an earlier stage.'
This chapter is not only of great historical interest and value, but bears directly on the purposes of the sacred history; because it not only affiliates the people of the various nations as the common descendants of Noah, and consequently of Adam, but shows that, while a temporary separation was to be made of the Jews, that special dispensation was to be subservient to a grand scheme of providence for diffusing the knowledge of divine grace and salvation among all mankind.