5. Sabtechah (Joseph. YafiaKaOd, llafiaKd9ac) is by Kalisch thought to have settled in Ethiopia, and tlie fonn of the word favors the opinion, the other com- poimds o{ Sab being apparently of Ethiopic or Cushite origin. " Its obvious resemblance to the Ethiopian name Siibatol; discovered on Egyptian monimients (comp. the king X^.D, in 2 Kings xvii, 4, and the Sebe- chtis of Manetho), renders its position in Arabia, or at tlie Persian Gulf, improbable ; but Sanu/dace, in (iecho- sia (as Bochart supposes), or Tabochosta, in Persia (as Bohlen suggests), or Satakos, are out of the question. The Targum of Jonathan renders it here ^NSjT (Zirir/i), which is the Arabic name for the African district Zan- gitebar, and which is not inappropriate here" (Kalisch). See SABTECifAir.
G. Nimrod (Joseph. 'Stj3pwSr]c), the mighty founder of the earliest imperial power, is the rjrandest name, nf)t, only among the children of Ham, but in primaeval his- tory. He seems to have been deified under the title of Bilu-Nipru, or Bel-Nimrod, which may be translated '• the god of the chase," or " the great hunter." (The Greek forms l^tijSpwS and Nf/3paifl serve to connect A7- pru with 11^3. The native root is thought to be na- par, " to pursue," or " cause to flee," Rawlinson, p. 196.) He is noticed here in his place, in passing, because around his name and exploits has gathered a mass <if Eastern tradition from all sources, which entirely corrob- orates the statement of Moses, that the primitive em- pire of the Chaldfcans was Cushite, and that its people were closely connected with Egypt, and Canaan, and Ethiopia. Rawlinson {Fire Great JSIov., chap, iii) has collected much of this tradition, and sho^vn that the hints of Herodotus as to the existence of an Asiatic Ethiopia as well as an African one (iii, 94; vii, 70), and that the traditional belief which Closes of Chorcne, the Armenian historian, has, for instance, that Nimrod is in fact Belus, and grandson of Cush by Jlizraim (a statement substantially agreeing with that of the Bi- ble), have been too strongly confirmed by all recent re- searches (among the cmieiform inscrijjtions) in compar- ative philology "to be set aside by criticism based on the mere conjectures of ingenious men. It woidd api^ear that Nimrod not only built cities, and conquered exten- sive territories, " subduing or expelling the various tribes by which the country' was previously occupied" (Raw- linson, p. 195; comp. Gen. x, 10-12 [margin-il version]), but establislied a dvnasty of some eleven or twelve mon- archs. Bv-and-by (about 1500 B.C. ; see Rawlinson, p. 223) the ancient Chaldaeans, the stock of Cush and i)eo- ple of Nimrod, sank into obscurity, crushed by a foreign Shemitic stock, destined after some seven or eight cen- turies of submission to revive to a second tenure of im- perial iiowor. which culminated in grandeur under the magnificent Nebuchadnezzar. Sec NuiKOU.
HAM
38
HAM
II. ]^IizR.\TM (Joseph. Mfcpatv.Mfffrpni^xoc), that is, tlie father of Kgypt, is the second son of Cush. Of this ,Ui<d f-.mi of a man's name we have other instances in Kphniim antl Shalnmiim (1 Chron. vui, 8). AVc sim- i.lv call the reader's attention to the fact, vouched for in this };ejiealoffv of the Hamites, of //«> neurness of kindred betuwi Ximr'od and Mizmim. This point is of great value in the studv of ancient Eastern history, and will reconcile manv (iilticidties which woidd otherwise be insolul.le. '■ For the last 3000 years it is to the Shemi- tic and Indo-luiri.pean races that the world has been maiidv indebted for its advancement;' but it was other- wise in the lirst ages. iJjupt and Bahi/hn, jMizraim and Nimrod,lH)th descendants of Ham, led the way and acted as the pioneers of mankind in the various untrod- den fields of art, literature, and science. Alphabetic writing, astronomy, history, chronologj', architecture, idastic'art, scidpti'u-e, navigation, agriculture, and tex- tile industry, seem, all of them, to have had their origin in one or other of these two countries" (Kawlinson, p. 75).
If, as some suppose, :Mizraim in the Usts of Gen. x, and 1 Chron. i, stan<ls for IMizrim, we should take the singular Jlazor to be the name of the progenitor of the Kgvptian tribes. It is remarkable that IMazor appears to be identical in signification with Ham, so that it may be but another name of the patriarch. See Egypt. In this case the mention of ]\Iizraim (or ^Mizrim) would be geographical, and not indicative of a Mazor, son of Ham.
The iSIizraites, like the descendants of Ham, occupy a territon.' wider than that bearing the name of Miz- raim. We may, however, suppose that Jlizraim in- cluded all the first settlements, and that in remote times other tribes besides the Philistines migrated, or extend- ed their territories. This we may infer to have been the case with the Lchabim (Lnbim) or Libj'ans, for Manetho speaks of them as in the remotest period of Egyptian history sul>ject to the Pharaohs. He teUs us tliat under the first king of the third dynasty, of Mem- pliites, Xecherophes, or Necherochis, "the Lil)yans re- volted from the Eg\-ptians, but, on accotnit of a wonder- ful increase of the moon, submitted through fear" (Cory's A nr. Frtiij. 2d edit. p. 100, 101). It is unUkely that at this very early time the Jlcmphite kingdom ruled far, if at all, beyond the western boundary of Egj-pt. See