centuries - must have been favorable to a high degree of perfection in these arts, and the science of music. In the six hundredth year of Noah, and 2348 years before Christ, "the flood of waters was upon the earth." The prediction of the deluge to Noah was of the nature of a warning to him, in order that he might prepare himself against it. A knowledge of the deluge was communicated to him 120 years before the event took place. It entirely covered the earth; and destroyed all the inhabitants, with the exception of the eight individuals who composed Noah's family, and a pair of each species of animals all of whom were preserved in the ark. ark was built in expectation of the flood; it was a structure 480 feet or more in length, 81 in breath, and 41 in height. It was sufficiently capacious to answer the purpose for which it was designed; and was three stories high, containing many small compartments for the suitable accommodation of its intended occupants. The At the appointed time, the family of Noah and all kinds of beasts, birds and reptiles, by pairs went into the ark. "And God blessed righteous Noah and his family; and the Lord shut him in, in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month.” This period embraces 1656 years from the creation.* Noah and his companions came out of the ark 2347 years before Christ, to till and replenish the earth. And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings upon the altar. And Noah and his family soon journeyed from Mount Ararat eastward to Armenia; and the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, (Chaldea,) and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build a city, and a tower, * According to the time used in scripture, Noah and his companions continued in the ark one year and ten days. The ark floated on the waters 150 days, and then rested on one of the summits of Mt. Ararat; but it was several months before the waters entirely subsided. whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand each other's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth. This important event, recorded in Gen. xi., occurred about 2160 years before Christ, and was the origin of the division of the human family into distinct nations. THE SONS OF NOAH. THE Sons of Noah who went forth out of the ark, were Shem, Ham and Japhet-and of them was the whole earth peopled. To the descendants of Ham, I have generally given the name of Ethiopians blacks with frizzled or curly hair. The descendants of Shem were denominated As syrians and Syrians-blacks with long straight hair. Shem had five sons - Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Aram and Laud who inhabited the land from the Euphrates to the Indian Ocean and Abyssinia. Elam left a posterity called Elamites the ancestors of the Persians. Ashur lived at the city of Nineveh, and named his subjects Assyrians, who became the most fortunate nation. Arphaxad named the Arphaxadites, now called the Chaldeans. From Aram sprang the Aramites, whom the Greeks call Syrians. Laud founded the Ladites, who are now called the Lydians. Aram had four sons Uz, Ul, Gather and Mesa. Uz founded Trachonitis and Damascus between Palestine and Celosyria. Ul founded Armenia; and from Gather sprang the Bactrians. Mesa was the progenitor of the Mesaneans, whose country is now called Chaax Spaani. Sala was the son of Arphaxad, and Heber was the son of Sala. From Heber the Jews received the name of Hebrews; he was among their progenitors, according to Josephus. Heber begat Jactan, and Phaleg, who was thus called, because he was born at the dispersion of the nations. Phaleg's sons were Elmodad, Saleph, Asermoth, Jerah, Adoram, Aizel, Decla, Eba, Abimael, Sabeus, Ophir, Euilat and Jobab. - These settled on the Cophen, an Indian river, and in a part of Asia near it. The son of Arphaxad was Salah. The son of Terah was Abram, afterwards called Abraham. The sons of Abraham were Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael grew up, and married a wife, by birth an Egyptian, from whence his own mother herself was originally derived. By this wife were born to Ishmael twelve sons-Nabaiath, Keder, Abdeel, Mabsam, Idumas, Masmaos, Mason, Chodaa, Theman, Jetur, Naphesus and Kadmud. These inhabited all the country from the Euphrates to the Red Sea, and called it Nabatene. They are an Arabian nation, and name their tribes from these, both because of their own virtue, and because of the dignity of Abraham, their father. (Josephus.) The sons of Abraham, by Keturah, were Zimran, Jokshan, Medam, Midian, Ishbak and Shua. The sons of Jokshan were Saba and Dedan. The sons of Dedan were Asshurim, Letushim and Leummim. The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abidah and Eldaah. All these were the offspring of Keturah, the Canaanitish woman. (Gen. xxv.) The sons of Esau were Elipha2, Reuel or Jethro, Jeush, Jaalam and Korah. The sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zephi, Gatam, Kenaz, Timna and Amalek. The sons of Reuel were Nahath, Zerah, Shammah and Mizzah the sons of Esau by the daughter of Ishmael. (Gen. xxxvi. Chron. i.) These were the generations of Shem, after their families and tongues, in their countries and nation; they are called blacks by a Grecian historian-being a people with long, straight hair. THE GENERATIONS OF HAM. THE meaning or signification of the following words is found in Dr. Brown's Dictionary of the Bible: "Ethiopia"- blackness; "Ethiopians" black; "Cush". Ethiopians-black; "Cushen," "Cushi," "Cuth," "Cuthah"-Ethiopia, blackness. That portion of the earth which was first peopled, after Adam and Eve had left Paradise, was the land of Ethiopia, by the Ethiopians, on the river Gihon, that went out of the Garden of Eden, "which compasseth the whole land (or country) of Ethiopia," 4003 years before Christ.(Gen. ii. 13.) The children of Ethiopia were from Adam to Noah, through the lineage of Seth.(Gen. v.) The generations of Ham, the son of Noah, an Ethiopian, were Cush, Miriam, Phut and Canaan. (Gen. x. 1: chap. i.; 2218 years before Christ.) They possessed the land from Syria and Amanus, and the mountains of Libanus, and all its seacoast, and as far as the ocean holding it as their own. The Cushites were the descendants of Cush. Calmet believes that a colony of Cushites settled in the northern part of Assyria, on the Araxes the present Aras or Araxis —a river which rises near the Euphrates, and falls into the Caspian Sea. Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible renders Cush the province of Cuthah. Brown thinks that the Cuthahites, who emigrated into Samaria, were descendants of Cush. (2 Kings xvii. 24.) Misraim (Mesraites,) founded Egypt; the country was called Mestre, and the inhabitants Mestreans. Phut possessed himself of Lybia, and gave the name of Phutites to its inhabitants. In the country of the Moors, there is a river of this name. Canaan, the fourth son of Ham, inhabited the land now called Judea; and following the customs of the times, named it from himself, Canaan. The sons of Cush were Seba, Habilah, Sabtah, Raamah, Sabtechah and Nimrod. (Gen. x.) Sheba, or Seba. There were several of this name:1. The son of Cush, who gave his name to a country in Arabia. (Gen. x. 7: Ps. lxxii. 10.) 2. The grandson of Cush.(Gen. x. 7.) 3. The son of Joktan. — (Gen. x. 29: Gen. xviii.) 4. The grandson of Abraham. (Gen. xxv. 3.) All these seem to have taken up their residence in Arabia, or Abyssinia in Africa, and perhaps most of them in the south part of Arabia and Ethiopia, near the Red Sea. One or more of these Shebas gave name to the country whose queen came to visit Solomon, bringing him large presents of gold, spices and precious stones. This is also the name of a famous well, sometimes called Sheba, and sometimes Beersheba. (Gen. xxvi. 33.) Havilah (Evilas,) was the father of the Evileans, who are called Getuti, and inhabited Arabia, near the Red Sea. Sabtah (Sabathes,) was the founder of the Sabathens, a nation now called by the Greeks, Astaborans, who settled in Arabia, near the Persian Gulf. The Sabactens, descendants of Sabtechah, (Sabactas,) settled likewise in Arabia, upon the borders of the Red Sea; and the Ragmeans, the descendants of Raaman, (Ragmus,) settled in Ethiopia. Nimrod, the son of Cush, an Ethiopian, was a mighty one upon the earth. He built Babel, Erech, and Accad Calneh, and founded the Babylonian Empire, building Babylon, his capital, in the land of Shinar, or Chaldea, also known as the Land of Nimrod. -(Gen. x.: Micah v. 6.) Raamah had two sons; one of whom, Judasas, settled the Judadeans, a western nation of Ethiopians. The sons of Misraim, eight in number, possessed the country from Gaza to Egypt, which took its name from Philestim, one of them. A part of that country was called Palestine by the Greeks. |