It is evident from the many parallels
exhibited between the period immediately following the flood and the period of
the creation of Adam, that a new dispensation commenced with Noah and his saved
family. If we believe the teaching of
Scripture (Genesis x.) we can have no alternative but to believe that all
mankind is descended from Noah, through his three sons, Shem, Ham and
Japheth:--
“These are the sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread”
(Gen. ix. 19).
The apostle Paul, speaking to the
Athenians said:--
“God … hath made of one every nation of men to dwell on the whole face of the earth” (Acts xvii.
26).
These words of Paul are either Scripture
truth and therefore final, or private opinion and therefore fallible. Speaking as an apostle (ex cathedra, as it were) Paul was inspired and infallible, and the
testimony given here on Mar’s Hill was a public witness of a duly accredited ambassador
of Christ. He spoke truth, and his word
here is but an echo of the statement of
Genesis x.
The Athenians applied the term of autochthones to other peoples, believing
that other peoples had sprung as a separate creation from the soil, as they
believed they had. One can feel the
point of the apostle’s words to these very Athenians, knowing the belief they
entertained. The testimony to the unity
of the human race seems to be the exclusive witness of the Scriptures, and what science is reluctantly
but nevertheless definitely approaching, the humblest believer in the Word has known all along. As far back as 1655 La Peyrére published his theory of pre-adamite races, and at
intervals since then there have been various suggestions put forward regarding
the different origins of existing nations.
Voltaire
said that no one who was not blind could doubt "that the Whites, the
Negroes, the Albinos, the Hottentots, the Chinese, and the Americans belong to
entirely different races".
One philosopher maintained that there were
eleven different species of mankind, while another went so far as to say there
could be no less than fifteen.
Let us look at some of the most striking
differences exhibited by the various nations.
Among them we might mention colour. Quatrefages,
in his book, “the Human Species”, says:--
"The difference in colouring is
easily explained. We now know beyond a
doubt that the skin of the Negro is exactly the same in composition as that of
the White … the mucous layer … is the seat of the colour … External influences
have, moreover, an influence on the organ, and modify the colour
secretion. Simon has shown that freckles
are nothing more than spots upon the skin of the White, presenting the
characteristics of the skin of Negro. He
also says that even the attempt to divide the races of mankind along the line
of colour is founded upon entirely
erroneous ideas. Among the ‘Whites’
there are entire populations whose skin is as black as that of the darkest of
Negro."
"There are Arab and Jewish families
of ancient settlement in Northern Africa, who have become as black as the other
inhabitants" (The Vestiges of
Creation).
Another insecure test is that of the hair.
All Negroes have not the proverbial wool. Every possible gradation from crisp curly
woolly hair to flowing hair is found among them.
Difference in height is sometimes taken as an argument. The Patagonian of 6ft.3.75in.
is in great contrast with the Esquimaux of 3ft.3.37in.,
yet the links that bind these extremes are of such gentle gradation that
it is impossible to draw the line and say, Here one race begins and another
ends. It has been ascertained that the
French have decreased in height in the islands of Mexico, whilst the British
have increased in height in Kentucky.
The brain
capacity was once thought to be a criterion, but even Haeckel, the evolutionist, and no friend of the Bible, says:--
"Within the limits of a single race,
for example, among the peoples on the Mediterranean, the shape of the cranium
can vary even to the most extreme forms."
The writer of The
Vestiges of Creation quoted above
says:--
"About 200 years ago, a number of
people were driven by a barbarous policy from the counties of Antrim and Down
in Ireland towards the sea-coast, where they have ever since been settled, but
in unusually miserable circumstances even for Ireland; and the consequences is, that they exhibit
peculiar features of the most repulsive kind, projecting jaws with large open
mouths, depressed noses, high cheek bones, and bow legs, together with
extremely diminutive stature."
We could multiply quotations (we are
indebted to the writings of Rev. John
Urquhart for those cited), but we refrain.
Scripture simply and unreservedly states as a fact of inspired truth
that all the nations of the earth sprang from “one”. Moreover, it does not make the mistake of
judging by outward appearance, but divides the whole of mankind into three families,
declaring that this division is the result of the families originating from
Noah’s three sons. The study of language
has led men to divide the human race into three,
called the Aryan (which corresponds with the Japhethic), the Semitic, and the
Turanian (which answers to the Hamitic).
The Aryan family stretches from India to England, and includes such a
variety of languages as Sanscrit, Persian, Celtic, Greek, Latin, Italian,
Russian, Danish, German, English, etc. Colonel Vans Kennedy shows a list of 900
words common to the Sanscrit and other languages of the same family. In the Sanscrit and Persian we find such
words as pader, mader, sunn, dokhter, brader, deuta, eyeumen, nasa, none of
which need translation for the English reader.
The Semitic family includes Hebrew,
Assyrio-Babylonian, Arabic, Syriac, and Ethiopian. The third, the Turanian, or Hamitic group,
comprises all the languages of Asia and Europe not included in the Aryan or
Semitic groups. In the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical
Archæology, 1889 and 1890, is shown the close connection between the
Accadian, an undoubted Hamitic tongue, the most ancient language of Babylonia,
and the Chinese, which Mr. J. C.
Ball calls “the new Accadian”.
The science of philology has led to the
conclusion that there is a threefold division of the human race corresponding
with the threefold division of Genesis.x.
One more testimony from archæology and we
pass to other things. Genesis.x. places the new beginning of the race in
Western Asia. Is there any evidence that
these three families have left their mark here?
Professor Rawlinson says:--
"In Western Asia the several ethnic
branches of the human family were more closely intermingled, and more evenly
balanced than in any other portion of the ancient world. Semitic, Indo-European, and Tartar or
Turanian races, not only divided among them this portion of the earth’s
surface, but lay confused and interspersed upon it in a most remarkable
entanglement. It is symptomatic of this
curious inter-mixture, that the Persian monarchs, when they wished to publish a
communication to their Asiatic subjects in such a way that it should be
generally intelligible, had to put it out not only in three different languages, but in three languages belonging to the three principal divisions of human
speech.
The region retains the same peculiarity to
the present day. It is still inhabited
by representatives of the three great
divisions of the human race, and when the Government publishes its edicts, it
has still to employ Indo-European (Persian), Semitic (Arabic), and Turanian
(Turkish) speech."
We must now leave this testimony to the
truth of the Scriptures to consider in brief “the generations of the sons of
Noah”. Shem is named first because of
the fact that he was the father of the line of promise, although Japheth was
the first-born (I Chron. i. 5).
THE
SONS OF JAPHETH. — The name of Japheth means “enlargement”, and the
fulfilment of the promise, “God shall enlarge Japheth” is seen to this day in
the fact that the “white man” is still the colonizer and pioneer. The sons of Japheth are seven in number, who
have seven sons, and “by these were the coast-lands of the Gentiles divided in
their lands; every one after his tongue,
after their families, in their nations”.
Brief notes are all that can be given upon these sons and their
descendants.
GOMER. -- Ezekiel xxxviii. 6 places Gomer in “the north quarter”. In the Assyrian inscriptions Gomer is called
Gimirra, and by the Greek writers Kimmerii. The name is preserved in the word
“Crimea”. By the Romans Gomer was called
Cimbri. This in turn is the name Cymry,
the name of the Welsh or the Celtic race.
They have left traces of their journey across Europe from the Crimea to
Cumberland.
MAGOG. -- Ezekiel xxxviii. 2-6 associates Gomer with Magog, and nothing very
definite can be said of this man’s descendants.
MADAI. -- The title of the multifarious
tribes to the east of Kurdistan; the
Medes.
JAVAN. -- Both Sargon (the father of
Sennacherib) and Darius use this name for Ionia and Greece.
TUBAL
spread over the south-eastern portion of Cappadocia.
MESHECH, Muski, Muska and Moschaius of the
Assyrian tablets were known to be in the eastern part of the Asia Minor. An opinion, not yet confirmed, is that
Meshech is the ancestor of the Muscovites.
TIRAS. -- The Companion Bible gives this man as the ancestor of the
Thracians.
Of the sons of Gomer and Javan little can
be said.
Professor
Sayce sees in Ashkenaz, the Assyrian Asguza, a district which lay between
the kingdom of Ekbatana and the Minni.
The Jews, however, have always applied the name to Germany.
Max
Muller says:--
"There was a time when the ancestors
of the Celts, the Germans, the Slavs, the Greeks, the Italians, the Persians
and the Hindoos were living together beneath the same roof, and separate from the
Semitic and Turanian races."
The philologist of the 20th
century but repeats the witness of
Genesis x.
THE SONS OF HAM are four in
number.
CUSH. — The Cushites first lived in South
Mesopotamia, and afterwards in Africa; the
Ethiopians. Bunsen once wrote, “An Asiatic Cushite exists only in the
imagination of interpreters, and is the child of their despair”. Strabo,
the ancient Greek geographer, describes the Ethiopians as "a two-fold
people, lying extended in a long tract from the rising to the setting sun". Herodotus speaks of “Oriental
Ethiopeans”. The Egyptian Monuments,
“From the time of the twelfth dynasty onwards, a new race makes its appearance
on the Egyptian horizon, viz., the Kashi in Nubia” (see also Jer. xlvi. 9,
A.V. margin).
MIZRAIM. — The Egyptians. Isaiah xxxvii. 25 records Sennacherib’s boast that he had,
“dried up all the rivers of Matsor”, that is, the mouths of the Nile. Again, in
Isa. xix. 6, the “brooks of
defence” should read, “The Nile-arms of Matsor”. While Matsor was the name of lower Egypt,
upper Egypt was called, Pathros (see Isa. xi. 11), the Egyptian Peto-res or
“southern land”. A son of Mizraim is
Pathrusim (Gen. x. 14).
PHUT. — Probably Somali-land, the Punt or
Put of the Egyptian Monuments.
CANAAN. — The Tel-el-Amarna tablets show
that the land of promise was known by the name of Canaan in the time of
Moses. The Hittites were descended from
Canaan (Gen. x. 15, “Heth”), their language, as yet undeciphered, shows now
affinity to the Semitic or the Aryan, and has been adjudged as Turanian or Hamitic. The Philistines were descended from Casluhim,
while the Phœnicians were called Kept by the Egyptians, and the part of Egypt
in which they lived was called Kept-ur (see Caphtorim, Gen. x. 14). Amos
ix. 7 presents a problem as compared
with Gen. x. 14 which we are unable to solve. There are thirty-one names given in the line
of Ham.
THE
SONS OF SHEM. — Shem is called the father of “all the children of Eber”,
for Peleg’s descendants, who carry us down to Abraham, are not named in this
chapter, but are reserved until the special section which gives the generations
of Shem (Gen. xi. 10).
ELAM. — Josephus thought Elamites were
Persians, but the Assyrian inscriptions identify the Elam with Susiana, the
ancient inhabitants of which were Semites.
ASSHUR. — The Assyrians, whose language is
closer to Hebrew than French or Italian is to Latin.
ARPHAXAD. — Professor Sayce concludes that this refers to Chaldæa, as the word
may be pronounced Arpa-Chesed, or “border of Chaldæa”.
ARAM. — Mesopotamia and Syria. The language of this people, called Aramaic,
was the language of Dan. ii. 4-7, the language of the common people of
Palestine in the time of Christ. Mark v. 41
is an example. Very little is
known of the other names figuring in this list.
Uz was the name of the country of the
Sabeans and Chaldeans (Job i. 15, 17).
EBER. — The word indicates “one who passed
over” (see Joshua xxiv. 2, 3, 14, 15), and from this word we get the name Hebrew.
Eber has two sons, Peleg and Joktan.
Attention is drawn to the fact that in Peleg’s days the earth was
divided, but nothing more is said of him until chapter xi., where he is seen in the direct line from Shem
to Abraham.
Joktan is considered to be the father of
the Saracens. He was the 13th from Shem, the numerics of his name being
13*13, and he had 13 sons.
“These are the families of the sons of
Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the
earth after the flood.”
These nations, seventy in all, were
divided by God into the various parts of the earth. He set the bounds of their habitation (Acts
xvii. 26), and divided the earth and its peoples, and separated the sons of
Adam, “according to the number of the children of Israel” (Deut. xxxii.
8). So the great purpose of the Bible is
steadily pursued, the list of Noah’s descendants being as vital to the theme as
is the genealogy of Matthew i.
None of these nations is “lost”. They may be untraceable to man, but God knows
where they are, and what they are now called.
Their names recur in the prophecies that refer to the future day of the
Lord, and when the Lord deals both in judgment and in blessing with the nations
of the earth, these seventy nations we believe will be found to encompass them
all.
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