John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

Genesis 10:1



INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 10



This chapter gives an account of the posterity of the three sons of Noah, by whom the world was peopled after the flood, Ge 10:1 of the posterity of Japheth, Ge 10:2 of the posterity of Ham,

Ge 10:6 and of the posterity of Shem, Ge 10:21.



Ver. 1. Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah,.... The genealogy of them, and which is of great use to show the original of the several nations of the world, from whence they sprung, and by whom they were founded; and to confute the pretended antiquity of some nations, as the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Chinese, and others; and to point out the particular people, which were to be the seat of the church of God for many ages, and from whom the Messiah was to spring; which seems to be the principal view of the history of Moses, and of this genealogy, with which should be compared 1Ch 1:1 Shem, Ham, and Japheth; see Ge 5:32



and unto them were sons born after the flood; for they had none born to them either before the flood or in it; they were married before the flood, for their wives went into the ark with them; but it does not appear they had any children before, though they then were near an hundred years old; and if they had, they were not in the ark, and therefore must perish with the rest, which is not likely: Shem's son Arphaxad was born two years after the flood, Ge 11:10 when the rest were born, either his or his brethren's, is not said; however they were all born after the flood; though some pretend that Canaan was born in the ark {y}, during the flood, for which there is no authority; yea, it is confuted in this chapter, where Canaan stands among the sons of Ham, born to him after the flood.



{y} See Bayle's Dictionary, vol. 10. art. "Ham", p. 587.





Genesis 10:2



Ver. 2. The sons of Japheth,.... Who though mentioned last, the genealogy begins with him, by a figure which rhetoricians call a "chiasm". The posterity of Japheth are those whom Hesiod {z} often calls iapetionidhv, "Iapetionides", and him iapetov, "Iapetus". According to Josephus {a}, the sons of Japheth inhabited the earth, beginning from the mountains Taurus and Amanus, and then went on in Asia unto the river Tanais, and in Europe unto Gadira. Seven of his sons are mentioned, and the first is Gomer; from whom, according to the same writer {b}, came the Gomareans or Gomerites, in his time called by the Greeks Galatians, that is, the Gauls of Asia minor, who inhabited Phrygia; both Gomer and Phrygia signifying the same, as Bochart {c} observes, and the country looking as if it was torrified or burnt; and Pliny {d} makes mention of a town in Phrygia, called Cimmeris; and the Cimmerians and Cimbri are derived by some from this Gomer, whom Herodotus {e} makes mention of as in Asia and Scythia, and speaks of a country called Cimmerius, and of the Cimmerian Bosphorus; and these seem to be the Gauls before mentioned, under a different name; and it is to be observed, that the Welsh, who sprung from the Gauls, call themselves to this day Cumero, or Cymro and Cumeri. It is plain from

Eze 38:6 that Gomer and his people lay to the north of Judea, and the posterity of Japheth went first into the northern parts of Asia, and then spread themselves into Europe: six more of his sons follow, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras; the first of these, Magog, was the father of a northern people which bore his name, see Eze 38:2 and according to Josephus {f}, who is generally followed, are the same that were called Scythians; from Madai came the Medes, often spoken of in Scripture, along with the Persians; so Josephus {g} says, from him came the nation of Madaeans, whom the Greeks call Medes; and very frequently in Scripture the Medes go by the name of Madai, their original ancestor; see Da 5:28 but Mr. Mede {h} is of opinion, that Macedonia was the seat of this Madai, which was formerly called Aemathia; that is, as he gives the etymology of it, aia, "Madai", the country of Madai; but the former sense is generally received. Javan is by all agreed to be the father of the Grecians; hence Alexander, king of Grecia, is in Da 8:21 called king of Javan; and one part of Greece bore the name of Ionia; and the sea that washed it is called the Ionian sea. And his posterity are

iaonev, "Iaonians", in Homer {i} and Aristophanes {k}; and the scholiast of the latter says, that the Barbarians call all Greeks Iaonians. The next son of Japheth is Tubal or Thobel, as Josephus calls him, who says {l} the Thobelians in his time were called Iberians, a people in Asia, that dwelt near the Euxine sea; and in Albania was a place called Thabilaca, as may be seen in Ptolemy {m}, and another called Thilbis, from whom might spring the Iberians in Europe, now called Spaniards; but Bochart {n} thinks that the Tibarenes are the descendants of Tubal, a people that dwelt between the Trapezuntii and Armenia the less; and he wonders that this never was thought of by any; but in that he is mistaken, for our countryman Mr. Broughton {o} makes the Tibarenes to spring from Tubal; and Epiphanius {p} many hundreds of years before him. Meshech, his next son, is mentioned along with Tubal in Eze 27:13 from him came the Mosocheni, as Josephus {q}, who in his time were called Cappadocians, with whom there was a city then named Mazaca, since Caesarea {r}; and these seem to be the same that Pliny {s} calls Moscheni, who inhabited the mountains Moschici, which were at the north east of Cappadocia. Some derive the Muscovites from them, which is not improbable: the last of Japheth's sons is Tiras or Thiras, which Jarchi interprets very wrongly by Paras, or Persia; much better the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem, and so a Jewish chronologer {t}, by Thracia; for the descendants of Thiras, as Josephus {u} observes, the Greeks call Thracians; and in Thrace was a river called Atyras {w}, which has in it a trace of this man's name; and Odrysus, whom the Thracians worshipped, is the same with Tiras, which god sometimes goes by the name of Thuras; and is one of the names of Mars, the god of the Thracians.



{z} In Theogonia. {a} Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1. {b} Ib. {c} Phaleg. l. 3. c. 8. col. 171, 172. {d} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 30. {e} Clio sive, l. 1. c. 16, 103. & Melpomene sive, l. 4. c. 11, 12, 13. {f} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) {g} Ib. {h} Dissert. 48. {i} Iliad. 13. ver. 685. {k} Acharneus. act. 1. scen. 3. p. 376. {l} Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1. {m} Geograph. l. 5. c. 12. {n} Phaleg. l. 3. c. 12. col. 180. {o} See his Works, p. 2, 58. {p} Ancorat. p. 546. {q} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) {r} Vid. Ammian. Marcellin. l. 20. p. 170. Ed. Vales. {s} Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 9, 10. {t} Sepher Juchasin, fol. 145. 1. Vid. T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 10. 1. {u} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) {w} Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 4. c. 11.





Genesis 10:3



Ver. 3. And the sons of Gomer,.... Who was the first of the sons of Japheth, three of whose sons are mentioned, and they are as follow:



Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah; the first of these seated himself in the lesser Asia, in Pontus and Bithynia, where were some traces of his name in the river Ascanius, and in the Ascanian lake or bay; and also in the lesser Phrygia or Troas, where was a city called Ascania, and where were the Ascanian isles {x}, and the Euxine Pontus, or Axeine {y}, as it was first called, which is the sea that separates Asia and Europe, and is no other than a corruption of the sea of Ashkenaz. It seems to have been near Armenia, by its being mentioned along with Minni or Armenia, in Jer 51:27. Germany is by the Jews commonly called Ashkenaz; perhaps some of the posterity of Ashkenaz in Asia might pass into Europe, and Germany might be a colony of them; so Mr. Broughton {z} observes of the sons of Gomer, that they first took their seat in Asia, and then came north and west into Muscovy and Germany. The next son of Gomer was Riphath. Josephus {a} says, that the Riphathaeans which came from him are the Paphlagonians, a people of Asia Minor, near Pontus, so that he settled near his brother Ashkenaz; perhaps his posterity are the Arimphaei of Pliny {b}, and the Riphaeans of Mela {c}, who inhabited near the Riphaean mountains, which might have their name from this son of Gomer, who in 1Ch 1:6 is called Diphath, the letters r and d being very similar. His third son is called Togarmah, who had his seat in the north of Judea, see

Eze 38:6 his posterity are the Phrygians, according to Josephus {d}; but some place them in Galatia and Cappadocia; and Strabo {e} makes mention of a people called Trocmi, on the borders of Pontus and Cappadocia; and Cicero {f} of the Trogmi or Trogini, who may have their name from hence; for the Greek interpreters always call him Torgama or Thorgana. The Jews make the Turks to be the posterity of Togarmah. Elias Levita says {g}, there are some that say that Togarmah is the land of Turkey; and Benjamin of Tudela {h} calls a Turkish sultan king of the Togarmans, that is, the Turks; and among the ten families of Togarmah, which Josephus ben Gorion {i} speaks of, the Turks are one; and perhaps this notion may not be amiss, since the company of Togarmah is mentioned with Gog, or the Turk, See Gill on "Eze 38:6". The Armenians pretend to be the descendants of Togarmah, who, with them, is the son of Tiras, the son of Gomer, by his son Haik, from whom they and their country, from all antiquity, have bore the name of Haik {k}.



{x} Strabo Geograph. l. 12. p. 387, 388. & l. 14. p. 468. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 4. 12. & 5. 30, 31, 32. {y} Vid. Orphei Argonautic, ver. 84. {z} See his Works, p. 2, 58. {a} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) {b} Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 2. {c} De Situ Orbis, l. 1. c. 2. {d} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) {e} Geograph. l. 4. p. 130. & l. 12. p. 390. {f} De Divinatione, l. 2. {g} In Tishbi, p. 259. {h} ltinerarium, p. 27, 54. {i} Hist. Heb. l. 1. c. 1. p. 3. {k} See the Universal History, vol. 1. p. 377.





Genesis 10:4



Ver. 4. And the sons of Javan,.... Another son of Japheth; four sons of Javan are mentioned, which gave names to countries, and are as follow:



Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim; the first of these, Elishah, gave name to the Elysaeans, now called Aeoles, as Josephus {l} says; hence the country Aeolia, and the Aeolic dialect, all from this name; and there are many traces of it in the several parts of Greece. Hellas, a large country in it, has its name from him; so the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem interpret Elishah by Allas. Elis in Peloponnesus, Eleusis in Attica, the river Elissus, or Ilissus, and the Elysian fields, are so called from him. Tarshish, second son of Javan, gave name to Tarsus, by which Cilicia was formerly called, as Josephus says {m}, of which the city named Tarsus was the metropolis, the birth place of the Apostle Paul, Ac 22:3. Hence the Mediterranean sea is called Tarshish, because the Cicilians were masters of it; and Tartessus in Spain might be a colony from them, as Broughton observes; and so Eusebius says, from the Tarsinns are the Iberians, or Spaniards; and which Bochart {n} approves of, and confirms by various evidences; and Hillerus, {o} makes Tarshish to be the author of the Celtae, that is, of the Spanish, French, and German nations. The third son of Javan is Kittim, whom Josephus {p} places in the island of Cyprus, a city there being called Citium, from whence was Zeno the Citian: but rather the people that sprung from him are those whom Homer {q} calls Cetii; and are placed by Strabo {r} to the west of Cilicia, in the western parts of which are two provinces, mentioned by Ptolemy {s}, the one called Cetis, the other Citis: likewise this Kittim seems to be the father both of the Macedonians and the Latines; for Alexander the great is said to come from Cittim, and Perseus king of Macedon is called king of Cittim,



"And it happened, after that Alexander son of Philip, the Macedonian, who came out of the land of Chettiim, had smitten Darius king of the Persians and Medes, that he reigned in his stead, the first over Greece,'' (1 Maccabees 1:1)



"Beside this, how they had discomfited in battle Philip, and Perseus, king of the Citims, with others that lifted up themselves against them, and had overcome them:'' (1 Maccabees 8:5)



and Macedonia is sometimes called Macetia, as it is in Gellius {t}, which has something of the name of Cittim or Cetim in it; and also the Latines or Romans seem to spring from hence, who may be thought to be meant by Cittim in Nu 24:24 Da 11:30 and Eusebius says the Citians are a people from whom came the Sabines, who also are Romans; and in Latium was a city called Cetia, as says Halicarnassensis {u}; and Bochart {w} has shown, that Latium and Cethem signify the same, and both have their names from words that signify to hide; "latium a latendo", and "celhem", from Mtk, "to hide", see Jer 2:22 in which sense the word is frequently used in the Arabic language; and Cittim in the Jerusalem Targum is here called Italy. The last son of Javan mentioned is Dodanim; he is omitted by Josephus: his country is by the Targum of Jonathan called Dordania; and by the Jerusalem Targum Dodonia; and he and his posterity are placed by Mr. Mede in part of Peloponnessus and Epirus, in which was the city of Dodona, where were the famous temple and oracle of Jupiter Dodonaeus, under which name this man was worshipped. In 1Ch 1:7 he is called Rodanim, and in the Samaritan version here; and the word is by the Septuagint translated Rodians; which have led some to think of the island of Rhodes as the seat, and the inhabitants of it as the posterity of this man; but Bochart {x} is of opinion, that they settled in the country now called France, gave the name to the river Rhodanus, and called the adjacent country Rhodanusia, and where formerly was a city of that name, much about the same tract where now stands Marseilles; but this seems too remote for a son of Javan.



{l} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) {m} Ib. {n} Phaleg. l. 3. c. 7. {o} Onomastic. Saer. p. 944. {p} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) {q} Odyss. 11. ver. 520. {r} Geograph. l. 13. p. 423. {s} Ibid. l. 5. c. 8. {t} Attic. Noct. l. 9. c. 3. {u} Hist. l. 8. p. 376. {w} Phaleg. l. 3. c. 5. col. 159, 160. {x} Phaleg. l. 3. c. 6. col. 163, 164.





Genesis 10:5



Ver. 5. By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands,.... That is, by those sons of Japheth before mentioned; and by "isles" are meant, not countries surrounded with water, for the isles in this sense would not have been sufficient for the posterity of Japheth; nor can it be thought they would leave the continent, where there was room enough for them, and go into islands; and besides must have found it difficult to get there, when shipping and navigation were little known: but it is usual with the Hebrews, of whom Moses, the writer of this history, was, to call all places beyond the Mediterranean sea, or whatsoever they went to by sea, or that were upon the sea coasts, islands, as Greece, Italy, &c. Moreover, the word sometimes signifies countries, as it does in Job 22:30 and so should be rendered here, as it is by some {y}, "the countries of the Gentiles"; so called, because in the times of Moses, and at the writing of this history, those countries were inhabited by Heathens and idolaters, strangers to the true religion: and this division was not made at random, and at the pleasure of a rude company of men, but in an orderly regular manner, with the consent, and by the advice and direction of the principal men of those times; and especially it was directed by the wise providence of the most High, who divided to the nations their inheritance, and set the bounds of the people,

De 32:8.



everyone after his tongue, after their families, in their nations; this shows, that what is said concerning the division of countries to the sons of Japheth is by way of anticipation; and that, though thus related, was not done till after the confusion of languages, since the partition was made according to the different languages of men; those that were of the same language went and dwelt together, the several nations of them, and the several families in those nations; by which it appears that this was done by consultation, with great care and wisdom, ranging the people according to their tongues; of which nations were formed, and with them were taken the several families they consisted of.



{y} Mywgh yya "regiones gentium", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Patrick.





Genesis 10:6



Ver. 6. And the sons of Ham,.... Next to the sons of Japheth, the sons of Ham are reckoned; these, Josephus {z} says, possessed the land from Syria, and the mountains of Amanus and Lebanon; laying hold on whatever was towards the sea, claiming to themselves the countries unto the ocean, whose names, some of them, are entirely lost, and others so greatly changed and deflected into other tongues, that they can scarcely be known, and few whose names are preserved entire; and the same observation will hold good of others. Four of the sons of Ham are mentioned,



Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan; the first of these, Cush, Josephus {a} says, has suffered no loss by time; for the Ethiopians, whose prince he was, are to this day by themselves, and all in Asia, called Chusaeans: but though this word Cush, as used in Scripture, is generally rendered by us Ethiopia, this must not be understood of Ethiopia in Africa, but in Arabia; and indeed is always to be understood of one part of Arabia, and which was near to the land of Judea; so Moses's wife is called an Ethiopian, when she was an Arabian, or of Midian, Nu 12:1 and Chusan and Midian are mentioned together, Hab 3:7 see 2Ki 19:9 2Ch 14:9 and Bochart {b} has shown, by various arguments, that the land of Cush was Arabia; and so the Targum of Jonathan interprets it here Arabia. There was a city called Cutha in Erac, a province in the country of Babylon {c}, where Nimrod the son of Cush settled, which probably was called so from his father's name. Here the eastern writers say {d} Abraham was born, and is the same place mentioned in 2Ki 17:24. The second son of Ham was Mizraim, the same with the Misor of Sanchoniatho {e}, and the Menes of Herodotus {f}, the first king of Egypt, and the builder of the city of Memphis in Egypt, called by the Turks to this day Mitzir {g}. Mitzraim is a name by which Egypt is frequently called in Scripture, and this man was the father of the Egyptians; and because Egypt was inhabited by a son of Ham, it is sometimes called the land of Ham,

Ps 105:23. The word is of the dual number, and serves to express Egypt by, which was divided into two parts, lower and upper Egypt. Josephus says {h}, we call Egypt, Mestres, and all the Egyptians that inhabit it, Mestraeans; so the country is called by Cedrenus {i}, Mestre; and Kairo, a principal city in it, is to this day by the Arabians called Al-messer, as Dr. Shaw {k} relates. The third son of Ham is Phut; of whom Josephus {l} says, that he founded Libya, calling the inhabitants of it after his name, Phuteans; and observes, that there is a river in the country of the Moors of his name; and that many of the Greek historians, who make mention of this river, also make mention of a country adjacent to it, called Phute: mention is made of this river as in Mauritania, both by Pliny {m} and Ptolemy {n} and by the latter of a city called Putea: this Phut is the Apollo Pythius of the Heathens, as some think. The last son of Ham is Canaan, the father of the Canaanites, a people well known in Scripture. Concerning these sons of Ham, there is a famous fragment of Eupolemus preserved in Eusebius {o}; and is this;



"the Babylonians say, that the first was Belus, called Cronus or Saturn (that is, Noah), and of him was begotten another Belus and Chanaan (it should be read Cham), and he (i.e. Ham) begat Chanaan, the father of the Phoenicians; and of him another son, Chus, was begotten, whom the Greeks call Asbolos, the father of the Ethiopians, and the brother of Mestraim, the father of the Egyptians.''



{z} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect 1.) {a} Ibid. {b} Phaleg. l. 4. c. 2. {c} Vid. Hyde Hist. Relig. Pers. c. 2. p. 39, 40. {d} Vid. Hyde Hist. Relig. Pers. c. 2. p. 72. {e} Apud Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 1. p. 36. {f} Enterpe sive, l. 2. c. 4. 99. {g} See Cumberland's Sanchoniatho, p. 59. {h} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect 1.) {i} Apud Grotium de vera Christ. Relig. l. 1. p. 8. & Ainsworth in loc. {k} Travels, ch. 3. p. 294. Ed. 2. {l} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect 1.) {m} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 1. {n} Geograph. l. 4. c. 1, 3. {o} Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 17. p. 419.





Genesis 10:7



Ver. 7. And the sons of Cush,.... The first born of Ham, who had five sons, next mentioned, besides Nimrod, spoken of afterwards by himself:



Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha; the first of these is Seba, the founder of the Sabaeans, according to Josephus {p}, a people seated in Arabia Deserta, which seem to be the Sabaeans brought from the wilderness, Eze 23:42 and very probably the same that plundered Job of his cattle, Job 1:14. The second son is Havilah, who, as Josephus {q} says, was the father of the Evilaeans, now called Getuli; but the posterity of Havilah seem to be the same whom Strabo {r} calls Chaulotaeans, and whom he speaks of along with the Nabataeans and Agraeans, a people near Arabia Felix; and by Pliny {s} they are called Chavelaeans, and whom he speaks of as Arabians, and places them to the east of the Arabian Scenites. The third son is Sabtah; from him, Josephus {t} says, came the Sabathenes, who, by the Greeks, are called Astabari; the posterity of this man seemed to have settled in some part of Arabia Felix, since Ptolemy {u} makes mention of Sabbatha as the metropolis of that country, called by Pliny {w} Sabotale, or rather Sabota, as it should be read; Ptolemy places another city in this country he calls Saphtha, which seems to have its name from this man. The fourth son is Raamah or Ragmas, as Josephus calls {x} him, from whom sprung the Ragmaeans he says; and most of the ancients call him Rhegmah, the letter e being pronounced as a "G", as in Gaza and Gomorrah: his posterity were also seated in Arabia Felix, near the Persian Gulf, where Ptolemy {y} places the city Rhegama, or as it is in the Greek text, Regma. The fifth son is Sabtecha, whom some make to be the father of a people in the same country, Arabia Felix, near the Persian Gulf, called Sachalitae; but Dr. Wells {z} thinks, that the descendants of this man might be from him regularly enough styled at first by the Greeks, Sabtaceni, which name might be afterwards softened into Saraceni, by which name it is well known the people of the northern parts of Arabia, where he places the descendants of this man, were formerly denominated; though Bochart {a} carries them into Carmania in Persia, there being a short cut over the straits of the Persian Gulf, out of Arabia thither, where he finds a city called Samydace, and a river, Samydachus, which he thinks may come from Sabtecha, the letters "B" and "M" being frequently changed, as Berodach is called Merodach, and Abana, Amana, and so in other names.



And the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan; no account is given of any of the posterity of the other sons of Cush, only of this his fourth son Raamah, who is said to have two sons; the first is called Sheba, from whom came the Sabaeans, according to Josephus {b}; not the Sabaeans before mentioned in Arabia Deserta, but those in Arabia Felix, where Pomponius Mela {c} and Strabo {d} seat a people called Sabaeans, and whose country abounded with frankincense, myrrh, and cinnamon; the latter makes mention of a city of theirs called Mariaba, and seems to be the same that is now called Mareb, and formerly Saba {e}, very likely from this man. The other son, Dedan, is called by Josephus {f} Judadas, whom he makes to be founder of the Judadaeans, a nation of the western Ethiopians; but the posterity of this man most probably settled in Arabia, and yet are to be distinguished from the Dedanim in

Isa 21:13 who were Arabians also, but descended from Dedan the son of Jokshan, a son of Abraham by Keturah, Ge 25:3 as well as from the inhabitants of Dedan in Edom, Jer 25:23 it is observed, that near the city Regma before mentioned, on the same coast eastward, was another city called Dedan; and to this day Daden, from which the neighbouring country also takes its name, as Bochart {g} has observed, from Barboza, an Italian writer, in his description of the kingdom of Ormus: so that we need not doubt, says Dr. Wells {h}, but that here was the settlement of Dedan the son of Raamah or Rhegma, and brother of Sheba.



{p} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) {q} Ibid. {r} Geograph. l. 16. p. 528. {s} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 11. {t} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) {u} Geograph. l. 6. c. 7. {w} Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28. {x} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) {y} Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 6. c. 7.) {z} Geography of the Old Testament, vol. 1. p. 198. {a} Phaleg l. 4. c. 4. col. 218. {b} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) {c} De Situ Orbis, l. 3. c. 8. {d} Geograph. l. 16. p. 536. {e} Via. Pocock. Specimen Arab. Hist p. 57. {f} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) {g} Phaleg. l. 4. c. 6. col. 219. {h} Ut supra, (Geography of the Old Testament, vol. 1.) p. 197.





Genesis 10:8



Ver. 8. And Cush begat Nimrod,.... Besides the other five sons before mentioned; and probably this was his youngest son, being mentioned last; or however he is reserved to this place, because more was to be spoken of him than of any of the rest. Sir Walter Raleigh {i} thinks that Nimrod was begotten by Cush after his other children were become fathers, and of a later time than some of his grandchildren and nephews: and indeed the sons of Raamah, the fourth son of Cush, are taken notice of before him: however, the Arabic writers {k} must be wrong, who make him to be the son of Canaan, whereas it is so clear and express from hence that he was the son of Cush. In the Greek version he is called Nebrod, and by Josephus, Nebrodes, which is a name of Bacchus; and indeed Nimrod is the same with the Bacchus of the Heathens, for Bacchus is no other than Barchus, the son of Cush; and Jacchus, which is another of his names in Jah of Cush, or the god the son of Cush; and it is with respect to his original name Nebrod, or Nebrodes, that Bacchus is represented as clothed with the skin of

nebriv, "nebris", or a young hind, as were also his priests; and so in his name Nimrod there may be an allusion to armn, "Nimra", which, in the Chaldee language, signifies a tiger, and which kind of creatures, with others, he might hunt; tigers drew in the chariot of Bacchus, and he was sometimes clothed with the skin of one; though the name of Nimrod is usually derived from drm, "to rebel", because he was a rebel against God, as is generally said; and because, as Jarchi observes, he caused all the world to rebel against God, by the advice he gave to the generation of the division, or confusion of languages, the builders of Babel: he seems to be the same with Belus, the founder of Babel and of the Babylonian empire, whom Diodorus Siculus {l} confounds with Ninus his son:



he began to be a mighty man in the earth: that is, he was the first that formed a plan of government, and brought men into subjection to it; and so the Jews {m} make him to be the first king after God; for of the ten kings they speak of in the world, God is the first, and Nimrod the second; and so the Arabic writers {n} say, he was the first of the kings that were in the land of Babylon; and that, seeing the figure of a crown in the heaven, he got a golden one made like it, and put it on his head; hence it was commonly reported, that the crown descended to him from heaven; for this refers not to his gigantic stature, as if he was a giant, as the Septuagint render it; or a strong robust man, as Onkelos; nor to his moral character, as the Targum of Jonathan, which is,



"he began to be mighty in sin, and to rebel before the Lord in the earth;''



but to his civil character, as a ruler and governor: he was the first that reduced bodies of people and various cities into one form of government, and became the head of them; either by force and usurpation, or it may be with the consent of the people, through his persuasion of them, and on account of the mighty and heroic actions done by him.



{i} History of the World, B. 1. ch. 10. sect. 1. p. 109. {k} Elmacinus, p. 29. apud Hottinger. Smegma, p. 270. See the Universal History, vol. 1. p. 276. {l} Bibliothec. l. 2. p. 90. {m} Pirke Eliezer, c. 11. {n} Elmacinus, p. 29. Patricides, p. 16. apud Hottinger. Smegma, p. 271, 272. Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 18.





Genesis 10:9



Ver. 9. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord,.... Which might be literally true; for, from the time of the flood to his days, wild beasts might increase very much, and greatly annoy men who dwelt very likely for the most part in tents scattered up and down in divers places: so that he did a good office in hunting and destroying them. An Arabic writer {o}, of some authority in the eastern parts, says, that by hunting he got food sufficient for the builders of Babel, while they were employed therein; and Aben Ezra interprets it in his favour, that he built altars, and the creatures he took in hunting he offered them on them a burnt offering to God. But neither of these is probable; however, it may be observed, that in this way by hunting he arrived to the power and dominion over men he afterwards had; for not only he ingratiated himself into their favour by hunting down and destroying the wild beasts which molested them, but by these means he might gather together a large number of young men, strong and robust, to join him in hunting; whereby they were inured to hardships, and trained up to military exercises, and were taught the way of destroying men as well as beasts; and by whose help and assistance he might arrive to the government he had over men; and hunting, according to Aristotle {p}, is a part of the military art, which is to be used both on beasts, and on such men who are made to be ruled, but are not willing; and it appears, from Xenophon {q}, that the kings of Persia were fitted for war and government by hunting, and which is still reckoned in many countries a part of royal education. And it may be remarked, that, as Nimrod and Bacchus are the same, as before observed, one of the titles of Bacchus is zagreuv, "an hunter". Cedrenus {r} says, that the Assyrians deified Nebrod, or Nimrod, and placed him among the constellations of heaven, and called him Orion; the same first discovered the art of hunting, therefore they joined to Orion the star called the dog star. However, besides his being in a literal sense an hunter, he was in a figurative sense one, a tyrannical ruler and governor of men. The Targum of Jonathan is;



"he was a powerful rebel before the Lord;''



and that of Jerusalem,



"he was powerful in hunting in sin before the Lord,''



and another Jewish writer {s} says, he was called a mighty hunter, because he was all his days taking provinces by force, and spoiling others of their substance; and that he was "before the Lord", truly so, and he seeing and taking notice of it, openly and publicly, and without fear of him, and in a bold and impudent manner, in despite of him, see Ge 6:11. The Septuagint render it, "against the Lord"; he intended, as Jarchi's note is, to provoke him to his face:



wherefore it is said; in a proverbial way, when any man is grown mighty and powerful, or is notoriously wicked, or is become a tyrant and an oppressor of the people, that he is



even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. This was a proverb used in the times of Moses, as it is common now with us to call a hunter Nimrod.



{o} Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 18. {p} Politic. l. 1. c. 8. {q} Cyropaed. l. 1. c. 5. {r} Apud Abrami Pharum, l. 5. sect. 6. p. 128. {s} R. Gedaliah, Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 76. 2.





Genesis 10:10



Ver. 10. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel,.... The city of Babel, or Babylon, which was built by his direction; for though Babylon is by some writers said to be built by Semiramis, the wife of Ninus, and others by Ninus himself, yet the truest account is, that it was built by Belus, the same with Nimrod. Curtius {t} says, Semiramis built it; or, as most believe, adds he, Belus, whose royal palace is shown: and Berosus {u}, the Chaldean, blames the Greek writers for ascribing it to Semiramis; and Abydenus {w}, out of Megasthenes, affirms, that Belus surrounded Babylon with a wall: however, this was the head of the kingdom of Nimrod, as Onkelos renders it, or his chief city, or where he first began to reign. Here he set up his kingdom, which he enlarged and extended afterwards to other places; and from hence it appears, that what is related in this context, concerning Nimrod, is by way of anticipation; for it was not a fact that he was a mighty man, or a powerful prince possessed of a kingdom, until after the building of Babel, and the confusion of languages there; when those that continued on the spot either chose him for their ruler, or he, by power or policy, got the dominion over them. Artapanus {x}, an Heathen writer, relates, that the giants which inhabited Babylon being taken away by the gods for their impiety, one of them, Belus, escaped death and dwelt in Babylon, and took up his abode in the tower which he had raised up, and which, from him the founder of it, was called Belus; so that this, as Moses says, was the beginning of his kingdom, together with



Erech, and Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar, where the city and tower of Babel were built: for of these four cities, which were all in the same country, did the kingdom of Nimrod consist; they all, either by force or by consent, were brought into subjection to him, and were under one form of government, and is the first kingdom known to be set up in the world. Erech, according to the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem, is Hades, or Edessa, a city in Mesopotamia; but it is rather thought to be the name with the Aracca of Ptolemy {y}, and the Arecha of Marcellinus {z}, placed by them both in Susiana; though one would think it should be that city in Chaldea which took its present Arabic name of Erak from Erech: the Arabic writers say {a}, when Irac or Erac is absolutely put, it denotes Babylonia, or Chaldea, in the land of Shinar; and they say that Shinar is in Al-Erac. The next city, Accad, according to the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem, is Netzibin, or Nisibis, a city in Mesopotamia; in the Septuagint version it is called Archad; and Ctesias {b} relates, that at the Persian Sittace was a river called Argad, which Bochart {c} thinks carries in it a manifest trace of this name; and observes, from Strabo {d}, that that part of Babylon nearest to Susa was called Sitacena. And the other city, Calneh, according to the above Targums, is Ctesiphon, and is generally thought to be the place intended, and was a town upon the Tigris, near to Seleucia in Babylon; it was first called Chalone, and its name was changed to Ctesiphon by Pacorus, king of the Persians. It is in

Isa 10:9 called Calno, and by the Septuagint version there the Chalane, which adds,



"where the tower was built;''



and from whence the country called the Chalonitis by Pliny {e} had its name, the chief city of which was Ctesiphon; and who says {f} Chalonitis is joined with Ctesiphon. Thus far goes the account of Nimrod; and, though no mention is made of his death, yet some writers are not silent about it. Abulpharagius {g}, an Arabic writer, says he died in the tower of Babel, it being blown down by stormy winds; the Jewish writers say {h} he was killed by Esau for the sake of his coat, which was Adam's, and came to Noah, and from him to Ham, and so to Nimrod. When he began his reign, and how long he reigned, is not certain; we have only some fabulous accounts: according to Berosus {i}, he began to reign one hundred and thirty one years after the flood, and reigned fifty six years, and then disappeared, being translated by the gods: and, indeed, the authors of the Universal History place the beginning of his reign in the year of the flood one hundred and thirty one, and thirty years after the dispersion at Babylon {k}; and who relate, that the eastern writers speak of his reign as very long: a Persian writer gives his name a Persian derivation, as if it was Nemurd, that is, "immortal", on account of his long reign of above one hundred and fifty years: and some of the Mahometan historians say he reigned in Al-Sowad, that is, the "black country", four hundred years {l}.



{t} Hist. l. 5. c. 1. {u} Apud Joseph. contra Apion. l. 1. c. 20. {w} Apud. Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 9. c. 41. p. 457. {x} Apud. Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 9. c. 18. p. 420. {y} Geograph. l. 6. c. 3. {z} Lib. 23. {a} Vid. Hyde in notis ad Peritsol. Itinera Mundi, p. 65. {b} Apud Aelian. Hist. Animal. l. 16. c. 42. {c} Phaleg. l. 4. c. 17. {d} Geograph. l. 15. p. 503. {e} Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 26. {f} Ibid. c. 27. {g} Hist. Dynast. p. 12. {h} In Pirke Eliezer, c. 24. {i} Antiqu. l. 4. p. 28, 29. {k} Vol. 1. p. 282. and vol. 21. p. 2. {l} Apud Hyde's Hist. Relig. Pers. c. 2. p. 43.





Genesis 10:11



Ver. 11. Out of that land went forth Ashur,.... It is a question whether Ashur is the name of a man or of a country; some take it in the latter sense, and render the words, "and out of that land he went forth into Assyria"; so Onkelos; and in this way go Junius and Tremellius, Piscator, Bochart, Cocceius, and others, and the margin of our Bible, and interpret it of Nimrod; and the Targum of Jonathan is express for him, which is this:



"out of that land went forth Nimrod, and reigned in Assyria, because he would not be in the council of the generation of the division, and he left four cities; and the Lord gave him therefore a place (or Assyria), and he built four other cities, Nineveh, &c.''



so Theophilus of Antioch says {m}, that Nebroth (Nimrod) built the same; but then the generality of interpreters which take this way give another and better reason for Nimrod's going out of Shinar or Babylon into Assyria than the Targumist gives; which is, that not content with his own dominions, and willing to enlarge them, he went out and made war upon Assyria, and seized upon it, and built cities in it, and added them to his former ones; in favour of this sense it is urged, that Moses is speaking of what Nimrod the son of Cush did, of the line of Ham, and not of the sons of Shem, among whom Ashur was; and that it is not probable he should introduce a passage relating to a branch of Shem, when he is professedly writing about that of Ham; nor is it agreeable to the history to speak of what Ashur did, before any mention of his birth, which is in Ge 10:22 nor was it peculiar to him to go out of the land of Shinar, since almost all were dispersed from thence; add to which, that Assyria is called the land of Nimrod, Mic 5:6 to which it may be replied, that parentheses of this sort are frequent in Scripture, see 2Sa 4:4 besides, it seems appropriate enough, when treating of Nimrod's dominion and power, in order to show his intolerable tyranny, to remark, that it was such, that Ashur, a son of Shem, could not bear it, and therefore went out from a country he had a right unto; and as for the text in Mic 5:6 the land of Nimrod and the land of Assyria are manifestly distinguished from one another: add to this, that, if Nimrod so early made a conquest of Assyria, it would rather have been called by his own name than his uncle's; and it is allowed by all that the country of Assyria had its name from Ashur, the son of Shem; and who so likely to have founded Nineveh, and other cities, as himself? Besides these, interpreters are obliged to force the text, and insert the particle "into", which is not in it; and the order and construction of the words are more natural and agreeable to the original, as in our version and others, which make Ashur the name of a man, than this, which makes it a country: but then it is not agreed on who this Ashur was; some will have him to be of the posterity of Ham, and a son of Nimrod, as Epiphanius {n} and Chrysostom {o}; but this is not probable, nor can any proof be given of it; Josephus {p} is express for it, that Ashur, the son of Shem, built Nineveh, and gave the name of Assyrians to those that were subject to him. The reason of his going out from Shinar, as given by Jarchi, is, when he saw his sons hearkening to Nimrod, and rebelling against the Lord, by building a tower, he went out from them; or it may be, he was drove out by Nimrod by force, or he could not bear his tyrannical government, or live where such a wicked man ruled: and as Nimrod built cities and set up an empire, Ashur did the same in his own defence and that of his posterity:



and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah. The first of these cities, Nineveh, the Greeks commonly call Ninus, is placed by Strabo {q} in Atyria, the Chaldee name of Assyria, who generally suppose it had its name from Ninus, whom Diodorus Siculus {r} makes the first king of the Assyrians, and to whom he ascribes the building of this city; and who, one would think, should be Ashur, and that Ninus was another name of him, or however by which he went among the Greeks; and so this city was called after him; or rather it had its name from the beauty of it, the word signifying a beautiful habitation, as Cocceius {s} and Hillerus {t} give the etymology of it; or perhaps, when it was first built by him, it had another name, but afterwards was called Nineveh, from Ninus, who lived many years after him, who might repair, adorn, and beautify it. It was destroyed by the Medes and Babylonians, as foretold by Nahum, and it is difficult now to say where it stood; the place where it is supposed to have been is now called Mosul; of which place Rauwolff {u} says, who was there in 1574, that



"there are some very good buildings and streets in it, and it is pretty large, but very ill provided with walls and ditches;--besides this, I also saw, (says he,) just without the town, a little hill, that was almost quite dug through, and inhabited by poor people, where I saw them several times creep in and out as pismires in ant hills: in this place, or thereabouts, stood formerly the potent town of Nineveh, built by Ashur, which was the metropolis of Assyria;--at this time there is nothing of antiquities to be seen in it, save only the fort that lieth upon the hill, and some few villages, which the inhabitants say did also belong to it in former days. This town lieth on the confines of Armenia, in a large plain:''



See Gill on "Jon 1:2" see Gill on "Jon 3:1" see Gill on "Jon 3:2" see Gill on "Jon 3:3" see Gill on "Na 1:8" The next city, Rehoboth, signifies "streets", and so it is rendered in the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem; and, because in the Chaldee language streets are called "Beritha", Bochart {w} thinks that this Rehoboth is the city which Ptolemy {x} calls Birtha, on the west of Tigris, at the mouth of the river Lycus, though he places it by Euphrates; wherefore it should rather be Oroba, he places at the river Tigris {y}, near to Nineveh also. The last city, Calah, or Calach, was a principal city in the country, by Ptolemy {z} called Calacine, and by Strabo {a} Calachene, and mentioned by both along with Adiabene, a country in Assyria.



{m} Ad Autolycum, l. 2. p. 106. {n} Contra Haeres. l. 1. p. 3. {o} In Genes. Homil. 29. {p} Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 4. {q} Geograph. l. 16. p. 507. {r} Bibliothec. l. 2. p. 90, 91. {s} In Jonam, 1, 2. {t} Onomast. Sacr. p. 304, 431. {u} Travels, part 2. c. 9. p. 166. {w} Phaleg. l. 4. c. 21. col. 256. {x} Geograph. l. 5. c. 19. {y} Ibid. l. 6. c. 1. {z} Ibid. {a} Geograph. l. 11. p. 347, 365. & l. 16. p. 507.





Genesis 10:12



Ver. 12. And Resen, between Nineveh and Calah,.... This was another city built by Ashur, situated between those two cities mentioned: the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem call it Talsar, or Thalassar, see Isa 37:12 The conjecture of Bochart {b} is more probable, that it is the Larissa of Xenophon, situated on the Tigris; though Junius thinks it is either Bassora, or Belcina, which Ptolemy {c} places on the Tigris, near Nineveh:



the same is a great city: which Jarchi interprets of Nineveh, called a great city, and was indeed one, being sixty miles in circumference, Jon 1:2 but the construction of the words carries it to Resen, which might be the greatest city when first built; and, if understood of Larissa, was a great city, the walls of it being one hundred feet high, and the breadth twenty five, and the compass of it eight miles. Benjamin of Tudela says {d}, that in his time Resen was called Gehidagan, and was a great city, in which were 5000 Israelites; but according to Schmidt, this refers to all the cities in a coalition, Nineveh, Rehoboth, Calah, and Resen, which all made that great city Nineveh; or were a Tetrapolis, as Tripoli was anciently three cities, built by the joint interest of the Aradians, Sidonians, and Tyrians, as Diodorus Siculus {e} relates.



{b} Phaleg. l. 4. c. 23. {c} Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 5. c. 19.) {d} Itinerarium, p. 75. {e} Bibliothec. l. 16. p. 439.





Genesis 10:13



Ver. 13. And Mizraim begat Ludim,.... Mizraim was the second son of Ham, of whom See Gill on "Ge 10:6". Ludim he is said to beget, the word being plural, is not the name of a man, but of his posterity; and the sense is, that Mizraim begat the father of the Ludim, whose name very probably was Lud, which name is preserved in Isa 66:19. These Ludim are the same with the Lydians, Jer 46:9 and whose country is called Lydia, Eze 30:5 but to be distinguished from Lydia in Asia Minor, and the Lydians there who sprung from Lud, a son of Shem, Ge 10:22 for, as these sprung from Mizraim, the founder of Egypt, they must be somewhere thereabout; and Bochart {f} has proved, by various arguments, that they are the Ethiopians in Africa, now called Abyssines, whose country lies to the south of Egypt, a people formerly famous for archery, as Lud and the Lydians are said to be, Isa 66:19 and whoever reads the accounts Diodorus Siculus {g} gives of the Egyptians and Ethiopians, will easily discern a likeness between them, and that the one sprung from the other; both deifying their kings; showing a like carefulness about their funerals; both using hieroglyphics; having the like order of priests, who used shaving; and circumcision was common to them both, as Herodotus observes {h}:



and Ananzim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim: the name of the father of the Anamim very probably was Anam, though we have no account of him elsewhere: according to Hillerus {i}, the Anamim were called so from the pastoral life they led; and, by a transposition of letters, were the same with the Maeonians, who inhabited that tract of land in Asia which was washed by the river Maeonia, or Maeander, and bordered on Lydia; but, as these were the descendants of Mizraim, they must be sought for somewhere about Egypt: much better therefore does Mr. Broughton {k} take them to be the Nubians and Numidians, which were near both Egypt and Ethiopia; though Bochart {l} seems to be most correct, in making them to be the Ammonians, who, Herodotus says, were a colony of the Egyptians and Ethiopians; these lived about Ammon and Nasamonitis, and in that part of Lybia in which the temple of Jupiter Ammon stood, and are the Nomades, that lived a pastoral life; and Bochart {m} thinks they are called Anamim, from Anam, which, in the Arabic language, signifies a "sheep", because they fed sheep, and lived upon them, and clothed themselves with their skins. The word Lehabim, the name of another people from Mizraim, signifies "flames"; and were so called, as Jarchi observes, because their faces were like flames, see Isa 13:8 burnt with the heat of the sun, living near the torrid zone; and therefore could not be the Lycians, as Hillerus {n} thinks, the inhabitants of a country in Asia, between Caria and Pamphylia, formerly called Lycia, now Aidimelli, which he observes abounds with places that have their names from fire and flames, as Mount Chimaera, the cities Hephaestium, Myra, Lemyra, Habessus, Telmessus, Balbura, and Sirbis; but these were too far from Egypt, near which it is more probable the Lehabim were, and seem to be the same with the Lubim, which came with Shishak out of Egypt to invade Judea,

2Ch 12:3 and who were called Lybians, Jer 46:9 and their country Lybia, Eze 30:5 of which Leo Africanus {a} says, that it is a desert, dry and sandy, having neither fountains nor springs; which was near Egypt as well as Ethiopia, with which it is joined in the above place, see Ac 2:10. The word Naphtuhim, the name of another people that sprung from Mizraim, according to Hillerus {o}, signifies "open"; and he thinks they are the Pamphylians, who used to admit promiscuously all into their ports and towns, which were open to all strangers, and even robbers, for the sake of commerce; but, as these were a people in lesser Asia, they cannot be the people here meant. Bochart {p} observes, from Plutarch, that the Egyptians used to call the extreme parts of a country, and abrupt places and mountains adjoining to the sea, Nepthys, the same with Nephthuah; and therefore he is of opinion, that these Naphtuhim dwelt on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, near Egypt, in Marmorica; not far from whence was the temple of Aptuchus, mentioned by Ptolemy {q}, and placed by him in Cyrene, which carries in it some trace of the name of Naphtuhim; and he suspects that Neptune had his name from hence; he being a Lybian god, as Herodotus {r} says; for none ever used his name before the Lybians, who always honoured him as a god: and it may be observed, from Strabo {s}, that many of the temples of Neptune were on the sea shore. Some place these people about Memphis, the name of which was Noph,

Isa 19:13 but perhaps it may be much better to place them in the country of Nepate, between Syene and Meroc, where Candace, queen of Ethiopia, had her royal palace in the times of Strabo {t}.



{f} Phaleg. l. 4. c. 26. {g} Bibliothec. l. 2. p. 143, &c. {h} Euterpe sive, l. 2. c. 104. {i} Onomastic. Sacr. p. 283. {k} See his Works, p. 4, 60. {l} Phaleg. l. 4. c. 30. col. 284. {m} Ib. c. 42. {n} Onomastic. Sacr. p. 281, 583. {a} Descriptio Africae, l. 1. p. 74. {o} Onomastic Sacr. p. 161, 178, 283, 421. {p} Phaleg. l. 4. c. 26. {q} Geograph. l. 4. c. 4. {r} Herodot. Thalia, sive, l. 3. c. 21. Euterpe sive, l. 2. c. 50. {s} Geograph, l. 8. p. 237. {t} Geograph. l. 17. p. 564.





Genesis 10:14



Ver. 14. And Pathrusim,.... These are other descendants of Mizraim, the name of whose father very probably was Pathros, from whom the country of Pathros was called, and which is not only spoken of in Scripture along with Egypt, but as a part of it, Isa 11:11 and these Pathrusim were doubtless the inhabitants of it; which, as Bochart {u} has shown, is no other than Thebais, or the upper Egypt. Hillerus {w} takes the word to be compounded of tap and Myowr, and renders it the corner of the Rosians, and makes it to be the same with the bay of Issus, where was a colony of Egypt, called Cilicians; but the former is more probable.



And Casluhim; these also were the posterity of Mizraim, by another son of his, from whence they had their name: according to Hillerus {x}, they are the Solymi, a people near the Lycians and Pisidians, that came out of Egypt, and settled in those parts; but it is much more likely that they were, as Junius {y} observes, the inhabitants of Casiotis, a country mentioned by Ptolemy {z} in lower Egypt, at the entrance of it, where stood Mount Casius: but Bochart {a} is of opinion that they are the Colchi, the inhabitants of the country now called Mingrelia, and which, though at a distance from Egypt, the ancient inhabitants came from thence, as appears from several ancient authors of good credit, as the above learned writer shows.



Out of whom came Philistim, or the Philistines, a people often spoken of in Scripture: these sprung from the Casluhim, or were a branch of that people; according to Ben Melech they sprung both from them and from the Pathrusim; for Jarchi says they changed wives with one another, and so the Philistines sprung from them both; or these were a colony that departed from them, and settled elsewhere, as the Philistines did in the land of Canaan, from whence that part of it which they inhabited was called Palestine: and, if the Casluhim dwelt in Casiotis, at the entrance of Egypt, as before observed, they lay near the land of Canaan, and could easily pass into it. Some think this clause refers not to what goes before, but to what follows after,



and Caphtorim, and read the whole verse thus: "and Pathrusim, and Casluhim, and Caphtorim, out of whom came Philistim"; that is, they came out of the Caphtorim. What has led to such a transposition of the words in the text is Am 9:7 "and the Philistines from Caphtor": but though they are said to he brought from a place called Caphtor, yet did not spring from the Caphtorim: to me it rather seems, that the two latter were brothers, and both sprung from the Casluhim; since the words may be rendered without a parenthesis: "and Caluhim, out of whom came Philistim and Caphtorim"; though perhaps it may be best of all to consider the two last as the same, and the words may be read, "out of whom came Philistim, even", or that is, "the Caphtorim"; for the Philistines, in the times of Jeremiah, are said to be the remnant of the country of Caphtor, Jer 47:4 and as in Amos the Philistines are said to come out of Caphtor, in De 2:23 they are called Caphtorim, that came out of Caphtor, who destroyed the Avim, which dwelt in Hazerim, even unto Azzah, or Gaza, afterwards a principal city of the Philistines: for then, and not before their settlement in the land of Canaan, were they so called; for the word Philistim signifies strangers, people of another country; and the Septuagint version always so renders the word: their true original name seems to be Caphtorim. Bochart {b} indeed will have the Caphtorim to be the Cappadocians, that dwelt near Colchis, about Trapezunt, where he finds a place called Side, which in Greek signifies a pomegranate, as Caphtor does in Hebrew; and so Hillerus {c} takes it for a name of the Cappadocians, who inhabited rwh tpk "Cappath Hor", or the side of Mount Hor, or

rwth Pk, the side of Mount Taurus; and in this they both follow the Jewish Targumists, who everywhere render Caphtorim by Cappadocians, as the three Targums do here, and Caphtor by Cappadocia, and as Jonathan on De 2:23 but then thereby they understood a people and place in Egypt, even Damietta, the same they suppose with Pelusium; for other Jewish writers say {d}, Caphutkia, or Cappadocia, is Caphtor, and in the Arabic language Damietta: so Benjamin of Tudela says {e}, in two days I came to Damietta, this is Caphtor; and it seems pretty plain that Caphtor must be some place in Egypt, as Coptus, or some other, and that the Caphtorim, or Philistines, were originally Egyptians, since they descended from Mizraim.



{u} Phaleg. l. 4. c. 31. {w} Onomastic. Sacr. p. 161, 585. {x} Ibid. p. 161, 583, 777. {y} In loc. {z} Geograph. l. 4. c. 5. {a} Phaleg. l. 4. c. 31. {b} Phaleg. l. 4. c. 32. {c} Onamastic. Sacr. p. 160, 282. {d} Maimon. & Bartenora in Misn. Cetubot, c. 13, p. 11. {e} ltinerarium, p. 125.





Genesis 10:15



Ver. 15. And Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn,.... Canaan is the fourth son of Ham; the posterity of Phut, his third son, are omitted: the firstborn of Canaan was Sidon, from whom the city of Sidon had its name, being either built by himself, who called it after his own name, or by some of his posterity, who called it so in memory of their ancestor: it was a very ancient city, more ancient than Tyre, for that was built by the Sidonians; Homer makes mention of it, but not of Tyre: it is now called Said, as it was in the times of Benjamin of Tudela {f}. Justin {g} says it had its name from the plenty of fish on its coasts; but, since Canaan had a son of this name, it was no doubt so called from him.



And Heth; the father of the Hittites, who dwelt about Hebron, on the south of the land of Canaan; for when Sarah died, the sons of Heth were in possession of it, Ge 23:2 of this race were the Anakim, or giants, drove out from hence by Caleb, Nu 13:22 and these Hittites became terrible to men in later times, as appears from 2Ki 7:6 hence htx signifies to terrify, affright, and throw into a consternation.



{f} Itinerarium. p. 34. {g} E. Trogo, l. 18. c. 3.





Genesis 10:16



Ver. 16. And the Jebusite,.... Who had their name from Jebus, a third son of Canaan, and from whom Jerusalem was called Jebus,

Jud 19:10 and where his posterity continued to dwell when the land of Canaan was possessed by the Israelites; for they were so strong and powerful, that the men of Judah could not drive them out from thence, and here they remained until the times of David, who dispossessed them of it, Jos 15:63. There is an island near Spain, formerly called Ebusus, now Ibissa, where was one of the colonies of the Phoenicians, in which, Bochart {g} observes, the name of the Jebusites is thought to remain.



And the Emorite; so called from Emor, the fourth son of Canaan, commonly called the Amorite, a people so strong and mighty, that they are compared to cedars for height, and to oaks for strength, Am 2:9 they dwelt both on this and the other side Jordan: Sihon, one of their kings, made war on the king of Moab, and took all his country from him unto Arnon, Nu 21:26 and in the times of Joshua there were several kings of the Amorites, which dwelt on the side of Jordan westward, Jos 5:1 hence it may be Amor, in the Arabic tongue signifying to command, and Emir, a commander.



And the Girgasite; the same with the Gergesene in Mt 8:28 who, in the times of Christ, lived about Gerasa, or Gadara: a Jewish writer {h} says, that when they left their country to Israel, being forced to it by Joshua, they went into a country which to this day is called Gurgestan.



{g} Phaleg. l. 4. c. 36. fol. 304. {h} R. Zacuth. Sepher. Jachasin, fol. 135. 2.





Genesis 10:17



Ver. 17. And the Hivite,.... These dwelt in Hermon, a part of Mount Lebanon from Mount Baal Hermon unto the entering in of Hamath,

Jos 11:3 to the east of the land of Canaan; hence they were sometimes called Kadmonites, or Easterlings, Ge 15:19 and are thought to have their name from dwelling in holes and caves like serpents; hence Cadmus the Phoenician, and his wife Hermonia, who seem to have their names from hence, are reported to be turned into serpents, they being Hivites, which this word signifies, as Bochart {i} observes.



And the Arkite; the same with the Aruceans, or Arcaeans, Josephus {k} speaks of in Phoenicia about Sidon, and from whom the city Arce had its name, which he places in Lebanon; and is mentioned by Menander {l} as revolting to the king of Assyria, with Sidon and old Tyre; and which is reckoned by Ptolemy {m} a city of Phoenicia, and placed by him near old Byblus; and hence Bothart {n} thinks Venus had the name of Venus Architis, said by Macrobius {o} to be worshipped by the Assyrians and Phoenicians.



And the Sinite: either the inhabitants of the wilderness of Sin, who dwelt in the northern part of the desert of Arabia, or the Pelusiotae, as Bochart {p} thinks, the inhabitants of Pelusium, which was called Sin, Eze 30:15 the former being its Greek name, the latter its Chaldee or Syriac name, and both signify "clay", it being a clayey place; but Canaan or Phoenicia seems not to have reached so far; Jerom speaks of a city not far from Arca called Sin, where rather these people may be thought to dwell.



{i} Ut supra. (Phaleg. l. 4. c. 36. fol. 304.) {k} Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 2. & l. 5. c. 1. sect. 23. {l} Apud Joseph. Antiqu. l. 9. c. 14. sect. 2. {m} Geograph. l. 5. c. 15. {n} Ut supra. (Phaleg. l. 4. c. 36. fol. 304.) {o} Saturnal. l. 1. c. 21. {p} Ut supra. (Phaleg. l. 4. c. 36. fol. 304.)





Genesis 10:18



Ver. 18. And the Arvadite,.... The inhabitants of Arvad, or Aradus, an island in the Phoenician sea; it is mentioned with Sidon,

Eze 27:8 so Josephus says {q}, the Arudaeans possessed the island Aradus: it is about a league distant from the shore; Strabo {r} says it is twenty furlongs from land, and about seven in circumference, and is said to be built by the Sidonians; it is now, as Mr. Maundrel {s} says, by the Turks called Ru-ad, or, as Dr. Shaw says {t}, Rou-wadde;

See Gill on "Eze 27:8".



And the Zemarite; who perhaps built and inhabited Simyra, a place mentioned by Pliny {u}, not far from Lebanon, and along with Marathos, and Antarados, which lay on the continent, right against the island Aradus, or Arvad, and near the country of the Aradians. Strabo {w} makes mention of a place called Taxymira, which Casaubon observes should be Ximyra, or Simyra; and Mela {x} speaks of the castle of Simyra as in Phoenicia. There was a city called Zemaraim in the tribe of Benjamin, Jos 18:22 which Bishop Patrick suggests, and Ainsworth before him, that Zemarus, the son of Canaan, might be the founder of; and there is also a mountain of the same name in Mount Ephraim, 2Ch 13:4.



And the Hamathite: who dwelt in Amathine, as Josephus {y}, and was in his time called by the inhabitants Amathe; but the Macedonians called it, from one of their race, Epiphania, which seems to have been the country called Amathite,



He removed from Jerusalem, and met them in the land of Amathis: for he gave them no respite to enter his country. (1 Maccabees 12:25)



there was another Hamath, called Antiochia, but cannot be meant, since Hamath was the northern border of the land of Israel, then called the entrance of Hamath, which border was pretty near to Epiphania, but not so far as Antioch; this is the Amathus of Syria, twice mentioned by Herodotus, as Hillerus {z} observes: but both Reland {a} and Vitringa {b} are of opinion, that the Hamath so often mentioned in Scripture, which doubtless had its name from the Hamathite, is neither Antiochia nor Epiphania, but the city Emesa, or Emissa, which lay below Epiphania, upon the Orontes, nearer Damascus and the land of Canaan; and Hamath is mentioned with Damascus and Arpad, or Arvad, Isa 10:9 and, according to Eze 47:16. Hamath must lie between Damascus and the Mediterranean sea.



And afterwards were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad; not only these eleven, but two more which are not mentioned, the Canaanites properly so called, and the Perizzites; these families at first dwelt in one place, or within narrow limits; but, as they increased, they spread themselves further every way, and in process of time possessed all the country from Idumea and Palestine to the mouth of the Orontes, and which they held about seven hundred years, when five of these families, with the two other above mentioned, were cast out of the land for their sins, and to make way for the people of Israel.



{q} Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 2. {r} Geograph. l. 16. p. 518. {s} Journey from Aleppo, &c. p. 19. Ed. 7. {t} Travels, p. 267. Ed. 2. {u} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 20. {w} Geograph. l. 16. p. 518. {x} De situ orbis, l. 1. c. 12. {y} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 2.) {z} Onomastic. Sacr. p. 780. {a} Palestina Illustrata, tom. 1. l. 1. p. 121, 123, 317. {b} Comment. in Jesaiam, c. 10, 9.





Genesis 10:19



Ver. 19. And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon,.... This is to be understood, not of the Canaanites, properly so called, but of them in general; and is a description of the bounds of the land of Canaan, as possessed by the people of Israel: the northern or north west border of it was Sidon, see Ge 10:15 and is to be understood of the country which reached from that city towards the east almost as far as Jordan:



as thou comest from Gerar unto Gaza; two cities of the Philistines, well known in Scripture, the former for being the place where Abraham and Isaac sometimes sojourned, and the latter for Samson's exploits in it; these were the southern or south west border of the land of Canaan:



as thou goest unto Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah and Zeboim; four cities destroyed by fire from heaven, as is after related in this book; these lay to the south or south east part of the land:



even unto Lashah; which, according to the Targum of Jonathan, is Callirrhoe, a place famous for hot waters, which run into the Dead sea, and who in this is followed by Jerom; but since it was not in the southern part of Judea, as Lashah was, Bochart proposes {a} Lusa, as being more likely to be the place, a city of the Arabs, which Ptolemy {b} puts in the midway between the Mediterranean and the Red sea; but this is objected to by Reland {c}, since the southern borders of the land of Canaan were from the extremity of the Dead sea unto the Mediterranean sea, from which Lusa was at a great distance: the Samaritan version of this verse is very different from the Hebrew, and is this,



"and the border of the Canaanites was from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates, and unto the hinder sea:''



i.e. the western or Mediterranean.



{a} Phaleg. l. 4. c. 37. col. 309. {b} Geograph. l. 5. c. 17. {c} Palestina Illustrata, tom. 2. p. 871.





Genesis 10:20



Ver. 20. These are the sons of Ham,.... His sons and grandsons, which some reckon to be thirty, others thirty one, if the Philistines are taken in:



after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, [and] in their nations: families of the same language joined together and dwelt in the same country, See Gill on "Ge 10:5" all Africa and a considerable part of Asia were possessed by the four sons of Ham and their posterity; Mizraim had Egypt, and Phut all the rest of Africa; and Cush and Canaan had a large portion in Asia.





Genesis 10:21



Ver. 21. Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber,.... And for the sake of those Shem is particularly said to be the father of, is this genealogy given, and indeed the whole book of Genesis wrote: Eber was the great-grandson of Shem, and is here spoken of by anticipation, and Shem is called not the father of either of his immediate sons, but of the posterity of this man; because the Hebrews sprung from him in his line, among whom the church of God and the true religion were preserved, and from whom the Messiah was to come, as he did: the word Eber, Jarchi interprets, "beyond the river, Euphrates" or "Tigris", or both, as describing the seat of the posterity of Shem; but as this too much straitens them, since they inhabited on both sides, Dr. Hyde {d} has shown that the word used may refer to both, to those beyond these rivers, and to those on this side; see Nu 24:24



the brother of Japheth the elder; he was the brother of Ham too, but he is not mentioned because of the behaviour towards his father, and because of the curse that was upon him and his; but Shem's relation to Japheth is expressed to show that they were alike in their disposition; and it may be to signify, that in times to come their posterity would unite in spiritual things, which has been fulfilled already in part, and will be more fully by the coalition of the Jews, the posterity of Shem, and of the Gentiles, the posterity of Japheth, in the Christian church state: and from hence we learn that Japheth was the eldest of Noah's sons, though some render the words, "the elder brother of Japheth" {e}; and so make Shem to be the eldest; but as this is contrary to the accents, so to the history: for Noah was five hundred years old when he began to beget sons, Ge 5:32 he was six hundred when he went into the ark, Ge 7:11 two years after the flood Shem begat Arphaxad, when he was one hundred years old, and Noah six hundred and two, Ge 11:10 so that Shem must be born when Noah was five hundred and two years old; and since he begot children, there must be one two years older than Shem, which can be no other than Japheth, since Ham is called his younger son, Ge 9:24.



even to him were [children] born, who are reckoned as follow.



{d} Hist. Relig. Pers. c. 2. p. 47, 48. {e} lwdgh tpy yxa "fratre Japheth majore". V. L. Samar. Syr. Ar. "frater major natu ipsius Japheth", Tigurine version; "fratri Japheti majori", Cocceius; so some in Vatablus.





Genesis 10:22



Ver. 22. The children of Shem,.... Whose names are



Elam and Ashur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram; and who, as Josephus {f} says, inhabited Asia, from Euphrates to the Indian ocean: his first born, Elam, was the father of the Elymaeans, from whom sprung the Persians, as the same writer observes, and his posterity are called Elamites, Ac 2:10 their country Elam, and is sometimes mentioned with Media, when the Persians and Medes are intended, Isa 21:2 see also Isa 22:6, &c. in Daniel's time, Shushan, in the province of Elam, was the seat of the kings of Persia: the country of Elymais, so called from this man, is said by Pliny {g} to be divided from Susiane by the river Eulaeus, and to join with Persia; and the famous city of Elymais, the metropolis of the country, is placed by Josephus {h} in Persia. Ashur, the second son of Shem, gives name to Assyria, a country frequently mentioned in Scripture; and which, according to Ptolemy {i}, was bounded on the north by part of Armenia the great, and the mountain Niphates, on the west by Mesopotamia and the river Tigris, on the south by Susiane, and on the east by part of Media. Strabo says {k} they call Babylonia, and great part of the country about it, Assyria, in which was Ninus or Nineveh, the chief city of the Assyrian empire; and which was built by Ashur, as Josephus {l} affirms, and says he gave the name of Assyrians to his subjects: Arphaxad, the third son of Shem, from him that part of Assyria, which lay northward next to Armenia, was called Arphaxitis, as it is probable that was its original name, though corruptly called by Ptolemy {m} Arrapachitis: Josephus says {n}, he gave name to the Arphaxadaeans, whom he ruled over, now called Chaldeans; and indeed the name of the Chaldeans may as well be derived from the latter part of Arphaxad's name, dvk, "Chashad", as from Chesed, the son of Nahor, and brother of Abraham, as it more commonly is; since the Chaldeans were called Chasdim before Chesed was born, and were a nation when Abraham came out of Ur, before Chesed could be old or considerable enough to build towns and found a nation; see Ge 11:31 though Bochart treats this as a mere dream, yet he is obliged to have recourse to the usual refuge, that Ur was called Ur of the Chaldees, by anticipation. The fourth son of Shem was Lud, from whom sprung the Lydians, a people of Asia minor, and whose country is called Lydia, including Mysia and Caria, which all lay by the river Maeander; and Lud, in the Phoenician language, signifies bending and crooked, as that river was, being full of windings and turnings: some think that the posterity of Lud are carried too far off from those of his brethren, but know not where else to fix them. From Aram, the last son of Shem, sprung the Aramaeans, called by the Greeks Syrians, as Josephus {o} observes; and by Homer {p} and Hesiod {q} arimoi, and so says Strabo {r}; some by the Arimi understand the Syrians, now called Arami; and elsewhere {s} he observes, that they who are by us called Syrians, are by the Syrians themselves called Aramaeans, and this is the name they give to themselves to this day: the country inhabited by them included Mesopotamia and Syria, and particularly all those places that have the name of Aram added to them, as Padan Aram, and Aram Naharaim (which is Mesopotamia), Aram of Damascus, Aram Zobah, Aram Maacha, and Aram Beth Rehob, Ge 28:2 and the title of Ps 60:1: the Septuagint version here adds, "and Cainan", but without any authority.



{f} Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 4. {g} Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 27. {h} Antiqu. l. 12. c. 8. sect. 1. {i} Geograph. l. 6. c. 1. {k} Ib. l. 16. p. 507. {l} Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 4. {m} Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 6. c. 1.) {n} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 4.). So R. Gedaliah, in Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 76. 2. {o} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 4.) {p} Iliad. 2. {q} Theogonia. {r} Geograph. l. 13. p. 431. l. 16. p. 540. {s} Ib. l. 1. p. 28.





Genesis 10:23



Ver. 23. And the children of Aram,.... The four following persons are called the sons of Shem, 1Ch 1:17 being his grandsons, which is not unusual in Scripture,



Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash: the first of these sons of Aram, Uz, is generally thought to be the founder of Damascus; so Josephus {t} says. Usus founded Trachonitis and Damascus, which lies between Palestine and Coelesyria: there was a place called Uz in Idumea, La 4:21 and another in Arabia, where Job dwelt, Job 1:1 but neither of them seems to be the seat of this man and his posterity, who, in all probability, settled in Syria: his second son Hul, whom Josephus {u} calls Ulus, according to him, founded Armenia; which notion may be strengthened by observing that Cholobotene is reckoned a part of Armenia by Stephanus {w}; which is no other than Cholbeth, that is, the house or seat of Chol, the same with Hul; and there are several places in Armenia, as appears from Ptolemy {x}, which begin with Chol or Col, as Cholus, Cholua, Choluata, Cholima, Colsa, Colana, Colchis: but perhaps it may be better to place him in Syria, in the deserts of Palmyrene, as Junius and Grotius; since among the cities of Palmyrene, there is one called Cholle, according to Ptolemy {y}. Gether, the third son, is made by Josephus {z} to be the father of the Bactrians; but these were too far off to come from this man, and were not in the lot of Shem: Bochart {a} finds the river Getri, which the Greeks call Centrites, between Armenia and the Carduchi, whereabout, he conjectures, might be the seat of this man; but perhaps it may be more probable, with Grotius and Junius, to place him in Coelesyria, where are the city Gindarus of Ptolemy {b}, and a people called Gindareni, by Pliny {c}; though Bishop Patrick thinks it probable that Gadara, the chief city of Peraea, placed by Ptolemy {d} in the Decapolis of Coelesyria, had its name from this man: Mr. Broughton derives Atergate and Derceto, names of a Syrian goddess, from him, which was worshipped at Hierapolis in Coelesyria, as Pliny says {e}. The last of the sons of Aram, Mash, is called Meshech, in 1Ch 1:17 and here the Septuagint version calls him Masoch; his posterity are supposed to settle in Armenia, about the mountain Masius, thought to be the same with Ararat, and which the Armenians call Masis; perhaps the people named Moscheni, mentioned by Pliny {f}, as dwelling near Armenia and Adiabene, might spring from this man.



{t} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 4.) {u} Ibid. {w} Apud Bochart. Phaleg. l. 2. c. 9. col. 81. {x} Geograph. l. 5. c. 13. {y} Geograph. l. 5. c. 15. {z} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 4.) {a} Phaleg. l. 2. c. 10. {b} Geograph. l. 5. c. 15. {c} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 23. {d} Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 5. c. 15.) {e} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 23. {f} Ib. l. 6. c. 9.





Genesis 10:24



Ver. 24. And Arphaxad begat Salah,.... Or Shelach which signifies "a sending forth"; that is, of waters: it is part of the name of Methuselah, given him by his father, as prophetic of the flood, see Ge 5:21 and Arphaxad, who was born two years after the flood, gives this name to his first born, as commemorative of it: according to some, from him are the Susians {g}; and in Susiana is found a city called Sele, by Ptolemy {h}; but this seems not to be a sufficient proof:



and Salah begat Eber; from whom, Josephus {i} says, the Jews were called Hebrews from the beginning; and which, perhaps, is as good a derivation of their name as can be given, and seems to be confirmed by

Nu 24:24 though some derive it from Abraham's passing over the rivers in his way from Chaldea into Syria; but be it so, why might not this name be given to Eber, as prophetic of that passage, or of the passage of his posterity over the Euphrates into Canaan, as well as Eber gave to his son Peleg his name, as a prediction of the division of the earth in his time? the Septuagint version of this text inserts a Cainan between Arphaxad and Salah, but is not to be found in any Hebrew copy, nor in the Samaritan, Syriac, and Arabic versions, nor in Josephus, see Lu 3:36.



{g} Vid. Bochart. Phaleg. l. 2. c. 13. col. 92. {h} Geograph. l. 6. c. 3. {i} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 4.)





Genesis 10:25



Ver. 25. And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg,.... Bochart {k} thinks, that either Peleg, or one of his posterity, in memory of him, gave the name of Phalga to a town situated on the Euphrates; though the reason of the name, as given by Arrianus, as he himself observes, was because it divided between the two Seleucias, as the reason of Peleg's name was;



for in his days was the earth divided; among the three sons of Noah, and their respective posterities; their language was divided, and that obliged them to divide and separate in bodies which understood one another; hence that age, in which was this event, was usually called by the Jews the age of division; whether this was done about the time of his birth, and so this name was given him to perpetuate the memory of it, or in some after part of his life, and so was given by a spirit of prophecy, is a question: Josephus, Jarchi, and the Jewish writers, generally go the latter way; if it was at the time of his birth, which is the sense of many, then this affair happened in the one hundred and first year after the flood, for in that year Peleg was born, as appears from Ge 11:11



and his brother's name was Joktan, whom the Arabs call Cahtan, and claim him as their parent, at least, of their principal tribes; and say he was the first that reigned in Yaman, and put a diadem on his head {l}; and there is a city in the territory of Mecca, about seven furlongs or a mile to the south of it, and one station from the Red sea, called Baisath Jektan, the seat of Jektan {m}, which manifestly retains his name; and there are a people called Catanitae, placed by Ptolemy {n} in Arabia Felix.



{k} Phaleg. l. 2. c. 14. col. 93. {l} Vid. Pocock. Specimen. Arab. Hist. p. 39. 55. {m} Arab. Geograph. apud Bochart. Phaleg: l. 2. c. 15. col. 98. {n} Geograph, l. 6. c. 7.





Genesis 10:26



Ver. 26. And Joktan begat Almodad,.... And twelve more mentioned later: the Arabic writers {o} say be had thirty one sons by one woman, but all, excepting two, left Arabia, and settled in India; the Targum of Jonathan adds,



"who measured the earth with ropes,''



as if he was the first inventor and practiser of geometry: from him are thought to spring the Allumaeotae, a people whom Ptolemy {p} places in Arabia Felix, called so by the Greeks, instead of Almodaei: Mr. Broughton {q} sets Eldimaei over against this man's name, as if they were a people that sprung from him; whereas this word is wrongly put in Ptolemy {r} for Elymaeans, as it is in the Greek text, a people joining to the Persians:



[and] Sheleph and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah: to the first of these, Sheleph, the Targum of Jonathan adds,



"who drew out the water of the rivers;''



his people are supposed by Bochart {s}, to be the Alapeni of Ptolemy {t}, which should be read Salapeni, who were, he says, more remote from the rest, almost as far as the neck of Arabia, and not far from the spring of the river Betius. The next son, Hazarmaveth, or Hasermoth, as in the Vulgate Latin, is thought to give name to a people in Arabia, called by Pliny {u} Chatramotitae, and by Ptolemy Cathramonitae, whose country, Strabo says {w}, produces myrrh; according to Ptolemy {x} they reached from the mountain Climax to the Sabaeans, among whom were a people, called, by Pliny {y}, Atramitae, who inhabited a place of the same name, and which Theophrastus calls Adramyta, which comes nearer the name of this man, and signifies the court or country of death: and in those parts might be places so called, partly from the unwholesomeness of the air, being thick and foggy, and partly from the frankincense which grew there, which was fatal to those that gathered it, and therefore only the king's slaves, and such as were condemned to die, were employed in it, as Bochart {z} has observed from Arrianus; as also because of the multitude of serpents, with which those odoriferous countries abounded, as the same writer relates from Agatharcides and Pliny. The next son of Joktan is Jerah, which signifies the moon, as Hilal does in Arabic; and Alilat with the Arabians, according to Herodotus {a}, is "Urania", or the moon; hence Bochart {b} thinks, that the Jeracheans, the posterity of Jerah, are the Alilaeans of Diodorus Siculus {c}, and others, a people of the Arabs; and the Arabic geographer, as he observes, makes mention of a people near Mecca called Bene Hilal, or the children of Jerah; and he is of opinion that the island Hieracon, which the Greeks call the island of the Hawks placed by Ptolemy {d}, in Arabia Felix, adjoining to the country which lies upon the Arabian Gulf, is no other than the island of the Jeracheans, the posterity of this man: the Arabs {e} speak of a son of Joktan or Cahtan, they call Jareb, who succeeded his father, which perhaps may be a corruption of Jerah; and another, called by them Jorham.



{o} Apud Pocock. Specimen. Arab. Hist., p. 40. {p} Geograph. l. 6. c. 7. {q} See his Works, p. 3. 59. {r} Ut supra, (Geograph. l. 6.) c. 5. {s} Phaleg. l. 2. c. 16. col. 99. {t} Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 6. c. 5.) {u} Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28. {w} Geograph. l. 16. p. 528. {x} Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 6. c. 5.) {y} Nat. Hist. l. 12. c. 14. {z} Phaleg. l. 2. c. 17. col. 102. {a} Thalia sive, l. 3. c. 8. {b} Ut supra, (Phaleg. l. 2.) c. 19. {c} Bibliothec. l. 3. p. 179. {d} Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 6. c. 5.) {e} Apud Pocock. Specimem. Arab. Hist. p. 40.





Genesis 10:27



Ver. 27. And Hadoram, and Uzal, and Diklah. The posterity of Hadoram, from the likeness of the name and sound, might seem to be the Adramitae of Ptolemy {f}, but Bochart {g} thinks they are the Drimati of Pliny {h}, who dwelt in the extreme corner of Arabia, to the east, near the Macae, who were at the straits of the Persian Gulf; and he observes, that the extreme promontory of that country was called Corodamum, by transposition of the letters "D" and "R": Uzal gave name to a city which is still so called; for R. Zacuth {i} says, the Jews which dwelt in Yaman, the kingdom of Sheba, call Samea, which is the capital of the kingdom of Yaman, Uzal; and who also relates, that there is a place called Hazarmaveth unto this day, of which see Ge 10:26 the kingdom in which Uzal is said by him to be was the south part of Arabia Felix, as Yaman signifies, from whence came the queen of the south,

Mt 12:42 and Uzal or Auzal, as the Arabs pronounce it, is the same the Greeks call Ausar, changing "L" into "R"; hence mention is made by Pliny {k} of myrrh of Ausar, in the kingdom of the Gebanites, a people of the Arabs, where was a port by him called Ocila {l}, by Ptolemy, Ocelis {m}, and by Artemidorus in Strabo, Acila {n}, and perhaps was the port of the city Uzal, to the name of which it bears some resemblance: Diklah signifies a palm tree, in the Chaldee or Syriac language, with which kind of trees Arabia abounded, especially the country of the Minaei, as Pliny {o} relates; wherefore Bochart {p} thinks the posterity of Diklah had their seat among them, rather than at Phaenicon or Diklah, so called from the abundance of palm trees that grew there, which was at the entrance into Arabia Felix at the Red sea, of which Diodorus Siculus {q} makes mention; and so Artemidorus in Strabo {r} speaks of a place called Posidium, opposite to the Troglodytes, and where the Arabian Gulf ends, where palm trees grew in a wonderful manner, on the fruit of which people lived, where was a Phaenicon, or continued grove of palm trees; and here is placed by Ptolemy {s} a village called Phaenicon, the same with Diklah.



{f} Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 6. c. 5.) {g} Ut supra, (Phaleg. l. 2.) c. 20. {h} Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28. {i} Juchasin, fol. 135. 2. {k} Nat. Hist. l. 12. c. 16. {l} lb. c. 19. {m} Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 6. c. 5). So Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 23. {n} Geograph. l. 16. p. 529. {o} Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28. {p} Ut supra. (Phaleg. l. 2. c. 22.) {q} Bibliothec. l. 3. p. 175. {r} Geograph. l. 16. p. 34. {s} Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 6. c. 5.)





Genesis 10:28



Ver. 28. And Obal, and Abimael, and Sheba. The first of these, Obal, or Aubal, as the Arabs pronounce, Bochart {t} is obliged to make his posterity pass over the straits of the Arabian Gulf out of Arabia Felix into Arabia Troglodytice; where he finds a bay, called by Pliny {u} the Abalite bay, which carries in it some trace of this man's name, and by Ptolemy {v} the Avalite bay; and where was not only an emporium of this name, but a people called Avalites and also Adulites, which Bishop Patrick believes should be read "Abulites", more agreeably to the name of this man, but Pliny {w} speaks of a town of the Adulites also: Abimael is supposed by Bochart {x} to be the father of Mali, or the Malitae, as his name may be thought to signify, Theophrastus {y} making mention of a place called Mali along with Saba, Adramyta, and Citibaena, in spicy Arabia, which is the only foundation there is for this conjecture: Sheba gave name to the Sabaeans, a numerous people in Arabia; their country was famous for frankincense; the nations of them, according to Pliny {z}, reached both seas, that is, extended from the Arabian to the Persian Gulf; one part of them, as he says {a}, was called Atramitae, and the capital of their kingdom Sabota, on a high mountain, eight mansions from which was their frankincense country, called Saba; elsewhere he says {b}, their capital was called Sobotale, including sixty temples within its walls; but the royal seat was Mariabe; and so Eratosthenes in Strabo {c} says, the metropolis of the Sabaeans was Mariaba, or, as others call it, Merab, and which, it seems, is the same with Saba; for Diodorus Siculus {d} and Philostorgius {e} say, the metropolis of the Sabaeans is Saba; and which the former represents as built on a mountain, as the Sabota of Pliny is said to be,



{t} Ut supra, (Phaleg. l. 2.) c. 23. {u} Nat. Hist. l. 26. c. 29. {v} Geograph. l. 4. c. 7, 8. {w} Nat. Hist. l. 26. c. 29. {x} Ut supra. (Phaleg. l. 2. c. 24.) {y} Ut supra, (Hist. Plant. l. 9.) c.4. {z} Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28. {a} Ib. l. 12. c. 14. {b} Ut supra. (Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28.) {c} Geograph. l. 16. p. 528. {d} Bibliothec. l. 3. p. 180. {e} Hist. Ecclesiast. l. 3. p. 477.





Genesis 10:29



Ver. 29. And Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab,.... If several of the sons of Joktan went into India, as the Arabs say, one would be tempted to think that Ophir in India, whither Solomon sent his ships once in three years, had its name from the first of these;

See Gill on "Ge 10:26" but as this would be carrying him too far from the rest of his brethren, who appear to have settled in Arabia, some place must be found for him there; and yet there is none in which there is any likeness of the name, unless Coper can be thought to be, a village in the country of the Cinaedocolpites, on the Arabian Gulf, as in Ptolemy {f}, or Ogyris, an island in the same sea, Pliny {g} makes mention of the same with the Organa of Ptolemy {h}, placed by him on the Sachalite bay; wherefore Bochart {i} looks out elsewhere for a seat for this Ophir, or "Oupheir", as in the Septuagint version, and finding in a fragment of Eupolemus, preserved by Eusebius {k}, mention made of the island of Ourphe, which he thinks should be Ouphre, or Uphre, situated in the Red sea, seems willing to have it to be the seat of this man and his posterity, and that it had its name from him; or that their seat was among the Cassanites or Gassandae, the same perhaps with the tribe of Ghassan, Aupher and Chasan signifying much the same, even great abundance and treasure: Havilah, next mentioned, is different from Havilah, the son of Cush, Ge 10:7 and so his country; but it is difficult where to fix him; one would rather think that the Avalite bay, emporium, and people, should take their name from him than from Obal, Ge 10:28 but Bochart {l} chooses to place him and his posterity in Chaulan, a country in Arabia Felix, in the extreme part of Cassanitis, near the Sabaeans: and Jobab, the last of Joktan's sons, was the father of the Jobabites, called by Ptolemy {m} Jobarites, corruptly for Jobabites, as Salmasius and Bochart think; and who are placed by the above geographer near the Sachalites in Arabia Felix, whose country was full of deserts, as Jobab in Arabic signifies, so Bochart {n} observes, as the countries above the Sachalite bay were, by which these Jobabites are placed:



all these were the sons of Joktan; the thirteen before mentioned, all which had their dwelling in Arabia or near it, and which is further described in the following verse.



{f} Geograph. l. 6. c. 7. {g} Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28. {h} Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 6. c. 7.) {i} Phaleg. l. 2. c. 27. {k} Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 30. p. 457. {l} Ut supra, (Phaleg. l. 2.) c. 20. {m} Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 6. c. 7.) {n} Ut supra, (Phaleg. l. 2.) c. 29.





Genesis 10:30



Ver. 30. And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Zephar, a mount of the east. Mesha, which is thought to be the Muza of Ptolemy and Pliny, was a famous port in the Red sea, frequented by the merchants of Egypt and Ethiopia, from which the Sappharites lay directly eastward; to whose country they used to go for myrrh and frankincense, and the like, of which Saphar was the metropolis, and which was at the foot of Climax, a range of mountains, which perhaps might be formerly called Saphar, from the city at the bottom of it, the same with Zephar here: by inspecting Ptolemy's tables {o}, the way from one to the other is easily discerned, where you first meet with Muza, a port in the Red sea, then Ocelis, then the mart Arabia, then Cane, and so on to Sapphar or Sapphara; and so Pliny says {p}, there is a third port which is called Muza, which the navigation to India does not put into, only the merchants of frankincense and Arabian odours: the towns in the inland are the royal seat Saphar; and another called Sabe; now the sons of Joktan had their habitations all from this part in the west unto Zephar or Saphar eastward, and those were reckoned the genuine Arabs: Hillerus {q} gives a different account of the situation of the children of Joktan, as he thinks, agreeably to these words of Moses; understanding by Kedem, rendered the east, the mountains of Kedem, or the Kedemites, which sprung from Kedem or Kedomah, the youngest son of Ishmael, Ge 25:15 and Zephar, the seat of the Sepharites, as between Mesha and Kedem; for, says he, Mesha is not Muza, a mart of the Red sea, but Moscha, a famous port of the Indian sea, of which Arrian and Ptolemy make mention; and from hence the dwelling of the Joktanites was extended, in the way you go through the Sepharites to the mountainous places of Kedem or Cadmus: perhaps nearer the truth may be the Arabic paraphrase of Saadiah {r}, which is



"from Mecca till you come to the city of the eastern mountain, or (as in a manuscript) to the eastern city,''



meaning perhaps Medina, situate to the east; so that the sense is, according to this paraphrase, that the sons of Joktan had their dwelling from Mecca to Medina; and so R. Zacuth {s} says, Mesha in the Arabic tongue is called Mecca; and it is a point agreed upon by the Arabs that Mesha was one of the most ancient names of Mecca; they believe that all the mountainous part of the region producing frankincense went in the earliest times by the name of Sephar; from whence Golius concludes this tract to be the Mount Zephar of Moses, a strong presumption of the truth of which is that Dhafar, the same with the modern Arabs as the ancient Saphar, is the name of a town in Shihr, the only province in Arabia bearing frankincense on the coast of the Indian ocean {t}.



{o} Geograph. l. 6. c. 7. {p} Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 23. {q} Onomastic. Sacr. p. 116. {r} In Pocock. Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 34. {s} In Juchasin, fol. 135. 2. {t} Universal History, vol. 18. p. 353.





Genesis 10:31



Ver. 31. These are the sons of Shem,.... His sons, and grandsons, and great grandsons, in all twenty six, no doubt but there were many more, but these are only mentioned; for none of the sons of Elam, Ashur, and Lud, are named, and but one of Arphaxad's, and one of Salah's, and two of Eber's, and none of Peleg's; when it is not to be questioned but they had many, as is certain of Arphaxad, Salah, Eber, and Peleg, Ge 11:13



after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations: from hence sprung various families at first, and these of different languages upon the confusion of Babel, which thenceforward formed different nations, dwelt in different lands; which have been pointed at as near as we can at this distance, and with the little helps and advantages we have: it seems from hence that Shem's posterity were of different languages as well as those of Ham and Japheth.





Genesis 10:32



Ver. 32. These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations,.... This is the account of their families, from whom the several nations of the earth sprung:



and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood; not immediately, not till they were so increased as to form distinct nations; not till Peleg's time, when the division was made; not until the building of the city and tower of Babel, for unto that time these families were together, and then and not before were they dispersed abroad upon the face of the earth; and by degrees peopled all the known parts of the world, Asia, Africa, and Europe, and no doubt America, though the way of their passage thither is unknown to us; and to this partition of the earth by the three sons of Noah, Pindar {u} seems to have respect, when he says,



"according to the ancients, Jupiter and the immortal ones parted the earth;''



and he speaks of one man having three sons, who dwelt separate, the earth being divided into three parts.



{u} Olymp. Ode 7.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

Genesis 11:1



INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 11



This chapter gives an account of the inhabitants of the earth before the confusion of tongues at Babel, of their speech and language, which was one and the same, and of the place where they dwelt, Ge 11:1 and of their design to build a city and tower, to make them a name and keep them together, which they put in execution, Ge 11:3 of the notice the Lord took of this affair, and of the method he took to put a stop to their designs, by confounding their speech, and dispersing them abroad upon the face of the earth, Ge 11:5 then follows a genealogy of Shem's posterity down to Abraham, Ge 11:10 and a particular relation is given of Terah, the father of Abraham, and his family, and of his going forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, in order to go into the land of Canaan, and of his death at Haran by the way, Ge 11:27.



Ver. 1. And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech,.... Or had been {w}, before the flood, and from that time to this, and still was, until the confusion took place; the account of which, and the occasion of it, are given in this chapter: by the whole earth is meant the inhabitants of it, see Isa 37:18 and so the Jerusalem Targum paraphrases the words,



"and all the generations of the earth were of one language, and of one speech, and of one counsel, for they spoke in the holy tongue in which the world was created at the beginning;''



and to the same purpose the Targum of Jonathan: all the posterity of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, used the same language, though it does not appear that they were all in one counsel or consultation, or of one mind about building a city or tower, which the Targum seems to suggest; for it is not likely that Shem and his sons were in it: nor by "one lip" and "the same words or things" {x}, as these phrases may be rendered, are we to understand the same simplicity of speech and business, and likeness of manners; for it appears there was a difference with respect to these in the immediate sons of Noah, and it may be supposed to be much more in their remote offspring; nor as if they were all of the same religion, embraced the same doctrines, and spoke the same things; for as idolatry and superstition obtained in the race of Cain before the flood, so Ham and his posterity soon fell into the same, or the like, afterwards: and it may be observed that the same distinction was made of the children of God, and of the children of men, before the confusion and dispersion, as was before the flood,

Ge 11:5 from whence it appears they were not in the same sentiments and practice of religion: but this is to be understood of one and the same language, without any diversity of dialects, or without any hard and strange words, not easily understood; and perhaps it was pronounced by the lip and other instruments of speech in the same way; so that there was no difficulty in understanding one another, men, women, and children, all the people in common, princes and peasants, wise and unwise, all spoke the same language and used the same words; and this the Targumists take to be the holy or Hebrew language; and so Jarchi and Aben Ezra, and the Jewish writers in general, and most Christians; though some make a question of it, whether it might not be rather the Syriac, or Chaldee, or Arabic; but there is no need of such a question, since these with the Hebrew are all one and the same language; and no doubt it was the eastern language, without giving it any other name, which now subsists in the above dialects, though not in anyone alone, which was first spoken; though more purely and without the difference of dialects it now consists of, or without the various different inflexions now made in it; for nothing is more reasonable to suppose, than that the language Adam spoke was used by Noah, since Adam lived within one hundred years and a little more of the birth of Noah; and it is not to be questioned but Noah's sons spoke the same language as he did, and their posterity now, which was but little more than one hundred years after the flood: there are various testimonies of Heathens confirming this truth, that originally men spoke but one language; thus Sibylla in Josephus {y}, who says,



"when all men were omofwnwn, of the same language, some began to build a most high tower, &c.''



so Abydenus {z} an Heathen historian, speaking of the building of the tower of Babel, says,



"at that time men were omoglwssouv, of the same tongue;''



in like manner Hyginus {a}, speaking of Phoroneus, the first of mortals, that reigned, says,



"many ages before, men lived without towns and laws, "una lirgua loquentes", speaking one language, under the empire of Jove.''



{w} yhyw "et fuerat", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "caeterum fuit olim", Schmidt. {x} Mydha Myrbdw txa hpv "unum labium et verba eadem", Schmidt; "Labii unius et sermonum eorundem, vel rerum", Clarius. {y} Antiqu. l. 1. c. 4. sect. 3. {z} Apud Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 9. c. 14. p. 416. {a} Fabulae, Fab. 143.





Genesis 11:2



Ver. 2. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east,.... That is, the inhabitants of the whole earth; not Ham and his posterity only, or Nimrod and his company; but as all the sons of Noah and his posterity for a while dwelt together, or at least very near each other, and finding the place where they were too scanty for them, as their several families increased, they set out in a body from the place where they were, to seek for a more convenient one: it seems a little difficult how to interpret this phrase, "from the east", since if they came from Ararat in Armenia, where the ark rested, as that lay north of Shinar or Babylon, they might rather be said to come from the north than from the east, and rather came to it than from it: so some think the phrase should be rendered, "to the east" {b}, or eastward, as in

Ge 13:11. Jarchi thinks this refers to Ge 10:30 "and their dwelling was", &c. at "the mountain of the east"; from whence he supposes they journeyed, to find out a place that would hold them all, but could find none but Shinar; but then this restrains it to Joktan's sons, and besides, their dwelling there was not until after the confusion and dispersion. But it is very probable the case was this, that when Noah and his sons came out of the ark, in a little time they betook themselves to their former habitation, from whence they had entered into the ark, namely, to the east of the garden of Eden, where was the appearance of the divine Presence, or Shechinah; and from hence it was that these now journeyed: and so it was as they were passing on,



that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; which the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases the land of Babylon; and Hestiaeus {c}, a Phoenician historian, calls it Sennaar of Babylon; there are plain traces of this name in the Singara of Ptolemy {d} and Pliny {e}, the Hebrew letter e being sometimes pronounced as "G", as in Gaza and Gomorrah; the first of these place a city of this name in Mesopotamia, near the Tigris, and that of the other is reckoned a capital of the Rhetavi, a tribe of the Arabs, near Mesopotamia. This plain was very large, fruitful, and delightful, and therefore judged a fit place for a settlement, where they might have room enough, and which promised them a sufficient sustenance:



and they dwelt there; and provided for their continuance, quickly beginning to build a city and tower, afterwards called Babylon: and that Babylon was built in a large plain is not only here asserted, but is confirmed by Herodotus {f}, who says of it, that it lay

en pediw megalw, in a vast plain, and so Strabo {g}; which was no other than the plain of Shinar.



{b} Mdqm "ad Orientem, sive Orientem versus"; so some in Schmidt. Vid. Drusium in loc. & Fuller. Miscell. Sacr. l. 1. c. 4. {c} Apud Joseph. Antiqu. l. 1. c. 4. sect. 3. {d} Geograph. l. 5. c. 18. {e} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 24. {f} Clio sive, l. 1. c. 178. {g} Geograph. l. 16. p. 508.





Genesis 11:3



Ver. 3. And they said one to another, go to,.... Advising, exhorting, stirring up, and encouraging one another to the work proposed, of building a city and tower for their habitation and protection; saying,



let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly; they knew the nature of bricks, and how to make them before: according to Sanchoniatho {h}, the brothers of Vulcan, or Tubalcain, before the flood, were the first inventors of them; for he relates, that



"there are some that say that his brothers invented the way of making walls of bricks: he adds, that from the generation of Vulcan came two brothers, who invented the way of mixing straw or stubble with brick clay, and to dry them by the sun, and so found out tiling of houses.''



Now in the plain of Shinar, though it afforded no stones, yet they could dig clay enough to make bricks, and which they proposed to burn thoroughly, that they might be fit for their purpose. According to an eastern tradition {i}, they were three years employed in making and burning those bricks, each of which was thirteen cubits long, ten broad, and five thick, and were forty years in building:



and they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar: they could not get stone, which they would have chosen, as more durable; they got the best bricks they could make, and instead of mortar they used slime; or what the Septuagint version calls "asphaltos", a bitumen, or kind of pitch, of which there was great plenty in that neighbourhood. Herodotus {k} speaking of the building of Babylon, uses language very much like the Scripture;



"digging a foss or ditch (says he), the earth which was cast up they formed into bricks, and drawing large ones, they burnt them in furnaces, using for lime or mortar hot asphaltos or bitumen.''



And he observes, that



"Eight days journey from Babylon was another city, called Is, where was a small river of the same name, which ran into the river Euphrates, and with its water were carried many lumps of bitumen, and from hence it was conveyed to the walls of Babylon.''



This city is now called Ait, of which a traveller {l} of the last century gives the following account;



"from the ruins of old Babylon we came to a town called Ait, inhabited only with Arabians, but very ruinous; near unto which town is a valley of pitch, very marvellous to behold, and a thing almost incredible wherein are many springs throwing out abundantly a kind of black substance, like unto tar and pitch, which serveth all the countries thereabout to make staunch their barks and boats; everyone of which springs makes a noise like a smith's forge, which never ceaseth night nor day, and the noise is heard a mile off, swallowing up all weighty things that come upon it; the Moors call it "the mouth of hell."''



Curtius relates {m}, that Alexander, in his march to Babylon, came to a city called Mennis, where was a cavern, from whence a fountain threw out a vast quantity of bitumen or pitch; so that, says he, it is plain, that the huge walls of Babylon were daubed with the bitumen of this fountain; and he afterwards speaks of the walls, towers, and houses, being built of brick, and cemented with it; and so Diodorus Siculus says {n} from Ctesias, that the walls of Babylon were built of bricks, cemented with bitumen; and not only these, but all Heathen authors that write of Babylon, confirm this; and not only historians, but poets, of which Bochart {o} has made a large collection; as well as Josephus {p} speaks of it, and this sort of pitch still remains. Rauwolff says {q} near the bridge over the Euphrates, where Babylon stood, are several heaps of Babylonian pitch, which is in some places grown so hard, that you may walk over it; but in others, that which hath been lately brought over thither is so soft, that you may see every step you make in it.



{h} Apud Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 1. p. 35. {i} Elmacinus, p. 14. apud Hottinger. Smegma, p. 263, 264. {k} Clio sive, l. 1. c. 179. {l} Cartwright's Preacher's Travels, p. 105, 106. {m} Hist. l. 5. c. 1. {n} Bibliothec l. 2. p. 96. {o} Phaleg. l. 1. c. 11. {p} Antiqu. l. 1. c. 4. sect. 3. {q} Travels, par. 2. ch. 7. p. 138.





Genesis 11:4



Ver. 4. And they said, go to, let us build us a city and a tower,.... Some Jewish writers {r} say, these are the words of Nimrod to his people; but it is a question whether he was now born, or if he was, must be too young to be at the head of such a body of people; but they are spoken to one another, or by the principal men among them to the common people, advising and encouraging to such an undertaking. It is generally thought what led them to it was to secure them from another flood, they might be in fear of; but this seems not likely, since they had the covenant and oath of God, that the earth should never be destroyed by water any more; and besides, had this been the thing in view, they would not have chosen a plain to build on, a plain that lay between two of the greatest rivers, Tigris, and Euphrates, but rather one of the highest mountains and hills they could have found: nor could a building of brick be a sufficient defence against such a force of water, as the waters of the flood were; and besides, but few at most could be preserved at the top of the tower, to which, in such a case, they would have betook themselves. The reason of this building is given in a following clause, as will be observed. Some think by "a city and tower" is meant, by the figure "hendyadis", one and the same thing, a city with towers; and, according to Ctesias {s}, there were two hundred and fifty towers in Babylon: but no doubt the city and tower were two distinct things; or there was one particular tower proposed to be built besides the city, though it might stand in it, or near it, as an acropolis or citadel to it; as it is not unusual in cities to have such, to betake unto in case of danger:



whose top [may reach] unto heaven: not that they imagined such a thing could be literally and strictly done, but that it should be raised exceeding high, like the cities in Canaan, said to be walled up to heaven, De 1:28 hyperbolically speaking; and such was the tower of Babel, by all accounts, even of Heathens: the Sibyl in Josephus {t} calls it a most high tower; and so Abydenus {u} reports;



"there are (says he) that say, that the first men that rose out of the earth, proud of their strength and largeness (of their bodies), and thinking themselves greater than the gods, erected a tower of a vast height, near to heaven, where Babylon now is.''



And the temple of Belus, which some take to be the same with this tower, at least was that perfected, and put to such an use, was, according to Ctesias {w}, of an immense height, where the Chaldeans made their observations of the stars: however, the tower that was in the middle of it, and which seems plainly to be the same with this, was exceeding high: the account Herodotus {x} gives of it is,



"in the midst of the temple a solid tower is built, of a furlong in length, and of as much in breadth; and upon this tower another tower is placed, and another upon that, and so on to eight towers.''



mhkov, the word used by Herodotus, translated "length", signifies also "height", and so it is taken here by some; and if so, it looks as if every tower was a furlong high, which makes the whole a mile, which is too extravagant to suppose, though it may denote the height of them all, a furlong, which makes it a very high building. This agrees with Strabo's account of it, who calls it a pyramid, and says it was a furlong high {y}: according to Rauwolff {z}, the tower of Babel is still in being; this, says he, we saw still (in 1574), and it is half a league in diameter; but it is so mightily ruined, and low, and so full of vermin, that hath bored holes through it, that one may not come near it for half a mile, but only in two months in the winter, when they come not out of their holes. Another traveller {a}, that was in those parts at the beginning of the last century, says,



"now at this day, that which remaineth is called the remnant of the tower of Babel; there standing as much as is a quarter of a mile in compass, and as high as the stone work of Paul's steeple in London--the bricks are three quarters of a yard in length, and a quarter in thickness, and between every course of bricks there lieth a course of mats, made of canes and palm tree leaves, so fresh as if they had been laid within one year.''



Not to take notice of the extravagant account of the eastern writers, who say the tower was 5533 fathoms high {b}; and others, beyond all belief, make it 10,000 fathoms, or twelve miles high {c}; and they say the builders were forty years in building it: their design in it follows,



and let us make us a name; which some render "a sign" {d}, and suppose it to be a signal set upon the top of the tower, which served as a beacon, by the sight of which they might be preserved from straying in the open plains with their flocks, or return again when they had strayed. Others take it to be an idol proposed to be set upon the top of the tower; and the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem intimate as if the tower was built for religious worship, paraphrasing the words,



"let us build in the midst of it a temple of worship on the top of it, and let us put a sword into his (the idol's) hand.''



And it is the conjecture of Dr. Tennison, in his book of idolatry, that this tower was consecrated by the builders of it to the sun, as the cause of drying up the waters of the deluge: but the sense is, that they proposed by erecting such an edifice to spread their fame, and perpetuate their name to the latest posterity, that hereby it might be known, that at such a time, and in such a place, were such a body of people, even all the inhabitants of the world; and all of them the sons of one man, as Ben Gersom observes; so that as long as this tower stood, they would be had in remembrance, it being called after their names; just as the Egyptian kings afterwards built their pyramids, perhaps for a like reason; and in which the end of neither have been answered, it not being known who were by name concerned therein, see

Ps 49:11 though a late learned writer {e} thinks, that by making a name is meant choosing a chief or captain, which was proposed by them; and that the person they pitched upon was Nimrod, in which sense the word he supposes is used, 2Sa 23:17 but what has been observed at the beginning of this note may be objected to it; though Berosus {f} says, that Nimrod came with his people into the plain of Sannaar, where be marked out a city, and founded the largest tower, in the year of deliverance from the waters of the flood one hundred and thirty one, and reigned fifty six years; and carried the tower to the height and size of mountains, "for a sign" and "monument", that the people of Babylon were the first in the world, and ought to be called the kingdom of kingdoms; which last clause agrees with the sense given:



lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth: which they seemed to have some notion of, and feared would be their case, liking better to be together than to separate, and therefore were careful to avoid a dispersion; it being some way or other signified to them, that it was the will of God they should divide into colonies, and settle in different parts, that so the whole earth might be inhabited; or Noah, or some others, had proposed a division of the earth among them, each to take his part, which they did not care to hearken to; and therefore, to prevent such a separation, proposed the above scheme, and pursued it.



{r} In Pirke Eliezer, c. 24. {s} Apud Diodor. Sicul. Bibliothec, l. 2. p. 96. {t} Antiqu. l. 1. c. 4. sect. 3. {u} Apud Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 9. c. 14. p. 416. {w} Apud Diodor. ut supra, (Sicul. Bibliothec, l. 2.) p. 98. {x} Clio sive, l. 1. c. 181. {y} Geograph. l. 16. p. 508. {z} Travels, ut supra. (pars. 2. ch. 7. p. 138.) {a} Cartwright's Preacher's Travels, p. 99, 100. {b} Elmacinus, p. 14. Patricides, p. 13. apud Hottinger. Smegma, p. 264. {c} Vid. Universal History, vol. 1. p. 331. {d} Perizonius, apud Universal History, ib. p. 325. {e} Dr. Clayton's Chronology of the Hebrew Bible, p. 56. {f} Antiqu. l. 4. p. 28, 29.





Genesis 11:5



Ver. 5. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower,.... Not locally or visibly, being immense, omnipresent, and invisible; nor in order to see and take notice of what he otherwise could not see from heaven, for he is omniscient; but this is spoken after the manner of men, and is to be understood of some effects and displays of his power, which were manifest, and showed him to be present: the Targum is,



"and the Lord was revealed to take vengeance on them on account of the business of the city and tower the children of men built.''



This shows the patience and longsuffering of God, that he did not immediately proceed against them, and his wisdom and justice in taking cognizance of the affair, and inquiring into it; examining the truth and reality of things before he passed judgment and took measures to hinder them in the execution of their design; all which must be understood agreeably to the divine Majesty, and as accommodated to the capacities of men, and as an instruction to them in judging matters they have a concern in:



which the children of men builded; or were building, for they had not finished their building, at least not the city, as appears from

Ge 11:8. These were either the whole body of the people, under the general appellation of "the children of men": or else a part of them, distinguished by this character from the "sons of God", who were truly religious; by which it seems that Noah, Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, and others, were not concerned in this affair, who though they might come with the rest unto Shinar, yet when they understood their design, refused to join with them in it; so that it was only the carnal and irreligious part of them, who very probably were by far the majority, and therefore there was no overruling their debates, and stopping them in their works, that were the builders; and these might be the posterity of Ham in general, with others of Shem and Japheth mixed with them. Josephus {g} makes Nimrod to be the head of them, which is not likely, as before observed.



{g} Antiqu. l. 1. c. 4. sect. 2, 3.





Genesis 11:6



Ver. 6. And the Lord said,.... Not to the angels, as Aben Ezra, but rather to the Son and Spirit, or within himself:



behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; which some think is spoken ironically; but I see no reason why it may not be understood seriously, that the people who were concerned in this building were unanimous, not only in their religious principles, such as they were, as Aben Ezra, but in their counsel, purpose, and design in building; they went on with great concord, harmony, and vigour, and being of one language, they understood one another, and so could carry on their work with the greater expedition:



and this they begin to do; to build the city and the tower, and had made considerable progress in it:



and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do; they had prepared bricks, and slime or bitumen, a sufficient quantity for their use, or could easily come at more if they wanted; and they were not to be prevailed upon to desist from their work, by any advice that the sons of God could give them; they were obstinate and self-willed, and not to be argued with and persuaded to leave off; and there was no power on earth superior to them, to oblige them to it; they could only be restrained from their enterprise, and hindered from executing it, by divine power; and which was judged necessary to exert, as appears by what follows: and the words may be rendered, "shall they not be restrained? &c." they shall.





Genesis 11:7



Ver. 7. Go to, let us go down, [and] there confound their language,.... These words are not spoken to the angels, as the Targum and Aben Ezra; for, as Philo the Jew observes {h}, they are said to some as co-workers with God, which angels could not be in this work of confounding the language of men; it being above the power of creatures so to work upon the mind, and on the faculty of speech, as to make such an alteration as was at the confusion of tongues, when men were made to forget their former language, and had another put into their minds, and a faculty of speaking it given; or, however, the first language was so differently inflected and pronounced, that it seemed another, and various; all which could not be done but by him who is almighty, even that Jehovah, Father, Son, and Spirit, said Ge 11:8 to confound man's language; and the first of these speaks to the other two, with whom he consulted about doing it, and with whom he did it. Not that every man had a new and distinct language given him, for then there could have been no society and converse in the world, but one was given to each family; or rather to as many families as constituted a nation or colony, designed for the same place of habitation; how many there were, cannot be said with any certainty. Euphorus, and many other historians {i}, say they were seventy five, according to the number of Jacob's posterity that went down into Egypt; others say seventy two: the Jewish writers generally agree with the Targum of Jonathan in making them seventy, according to the number of the posterity of Noah's sons, recorded in the preceding chapter; but several of them spoke the same language, as Ashur, Arphaxad, and Aram, spoke the Chaldee or Syriac language; the sons of Canaan one and the same language; and the thirteen sons of Joktan the Arabic language; Javari and Elisha the Greek language; so that, as Bochart {k} observes, scarce thirty of the seventy will remain distinct: and it is an observation of Dr. Lightfoot {l} not to be despised, that



"the fifteen named in Ac 2:5 were enough to confound the work (at Babel), and they may very well be supposed to have been the whole number.''



The end to be answered it was,



that they may not understand one another's speech; or "hear" {m}, that is, so as to understand; the words were so changed, and so differently pronounced from what they had used to hear, that though they heard the sound, they could not tell the meaning of them: hence, as Jarchi observes, when one asked for a brick, another brought him clay or slime, on which he rose up against him, and dashed his brains out.



{h} De Confus. Ling. p. 344. {i} Apud Clement. Alexandr. Strom. l. 1. p. 338. {k} Phaleg. l. 1. c. 15. col. 55. {l} See his Works, vol. 1. p. 694. {m} wemv "audiant", Pagninus, Montanus, &c.





Genesis 11:8



Ver. 8. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence, upon the face of all the earth,.... Hence that which they feared came upon them, and what they were so careful to guard against befell them, occasioned by those measures they took to secure themselves from it; for not being able to understand one another, they left off their design, and as many as spoke the same language joined together, and so parted in bodies; some went one way, and some another, and settled in different places, until at length, by degrees, the whole world was peopled by them, which was the will of God should be done, and was brought about in this way. The Heathen writers themselves ascribe this dispersion to a divine Being, as well as speaking different tongues. Eupolemus {n} says, that first the city of Babylon was built by those that were saved from the flood, who were giants; and then they built tower, so much spoken of in history, which falling by the power of God, the giants were "scattered throughout the whole earth". One would think this writer, by his language, must have read this account of Moses: some of them say the fall of the tower was by storms and tempests raised by the gods. So the Sybil in Josephus {o} says,



"the gods sending winds overthrew the tower, and gave to every one his own speech, and hence the city came to be called Babylon.''



Agreeably to which Abydenus {p}, an Assyrian writer, relates, that



"the winds being raised by the gods overthrew the mechanism (the tower) upon them (the builders of it), and out of the ruins of it was the city called Babylon, when those who were of the same language, from the gods spoke a different one, and of various sounds.''



And so Hestiaeus {q}, a Phoenician writer, speaking of those who came to Sennaar or Shinar of Babylon, says, from thence they were scattered; and, because of the diversity of language, formed colonies everywhere, and everyone seized on that land which offered to him. These writers indeed seem to be mistaken as to the destruction of the tower, and that by tempestuous winds; otherwise they agree with Moses in the confusion of languages, and scattering of the people at the tower of Babel: in what year this was done is not certain; it was in the days of Peleg, who was born in the year one hundred and one after the flood; and if it was at the time of his birth, as many are of opinion, both Jews {r} and Christians, it must be in the above year; but the phrase used does not determine that: the eastern writers {s} say, that it was in the fortieth year of the life of Peleg, and then it must be in the year after the flood one hundred and forty one; but others, and which is the common opinion of the Jewish chronologers {t}, say it was at the end of Peleg's days; and whereas he lived two hundred and thirty nine years, this must happen in the year three hundred and forty after the flood, and so it was ten years, as they observe, before the death of Noah, and when Abraham was forty eight years of age. But of this see more in Buxtorf's dissertation concerning the confusion of the Hebrew language. It follows here,



and they left off to build the city; it seems they had finished the tower, but not the city, and therefore are only said to leave off building that; though the Samaritan and Septuagint versions add, "and the tower"; for not understanding one another, they were not able to go on with their work, for when they asked for one thing, as before observed out of Jarchi, they had another brought them; which so enraged them, that the Targum of Jonathan says they killed one another; and, say some Jewish writers {u}, they fought one with another upon this occasion, until half the world fell by the sword.



(Unlike traditions of the Flood, legends of the Tower of Babel and confusion of speech are not common. {12} That said, noteworthy support for the biblical account comes from Babylonia itself, where a damaged inscription reads:



"Babylon corruptly proceeded to sin, and both small and great mingled on the mound. ...All day they founded their stronghold, but in the night he put a complete stop to it. In his anger he also poured out his secret counsel to scatter them abroad, he set his face, he gave a command to make foreign their speech.'' {13-15}



This appears to have some basis in an historical event and is very close to the biblical account. Likewise, the Roman mythographer Hyginus (floruit 10 BC) writes:



"Men for many generations led their lives without towns or laws, speaking one tongue under the rule of Jove. But after Mercury interpreted the language of men--whence an interpreter is called hermeneutes, for Mercury in Greek is called Hermes; he, too, distributed the nations--then discord began amoug the mortals.'' {16}



Taken from p. 47, "Creation Technical Journey". Volumn Nine, Part 1, 1995, published by "Creation Science Foundation Ltd.", Brisbane, Australia.



{12} Strickling, J. E., 1974. "Legendary evidence for the confusion of tongues." Creation Research Society Quarterly, 11:97-101. {13} Sayce, A. H. (ed.), "Records of the Past" (old Series), Vol. VII, p. 131f. {14} "Journey of American Oriental Society", 88:108-111 (1968) {15} Smith, J., 1876. "Chaldean Account of Genesis", Scribners, New York. {16} Hyginus, C. Julius, Fabulae 143. Editor)



{n} Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 17. p. 418. {o} Antiqu. l. 1. c. 4. sect. 13. {p} Apud Euseb. ut supra, (Praepar. Evangel. l. 9.) c. 14. p. 416. {q} Apud Joseph. ut supra. (Antiqu. 1. 1. c. 4. sect. 13.) {r} Vid. Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 75. 2. {s} Elmacinus, p. 28. Patricides, p. 13. apud Hottinger. Smegma Oriental. p. 267. {t} Seder Olam Rabba, c. 1. p. 1. Juchasin, fol. 8. 1. Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 1. 2. {u} Pirke Eliezer, c. 24.





Genesis 11:9



Ver. 9. Therefore is the name of it called Babel,.... The name of the city mentioned, and the tower also, which signifies "confusion", as the Septuagint version renders it; and so Josephus {w} says the Hebrews call confusion "Babel": perhaps this name was given it by the sons of Eber, or it might be a common name preserved in all languages, as some are; and though the first builders desisted from going on with building it, yet it seems that afterwards Nimrod went on with it, and completed it, and made it the beginning of his kingdom, or his capital city; and perhaps he and his family might continue after the confusion and dispersion somewhere near unto it, see Ge 10:10. The reason of its name is given,



because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth; and therefore it is false what is said by some, that the above city had its name from Babylon, the son of Belus:



and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth; which is repeated for the confirmation of it, and that it might be taken notice of and observed as a very wonderful and important event. These Babel builders were an emblem of self-righteous persons, who, as those were, are the greater part of the world, and, under different forms of religion, are all upon the same foot of a covenant of works; they all speak the same language; and indeed all men naturally do, declaring and seeking for justification by their own works; and journey from the east, depart from Christ, one of whose names is the east, or rising sun; they turn their backs on him and his righteousness; build on a plain, not on a rock or mountain, but on the sandy bottom of their own works, in a land of Shinar, or shaking, on a tottering foundation; their view is to get themselves a name, to be seen of men, and be applauded for their work sake, and that they might reach heaven, and get to it this way; but the issue of all is confusion and scattering abroad; for upon the foot of their own righteousness they can never enter into the kingdom of heaven.



{w} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 4. sect. 13.)





Genesis 11:10



Ver. 10. These are the generations of Shem,.... Or a genealogy of the posterity of Shem; not of all of them, only of those of the line which led to Abraham, by which might appear the true line in which the Messiah from Adam through Abraham sprung:



Shem was one hundred years old, and begat Arphexad two years after the flood; by which it is pretty plain that he was younger than Japheth; See Gill on "Ge 10:21" of Arphaxad his son,

See Gill on "Ge 10:22".





Genesis 11:11



Ver. 11. And Shem lived, after he begat Arphaxad, five hundred years,.... So that his whole age was six hundred years, and therefore must live to the times of Abraham, and even throughout the life of that patriarch, or near the end of it; and if he was the same with Melchizedek, as is the general opinion of the Jews, and is embraced by many Christians, they had an interview with each other:



and begat sons and daughters; of whom we have no account, because the Messiah did not spring from them; the design of this genealogy being to carry down his direct line from Shem to Abraham: it is to be observed, that in the account of the patriarchs, and their children after the flood, it is not added as before the flood, "and he died", their lives being long, that remark is made; but the lives of these being shorter, and gradually decreasing, it is omitted. An Arabic writer {x} says, that Shem died in the month Elul, on a Friday, at the close of the year of the world 2758. A Jewish writer {y} says, he died in the fifteenth year of Jacob, and that he saw twelve generations; according to Bishop Usher, he died A. M. 2158.



{x} Elmacinus, p. 13. apud Hottinger. Smegma, p. 258. {y} R. Gedaliah, Shalshalet, fol. 1. 2.





Genesis 11:12



Ver. 12. And Arphaxad lived thirty five years, and begat Salah. Arphaxad is the first on record that had a son born to him so early; of Salah, See Gill on "Ge 10:24".





Genesis 11:13



Ver. 13. And Arphaxad lived, after he begat Salah, four hundred and three years,.... In all four hundred and thirty eight; the Vulgate Latin wrongly reads, three hundred and three:



and begat sons and daughters; not mentioned by name: he died, as the above Arabic writer {z} says, in the month Nisan, A. M. 2696; and a Jewish writer {a} says he died in the forty eighth year of Isaac, and who also says {b}, that in his days they began to build the city of Babel.



{z} Apud Ibid. p. 260. {a} R. Gedaliah, ut supra. (Shalshalet, fol. 1. 2.) {b} Ib. fol. 75. 1.





Genesis 11:14



Ver. 14. And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber. He had a son born to him five years sooner than his father had; of Eber,

See Gill on "Ge 10:25".





Genesis 11:15



Ver. 15. And Salah lived, after he begat Eber, four hundred and three years,.... In all four hundred and thirty three:



and begat sons and daughters; of whom also there is no other account: the same Arabic writer {c} says, he died in the month, Adar, which is called Barhamath, at the close of A. M. 2950; and the Jewish chronologer {d} says, he died in the fourteenth year of Jacob.



{c} Ut supra, (Apud Ibid.) p. 261. {d} R. Gedaliah, ut supra. (Shalshalet, fol. 1. 2.)





Genesis 11:16



Ver. 16. And Eber lived thirty four years, and begat Peleg. Of Peleg, See Gill on "Ge 10:25".





Genesis 11:17



Ver. 17. And Eber lived, after he begat Peleg, four hundred and thirty]

years,.... All the years of his life were four hundred and sixty four:



and he begat sons and daughters; one of which is elsewhere mentioned, whose name is Joktan, Ge 10:25 according to the above Jewish writer {e}, he died in the seventy ninth year of Jacob.



{e} R. Gedaliah, Shalshalet, fol. 1. 2.





Genesis 11:18



Ver. 18. And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu. Or Ragau, as he is called in the Septuagint version, the letter e being pronounced as a "G", as in Gaza and Gomorrah: he is supposed to give name to a large plain called Ragau, near Assyria, about Tigris and Euphrates,



"Even in those days king Nabuchodonosor made war with king Arphaxad in the great plain, which is the plain in the borders of Ragau.'' (Judith 1:5)



and to Ragis in Media,



"In that day Tobit remembered the money which he had committed to Gabael in Rages of Media,'' (Tobit 4:1)



where Strabo {f} makes mention of a city of the same name.



{f} Geograph. l. 11. p. 354.





Genesis 11:19



Ver. 19. And Peleg lived, after he begat Reu, two hundred and nine years,.... In all two hundred and thirty nine, little more than half the age of his father:



and begat sons and daughters; but not named the Arabic writers {g} say he begat Melchizedek the priest, and that he died in the month Elul, A. M. 3126; and a Jewish writer {h} says he died in the forty eighth year of Abraham.



{g} Elmacinus apud Hottinger. p. 269. {h} R. Gedaliah, ut supra. (Shalshalet, fol. 1. 2.)





Genesis 11:20



Ver. 20. And Reu lived thirty two years, and begat Serug. He is thought to give name to a city called Sarug, which, according to the Arabic geographer {i}, was near Charrae, or Haran, in Chaldea; and another Arabic writer {j} speaks of a city called to this day "Sarug", which he places in Mesopotamia.



{i} Apud Bochart. Phaleg. l. 2. c. 14. col. 95. {j} Comment. ad Tab. Ilchanic apud Hyde, Hist. Relig. Pers. c. 2. 57.





Genesis 11:21



Ver. 21. And Reu lived, after he begat Sarug, two hundred and seven years,.... So that the whole of his life was two hundred and thirty nine years, the exact age of his father: in his days various kingdoms arose; according to the Arabic writer {k}, in the one hundred and thirtieth year of his life began Nimrod to reign at Babylon, the first king that reigned on earth: and according to the Jewish writers {l}, in his days began the kingdom of Egypt, which continued to the times of Octavian; and the kingdom of the Bohemians, the metropolis of which was Prague, and the kingdom of the Amazons, which continued to the times of Alexander: in his time also, the Arabic writers {m} say, idolatry prevailed, the worship of the sun, moon, and stars, and other things; and images of men and women were made by the Babylonians and Egyptians, and worshipped by them:



and he begat sons and daughters of whom no account is given; according to a Jewish writer {n}, he died in the seventy fifth year of Abraham.



{k} Elmacinus, p. 29. apud Hottinger. p. 270. {l} Juchasin, fol. 135. 2. Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 76. 1. Tzemach David, par. 2. fol. 3. 2. {m} Elmacinus, p. 20. Patricides, p. 14. apud Hottinger. p. 275, 276. {n} R. Gedaliah, Shalshalet, fol. 2. 1.





Genesis 11:22



Ver. 22. And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor. The grandfather of Abraham, one of the same name was Abraham's brother,

Ge 11:26.





Genesis 11:23



Ver. 23. And Serug lived, after he begat Nahor, two hundred years,.... The years of his life were two hundred and thirty:



and he begat sons and daughters; nowhere else mentioned: he died, according to the above Jewish writer {o}, in the one hundredth year of Abraham, and in his days, according to the eastern writers {p}, idolatry began, and the kingdom of Damascus was set up {q}; and Samirus, king of the Chaldeans, invented weights and measures, weaving silk, and the art of dying {s}.



{o} R. Gedaliah, Shalshalet. fol. 2. 1. {p} Apud Hyde, ut supra. (Hist. Relig. Pers. c. 2. 57.) {q} Juchasin, fol. 135. 2. {s} Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 18.





Genesis 11:24



Ver. 24. And Nahor lived twenty nine years, and begat Terah. The father of Abraham, and the first of the patriarchs of this line of Shem that fell off from the true religion to idolatry.





Genesis 11:25



Ver. 25. And Nahor lived, after he begat Terah, one hundred and ninteen years,.... In all one hundred and forty eight years; so sensibly did the lives of the patriarchs decrease: in the days of Nahor, the Arabic writers {t} say, was a great earthquake, which had never been observed before; idolaters increasing and offering their children to demons, God raised a tempest like a deluge, which broke their images and destroyed their temples in Arabia, and covered them in heaps of sand, which remained to the days of those writers, as they affirm: in his days it is also said Spain, Portugal, and Arragon were founded {u}:



and begat sons and daughters; of whom no other account is given: he died, as a Jewish chronologer says {w}, in the one hundred and tenth year of Abraham.



{t} Patricides, p. 15. Elmacinus, p. 30. apud Hottinger. p. 279, 280. {u} Juchasin, fol. 135. 2. {w} R. Gedaliah, ut supra. (fol. 2. 1.)





Genesis 11:26



Ver. 26. And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Abram, though named first, does not appear to be the eldest, but rather Haran; nay, it seems pretty plain that Abram was not born until the one hundred and thirtieth year of his father's life, for Terah was two hundred and five years old when he died, Ge 11:32 and Abram was but seventy five years of age when he went out of Haran to Canaan, Ge 12:4 and that was as soon as his father died there; and so that if seventy five are taken out two hundred and five, there will remain one hundred and thirty, in which year and not before Abram must be born: the wife of Terah, of whom Abram was born, according to the Jewish writers {x}, her name was Chamtelaah, the daughter of Carnebo, or as others {y} call her, Amthalai; but by the Arabic writers {z} she is called Juna: the Jews say {a} Terah was the first that found out the way of coining money, and that in his days men began to worship images, and that he was the chief of their priests, but afterwards repented; and that he was an idolater appears from Jos 24:2.



{x} Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 2. 1. & Bathra in ib. {y} Pirke Eliezer, c. 26. {z} Elmacinus, p. 31. Patricides, p. 17. apud Hottinger. p. 281. {a} Shalshalet, fol. 76. 1.





Genesis 11:27



Ver. 27. Now these are the generations of Terah,.... Or the genealogy of his posterity, which is a very short one; for it only gives an account of his three sons as before,



Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran: and of three grand children, Lot, Milcah, and Iscah, the children of Haran; and chiefly for the sake of Abram it is given, and indeed the above genealogy of Shem, which ends with him; and of whom and whose posterity the remaining part of this book of Genesis treats:



and Haran begat Lot: of whom we have some further account in

Ge 13:1.





Genesis 11:28



Ver. 28. And Haran died before his father Terah,.... In his father's presence, before his face, in his life time, as Jarchi; he seeing him, as Aben Ezra: it does not so much respect the time of his death, that it was before his father, though that is true, as the place where he died, his father being present there at the time this was;



in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees; Ur, which Ben Melech renders a valley, was the place of his birth, as it was of Abram's; it was in Mesopotamia, that part of it next to Assyria being called the land of the Chaldeans; hence these are spoken of as the same by Stephen, Ac 7:2 mention is made by Pliny {b}, of a place in those parts called Ura, which seems to be the same with this: Eupolemus {c} says,



"that Abram was born at Camarine, a city of Babylon, some call Urie, and is interpreted a city of the Chaldeans;''



now Camarine is from rmk, "Camar", to heat or burn, and Ur signifies fire, so that both words are of the same signification: Josephus {d} says, that Haran died among the Chaldeans, in a city called Ur of the Chaldees, where, he adds, his grave is shown to this day: the Jews {e} have a fable concerning the death of Haran; they say that Terah was not only an idolater, but a maker and seller of images; and that one day going abroad, he left his son Abraham in the shop to sell them, who, during his father's absence, broke them all to pieces, except one; upon which, when Terah returned and found what was done, he had him before Nimrod, who ordered him to be cast into a burning furnace, and he should see whether the God he worshipped would come and save him; and while he was in it, they asked his brother Haran in whom he believed? he answered, if Abraham overcomes, he would believe in his God, but if not, in Nimrod; wherefore they cast him into the furnace, and he was burnt; and with respect to this it is said, "and Haran died before the face of Terah his father"; but Abraham came out safe before the eyes of them all.



{b} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 24. {c} Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 17. p. 418. {d} Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 5. {e} Shalshalet, fol. 2. 1, 2. Jarchi in loc.





Genesis 11:29



Ver. 29. And Abram and Nahor took them wives,.... Very probably after the death of their elder brother Haran, whose daughters they married, at least one of them did, and some think both;



the name of Abraham's wife was Sarai: it is not said whose daughter she was, unless she is the same with Iscah, the daughter of Haran, and so had two names, Iscah her name before marriage, Sarai after it, Abram calling her "my mistress", as "Sarai" signifies, as she called him my lord: so the Targum of Jonathan, Iscah, this is Sarai; in like manner Jarchi, Baal Hatturim, and other Jewish writers {f}, take them to be the same; but according to Ge 20:12 Sarai should be the daughter of Terah, the father of Abraham, by another woman; and so the Arabic writers {g} say,



"the mother of Abraham died, whose name was Juna; and Terah married another wife, whose name was Lahazib; she bore him Sarah, whom Abraham afterwards married:''



[and] the name of Nahor's wife Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah: so that Nahor married his brother's daughter, which sort of marriage was then allowed of, as formerly that of own brothers and sisters, but afterwards was strictly forbidden in the Levitical law: this account is given of Nahor's wife, as Aben Ezra observes, to show the pedigree of Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah: some think, as before observed, that Abram married the other daughter of his brother Haran, Iscah, and that she is the same with Sarai; and indeed, without supposing that, it is difficult to conceive for what reason this should be observed, that Haran, the father of Milcah, was also the father of Iscah; and if Sarai is not Iscah, no account is given by Moses of her descent, which may seem strange; and it can hardly be thought he would omit it, when it must be so agreeable to his people to know from whom they descended, both by the father's and mother's side.



{f} Bereshit Rabba, sect. 38. fol. 33. 3. 4. {g} Ut supra, (Elmacinus, p. 31. Patricides, p. 17.) apud Hottinger. p. 281.





Genesis 11:30



Ver. 30. But Sarai was barren; she had no child. Aben Ezra observes, there are some that say that Abraham was impotent, and not Sarai barren; the very reverse of the Scriptures; but as he rightly adds, his son Ishmael and his sons by Keturah show the contrary, see

Ge 15:2.





Genesis 11:31



Ver. 31. And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife,.... Many words are made use of in describing Lot and Sarai, and yet still we are left pretty much in the dark who Sarai was; for, as Aben Ezra observes, if she was the sister of Abram and daughter of Terah, the Scripture would have said, Terah took Abram his son and Sarai his daughter, and wife of Abram; and if she was the sister of Lot, it would have said, and Sarai the daughter of his son, as it does of Lot:



and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; that is, as Jarchi interprets it, Terah and Abram went forth with Lot and Sarai, or "with them" may mean with Nahor and Milcah: for Josephus {h} says, that all went into Charan of Mesopotamia, the whole family of Terah; and the Arabic historian {i} is express for it,



"Terah went out from Chorasan, and with him Abram, Nahor, Lot, his children, and their wives, and he went to Charan, where he dwelt:''



and it is certain, if Nahor and his wife did not set out with them, they followed them afterwards, for Haran was the city of Nahor, where his family in later times dwelt, see Ge 14:10 what moved Terah to depart from Ur of the Chaldees seems to be the call of God to Abram, which, though after related, was previous to this; and he acquainting his father Terah with it, he listened to it, being now convinced of his idolatry and converted from it, and readily obeyed the divine will; and being the father of Abram, is represented as the head of the family, as he was, and their leader in this transaction; who encouraged their departure from the idolatrous country in which they were, and set out with them to seek another, where they might more freely and safely worship the true God. Though Josephus {j} represents it in this light, that Terah hating the country of Chaldea, because of the mourning of Haran, he and all his went out from thence:



and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there; which Josephus {k} calls Charan of Mesopotamia, and yet Stephen speaks of Abraham being in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Charan; but then Mesopotamia is to be taken both in a more general and a more limited sense; in general, it took in Mesopotamia and Chaldea, and in the eastern part of it was Ur of the Chaldees, and when Abram came from thence to Haran, he came into Mesopotamia, strictly so called. Stephen calls it Charran it is by Herodian {l} called karrai, by Ptolemy {m} Carrae, by Pliny {n} Carra, a city famous in Lucan {o} for the slaughter of Crassus, by whom it is called an Assyrian city. Benjamin of Tudela {p} speaks of it as in being in his time, and as two days journey from the entrance into the land of Shinar or Mesopotamia; and says, that in that place where was the house of Abraham, there is no building on it, but the Ishmaelites (the Mahometans) honour the place, and come thither to pray. Rauwolff, who was in this town A. D. 1575, calls it Orpha; his account of it is this {q}, that it is a costly city, with a castle situated on the hill very pleasantly; that the town is very pleasant, pretty big, with fortifications well provided; and that some say it was anciently called Haran and Charras: a later traveller {r} says, who also calls it Orpha,



"the air of this city is very healthful, and the country fruitful; that it is built four square, the west part standing on the side of a rocky mountain, and the east part tendeth into a spacious valley, replenished with vineyards, orchards, and gardens: the walls are very strong, furnished with great store of artillery, and contain in circuit three English miles, and, for the gallantness of its sight, it was once reckoned the metropolitical seat of Mesopotamia.''



What detained Terah and his family here, when they intended to go further, is not said. Aben Ezra suggests, that the agreeableness of the place to Terah caused him to continue there; but it is very probable he was seized with a disease which obliged them to stay here, and of which he died.



{h} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 5.) {i} Elmacinus, p. 31. apud Hottinger. p. 282. {j} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 5.) {k} Ibid. {l} Hist. l. 4. sect. 24. {m} Geograph. l. 5. c. 18. {n} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 24. {o} -----------Miserando funere Crassus, Assyrias latio maculavit sanguine Carrhas. Lucan. Pharsal. l. 1. v. 105. {p} Itinerarium, p. 60. {q} Travels, par. 2. ch. 10. sect. 176. by Ray. {r} Cartwright's Preacher's Travels, p. 14, 15.





Genesis 11:32



Ver. 32. And the days of Terah were two hundred years,.... His days are summed up as none of the rest are in this genealogy, that it might be observed; his death being the time of Abram's leaving Chaldea and coming into the land of Canaan, given to him and his seed for an inheritance; see Ac 7:4



and Terah died in Haran: the Arabic historian {s} says, he died in Haran in the month Elul, in the year of his age two hundred and sixty five; but he gives him sixty years too many: a Jewish chronologer {t} says he died in the thirty fifth year of Isaac. Perhaps he gave the name to this place, where he dwelt a while, in memory of his son Haran, which before might be called by another name, Padanaram, as it seems to be called even after this; see Ge 24:10.



{s} Elmaaciuns, ut supra. (p. 31. apud Hottinger. p. 282.) {t} R. Gedaliah, Shalshalet, fol. 2. 1.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

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