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"be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his bre"thren." But when he found how commendably his other sons had behaved, he rewarded their respectful attention with this blessing: "Blessed be the Lord God of "Shem, God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in "the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his Servant."

We have no mention of any other children Noah had, but these three sons; from each of whom descended a numerous offspring, which afterwards peopled many countries, and in process of time, the whole inhabited world. And now there was but one language used and known

* There is some difficulty in this passage; but if we suppose (with Bishop Newton,) the omission of a word or two by the transcriber, the whole will be easy.

And Noah said,

Cursed be (Ham, the father of) Canaan ;

A servant of servants shall he be to his brethren,

And he said,

Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem,

For he shall dwell in the tents of Shem;

God shall enlarge Japheth,

And Canaan shall be their Servant."

By this prophecy the whole race of Ham is devoted to servitude; not that this was to take place immediately, but was to be fulfilled in process of time, when they should forfeit their liberties by their wickedness. The continent of Africa was peopled by the Children of Ham; and for how many ages have the better part of that country lain under the dominion of the Romans, then of the Saracens, and now of the Turks? and of the poor negroes, how many thousands are annually bought and sold, like beasts in the market, and conveyed from one quarter of the world to do the work of beasts in another? See Bishop Newton on the Prophecies.

+ Blessed. The blessing of God had effect; for the worship of the true God continued in the race of Shem, and the posterity of Japheth possessed a vast extent of land, peopling all Europe, and part of Asia; for which reason it is said, He shall dwell in the tents of Shem, that is, among the progeny of the Jatter.

Shem. Shem is called the Father of all the children of Eber. Gen. x, 21. Eber was great grandson, or the fourth from Shem: and from him, both the people of Israel were called Ebrews, (or Hebrews) and the language they spake was called the Hebrew tongue; so that from Shem came the Jews, besides many other people that inhabited Asia. This part of the world, which is called Europe, is generally held to have been peopled by the posterity of Japheth.

among men; who hitherto dwelt at the foot of the mountains of Armenia, not far, it is likely, from the place where the ark rested. Their offspring, multiplying by degrees, spread themselves into the neighbouring countries, as Syria and Mesopotamia: And the number still increasing, they took their course westward, till finding an inviting plain in the land of Shinar,* they sat down in order to settle there.

And now those two unruly passions, ambition and fear, began to possess the minds of men. They were desirous to perpetuate their name, and no less afraid that they should be scattered abroad. To effect the one, and prevent the other, they agreed to build themselves a city, and a tower, of such extraordinary height, that it is said, they designed the top thereof should reach to heaven.† The projected height of this vast structure hath been the occasion of a conjecture in some, that they not only intended it as a monument of their power, but as a place of refuge, in case of another flood; which shewed their distrust of God's veracity in keeping his covenant, that he would not bring a general deluge over the earth again. But whether pride or fear put them upon this project, it is certain they undertook this vast work, and being unanimous, they were not discouraged at the greatness of the undertaking; but, in order to it, began to make brick, which they burnt; and

* Shinar. This is by some supposed to have been the place where the Garden of Eden was: afterwards called Chaldea.

+ We cannot suppose architects like these so stupid as to imagine they could reach the seat of the gods, or become immortal by getting thither. The plain meaning is, that when they had finished this lofty tower (500 feet high) its Top (a temple or altar on the summit) should be dedicated to the Heavens-the heavenly bodies, or powers, by which they intended to honour the gods. The words might reach, are added by the translators. Till now the earth was of one Lip, or Confession, acknowledging the only living and true God; but now a grand attempt was made to establish idolatry, in the worship of the heavens, and to make a Name above every other name, for the purpose of worship. But, by the divine interference, they fell into innumerable disputes; they were ultimately scattered abroad, their scheme failed, and the place was called Babel, (Confusion.) The variation of language was the natural result of their wide separation from each other.

instead of mortar, they made a cement of Bitumen, a pitchy substance which flows out of the earth in the plains. of Mesopotamia.

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Thus they began, and for some time proceeded in their intended work, but God, who saw their arrogance and presumption, resolved to disappoint them, and shew them that they were not out of the reach of his Providence and Justice. The Almighty therefore looking on their vanity with indignation, expostulates thus with himself: "Behold they are all one, and have but one language, and this they begin to do; Shall* they not be restrained in all "that they have imagined to do? Yes; we will go down "and confound their language, that they may not under"stand one another." Thus the great Creator took council with his own wisdom and power, and which he immediately put in execution; for he stopped their proceedings by confounding their tongues, so that they spake several languages, and could not understand each other. Their confused dialects produced different ideas in the minds of the men of each family, which, for want of understanding each other's meaning, they applied to improper objects. This occasioned so great a disorder, that they were forced to relinquish the building and being hereby rendered incapable of carrying on their intended work, and of conversing one with another, and so deprived of the conforts and pleasures of mutual intercourse, they willingly parted and dispersed themselves; they who were of one language one way, and those who were of another going another way. Thus God, by scattering them abroad upon the face of the carth, at once both disappointed their design, and accomplished his own; which was to repeople the earth more generally and speedily, than it is

* Shall, &c. Gen. xi. 6. The versions say of the builders of the tower of Babel, And now nothing shall be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." But this is untrue; for God soon put a stop to their design by confounding them, and scattering them abroad. We should therefore translate the text, with the Flemish revisers and Leusden, thus: "Shall they not be restrained in all that they have imagined to do?" Which was soon executed accordingly.

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probable they, of themselves, would otherwise have done.

Upon* this separation, the race of Shem settled in Asia; those of Ham, part in Asia, and part in Africa; and the greatest part of those of Japheth in Europe.. Now among those aspiring builders of Babel, was Nimrod, a bold and enterprizing man, who is by Moses called the mighty huntert before the Lord. It is certain he was a very barbarous and tyrannical man, and laid the foundation of the first great empire in the world, which was called the Babylonian, from the city Babel, or Babylon, its metropolis; from whence, going afterwards into Assyria, he built the great city Nineveh; and from thence this monarchy was afterwards called the Assyrian, the first of the four great em pires of the world.

The confusion of tongues, and dispersion of the family of Noah, happened a hundred and one years after the flood; for Peleg the son of Eber, who was great grandson to Shem, is reckoned to have been born in the hundredth and first year after the flood, and had his name (Peleg) given him from that division of the earth, which in his time was parted among Noah's posterity.

And now Almighty God having disappointed vain mankind in raising an everlasting monument of their folly,

Upon, &c. Moses, Gen. chap. x. and xii. particularly sets down the nations descended from Noah, his sons, grandsons, and great grandchildren. The names of most of those nations being changed, many of them cannot certainly be known; but there are some still remaining. The names of the sons of Shem as Elam, Assur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram, are known in history, where we find the Elamites, the Assyrians, the Arphaxadites, the Lydians, and the Aramites, The name of Chus, the son of Ham, is given in Scripture to the Egyptians and the Arabs; the names of most of their children agreeing with those of the nations of Arabia.

Hunter. Not literally but figuratively. "He began to be a mighty one in the earth; (Gen. x. 8.)—A mighty hunter before the Lord; (ver. 9.)—and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel." He was a mighty setter up of the Heavens for a God, a great seducer of others to worship that false Deity; and not improbably a mighty persecutor of the true worshippers. We read of hunting souls, Ezek. xiii. 17, &c. Jer. v. 26.

and by so wide a separation put it out of their power to at tempt the like again, began to lay the foundation of an holy city, that is, his Church; and chose Abram to be head of a race, elect and faithful, which should endure for ever. And herein it is to be observed, that Moses in his relation chuses rather to write the genealogy of Thare or Terah, than of the other descendants of Shem; because Terah was the father of Abram, afterwards named Abraham, who was called by the Lord to be the father of the Faithful, and of the worshippers of the true God; for his father Terah served other gods, as we may see in Joshua, xxiv. 2.

This Terah had three sons, Haran, Nahor, and Abram; for that is the order of their births. Haran, who was much older than his brethren, dying before his father, left one son named Lot, and two daughters, one of whom was named Milcha, and the other Iscah, both married to their uncles; Milcha to Nahor, and Iscah to Abram, as the Jews record, who will have her to be called Sarai, for her beauty and housewifry.

After the death of Haran, Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, and Sarai, and carried them from Ur, to the land of Canaan; but in their way coming to Haran, or Charran, they took up their abode there for a while; during which time Terah died, being an hundred * and forty-five years old. After the death of Terah, God com

* Hundred, &c. St. Stephen says, that Abraham, after the death of his father, removed from Charran to the land of Canaan, Acts, vii. 4. and Gen. xii. 5. it is said, that Abraham was seventy-five years old when he departed out of Charran; and Gen. xi. 26, it is said, that Terah was seventy years old when he begat Abraham; and ver. 32. that he died, being two hundred and five years old. But at this rate Terah must have lived sixty years after Abraham's going from Charran: For seventy-five, the number of Abraham's years when he left Charran, being added to seventy, the number of Terah's years when he begat Abraham, make one hundred forty and five years only; whereas it is said, Gen. xi. 32. that he lived two hundred and five. But this must certainly proceed from a fault crept into the text of Moses; and that of the two hundred and five years, which are given to Terah, when he died at Charran, he only lived an hundred and forty-five, according to the Samaritan version and Chronicle, which, without doubt, agree with the Hebrew copy, from whence they were translated.

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