OF MANKIND IS RECORDED IN GENESIS.

79

Respecting these two principles of distribution, I shall refrain from making any comment,-further than to remark, that neither of them, I believe, has before been enunciated: the results to which we shall be conducted by the simple application of them will, however, I trust, sufficiently demonstrate their accuracy and their importance. I shall now proceed, therefore, to the consideration, upon these principles, of what is professedly the chief object of inquiry in this volume.

CHAPTER V.

Shem, and not Japheth, shown to have been the eldest son of Noah, -Situation of the possessions of Shem.-His descendants— Elam-Asshur:-Nineveh founded by Asshur, and not by Nimrod.—The south and east of Asia peopled by the descendants of Elam and Asshur, with part of those of Arphaxad.—Genius and disposition of the aboriginal inhabitants.-Invasion by the Japhthitish Hindoos.-Distinction between the two principal races in southern and eastern Asia.-Shemitish nations and languages: The Hebrew and Arabic languages not of that class. Inhabitants of China and the Indo-Chinese countries. —Indian Archipelago.-Papuans.-Theory of the original peopling of the Indian Archipelago.-Corresponding state of degradation of the Papuans of Asia, the Hottentots of Africa, and the Esquimaux of the Arctic Circle.-Process of degradation in the human race.—Black Asiatics with straight hair.-Successive arrival of different Japhthitish and Hamitish races in the Peninsulas and Islands of India.—Peopling of the South Sea Islands and of America.-Remarks on the Shemitish languages.

THE order in which it is proposed to treat of the respective descendants of the sons of Noah, is that in which the names of those three great progenitors of the human species are invariably placed when mentioned together in the Sacred volume', and

1 "And Noah begat Shem, Ham and Japheth." Gen. v. 32.— See also Gen. vi. 10.; vii. 13.; ix. 18.; x.1. Even in the single instance in which Shem and Japheth alone are mentioned (Gen. ix. 23.), the name of Shem is placed first; and in the blessing also

SHEM THE ELDEST SON OF NOAH.

81

which, consequently, may be regarded as the order of their births.

Three objections to this arrangement, however, may be urged by those who, with the translators of the Septuagint version, consider that Japheth, and not Shem, was the eldest son of Noah. The first is, that in the tenth chapter of Genesis, the descendants of Japheth are enumerated first, and those of Shem last. I will not attempt to account for the order thus adopted, since I cannot do so to my own satisfaction; but I may at least observe, that no argument can be grounded upon it; for that very chapter commences with the following words : "Now these are the generations of the sons of "Noah; Shem, Ham and Japheth'."

The second objection, which is in fact the principal one, cannot be better given than in the words of Sir Walter Ralegh, in his History of the World'. "... It appeareth that Noah in the five-hundreth year of his life, begat the first of his three Sons,

66

Shem, Ham, and Japhet and in the six-hun

bestowed by Noah on Shem and Japheth (Gen. ix. 26, 27.), the former has precedence over his brother. That the first-born was ordinarily considered to be entitled to precedence in the blessing of his parent, and that importance was attached to the precedence, is evident from the circumstances related in Gen. xxvii. respecting the mode in which Jacob surreptitiously obtained his father's blessing; and also from the fact of the remonstrance made by Joseph, when Jacob blessed Ephraim before Manasseh. Gen. xlviii. 17-20.

1 Gen. x. 1. 2 Book i. ch. viii. sect. 1. p. 76.; edit. of 1677.

G

82 PROOFS THAT SHEM, AND NOT JAPHETH,

"dreth year (to wit) the hundreth year following,

came the general Floud; two years after which, "Shem begat Arphaxad, which was in the year 602. "of Noah's life, and in the year of Shem's life one "hundred so as Shem was but an hundred years "old, two years after the Floud: and Noah begat "his first-born being 500. years old; and therefore were Shem the elder, he had then been an hundred

years old at the Floud, and in the six hundreth

year of Noah's life, and not two years after."

This seems, however, to be calculating much closer than we have any reason for imagining to have been the intention of the sacred historian, and closer, indeed, than is allowed by the ordinary mode of computing time among the Jews and other Eastern nations, by whom not merely a part-even the smallest portion-of any stated division of time is counted as the whole, but also both the extreme divisions of any duration of time are reckoned inclusively, in cases in which, according to our mode of computation, the one, or even both, would be reckoned exclusively. Thus, our Lord was " after "three days" to rise again'; which was fulfilled by His resurrection on the morning of the first day of the week, although from the preparation of the passover3, when He was crucified and buried, it was, according to our mode of computation, only the second day after. Thus, also, Esther's directions to

1 Matth. xxvii. 63.; Mark viii. 31. 2 Mark xvi. 2.; John xx. 1.

3 John xix. 14. 31. 42.

66

WAS THE ELDEST SON OF NOAH.

83

Mordecai and the Jews in Shushan were, ... fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, 'night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise':" yet on the third day' she went to the king, and invited him and Haman to the banquet'.

The expression "Shem.... begat Arphaxad two years after the flood," will therefore mean nothing more than that Arphaxad was born at some period during the course of the second year after that event; and since the rain or Flood ( hammabúl) lasted only forty days', whilst Noah and his sons did not descend from the Ark until eleven months after it had terminated, we may, according to the Eastern mode of computation, consider the birth of Arphaxad to be correctly stated as having taken place two years after the Flood, even if he were born at the expiration of one month only after the descent from the Ark. Hence, as Noah was in the second month of the six-hundredth year of his life',—that is to say, he had just completed his five-hundred-and-ninety-ninth year,—at the time

1 Esth. iv. 16.

2 Esth. v. 1—4.

It is on this principle that the Jews computed their kings' reigns; according to the doctrine of the Talmud, Treatise Rosh

מלך שעמד בעשרים ותשעה באדר כיון : Hasshanah שהגיע אחד בניסן עלתה לו שנה ... ויום אחד בשנה

“A king who has been elected on the 29th of Adar [the last day of the year], on the 1st of Nisan [the first day of the next year], has completed a year, and commences another ... since one day of a year is considered to be a [whole] year.” 5 Gen. vii. 12. 17.

4 Gen. xi. 10.

6 Gen. viii. 14. 18.

7 Gen. vii. 11.