It may be added that the various tribes men- tioned in the Hexateuch as inhabiting Palestine are in all probability merely local subdivisions of the Canaanites, and not co-ordinate independent races. An exception is made of the HITTITES by those who hold them to have been immigrants from Syria, where they preceded the Arameans. It is a matter of surprise that in Gn 10 the Canaanites, as well as the people of Middle Babylonia, are associated with the people of Upper and Lower Egypt (Cush and Mizraim). The explanation,
robably, is that the Egyptians are partly of Semitic origin, and that there existed in Palestine, as well as in Babylonia, from very remote times, a population supposed to be akin to the Egyptians, with whom the later inhabitants mingled. The PHILISTINES were probably a non-Semitic people, possibly from the island of Crete, whose settle- ment in Palestine was made not earlier than the 14th or 13th cent. B.c.
(d) The Hebrews. —By this name we have to understand, not Israel alone, but all the Hebraic peoples, including as well the Edomites proper, the Moabites and Ammonites, whom the traditions of Israel with good reason claim as kindred. Their larger affiliations are not easy to make out. At least Israel and Moab spoke ‘Hebrew.’ But this was the language of Canaan; and they may have
* As to their places of settlement on the west coastland it is noteworthy that the Phen. maritime cities extend to the north of Lebanon, while the Canaanites of the interior are not found to a certainty anywhere except south of that mountain range.
The opportunities of trading by sea perhaps account for this local divergence,
SEMITES 87
acquired it by immigration, just as the Edomites learned Arabic. Our best guide is the biblical record, according to which Abraham, their common ancestor, of the line of Arpachshad, Eber, and Peleg, came from Ur of the Chaldees, in the west of the Lower Bn pirates. This implies Bab. kinship, But as belonging to a family of shepherds he was likely to have Aram. associations, since Arameans abounded in all the neighbouring pasture-grounds. It is in accordance with this hypothesis that we find him soj ourning in Harran, the great Aram. settlement in Mesopotamia. His kindred there were always reckoned as Arameans ; and the immediate ancestor of the Israelites, though born and reared in Canaan, is called a ‘stray Aramean’ (Dt 26°). But none of the Semites show such a racial admixture as do the children of Israel, Primarily of Bab. affinity, their association with the Babylonians is attested by the common traditions of these two most high] endowed branches of the Semitic race. The resi- dence in Egypt did not add any new elements to the already acquired Aramzean. Nor does it seem probable that all of the Hebrews of Canaan joined in the migration to Egypt with the family of Jacob. But both before and after the permanent settlement in Canaan large accessions were made of Arab. derivation (Kenites and others), while we have also to take account of the absorption of much of the Can. population after the conquest. It was therefore not till shortly before the found- ing of the monarchy that the people of Israel assumed that fixity of racial type popularly known as ‘Hebrew.’ What kept the community together through endless vicissitudes of fortune, what still gives Israel even now a bond of spiritual unity, is not purity of race, but steadfastness of faith in J”, the old-time God of Israel. At the same time it is manifest that, so far as descent is concerned, the Hebrews must be taken only secondarily as one of the divisions of the Northern Semites.
ii, HISTORY OF THE SEMITES.—It appears, there- fore, that we have to reckon with four primary branches of the Semitic stock: Arabians (and Sabeeans) in the south ; Babylonians, Arameans, Canaanites in the north. From the Southern branch the Abyssinians are a secondary offshoot ; from the Northern, the Hebrews. When we seek for the original home of this oldest of civilized races we are pointed to a region in N. Arabia, probably not far from the Lower Euphrates. The Semitic civilization is essentially of nomadic origin. N. Arabia is the geographical centre of the race. It is much more likely to have peopled the surrounding highlands than to have been peopled from them. The Arabic language is upon the whole nearest the primitive Sem. speech, as it is by far the oldest and purest of all living tongues, and its speakers in Arabia belong to the oldest and purest of races. Again, the Egyp. language has an important Sem. admixture; and it must have been from Arabia that this element was derived. We assume that the Northern Semites— Babylonians, Aramzans, Canaanites — lived long together apart from the Arabs, who tended always to the centre of the desert.*
The order of divergence seems to have been as follows:—The ancestors of all the Semites re- mained in their desert home for an indefinitely long period before the decisive separation took place. Very early, however, apparently even before the Sem. language was fully developed, a section of the tribes leavened the N. African population
* The first of all the Semites to form fixed settlements were the Babylonians. Since the ‘Hebrew’ language shows on the whole closer phonetic relations with the ‘ Assyrian’ than does the Aramaic, it follows that the speakers of the former, or the