THE NEW SCHAFP-SER20G
regarded as the home of the Israelitic branch of the Hebrews in the Old Testament. For Peleg the best assonance is found in the place-name Phalga at the confluence of the Chabor with the Euphrates; the narrator makes a word-play on the name with the meaning " divide " (cf. Gen. xi. 1-9), but does not carry his line further, because in later passages the development is followed out (cf. Gen. xi. 10 sqq., xii. sqq.), and the Moabites and Ammonites, Arameans Ketureans, Ishmaelites, and Edomites are touched on in later chapters. In verses 26-29 the descendants of Joktan are named, and thirteen South Arabian stocks are given, though probably originally there were but twelve. Little is known of the settlement of the individual areas of the different tribes.
This review of the data derived from J shows that it is nowhere complete. The transition is lacking from Shem to Eber (verse 21 sqq.), and nothing is said of Japheth. Possibly the beginning of the table of J is to be found in ix. 18-19 and 3. Character x. lb, where is found the same orderof the J ing of the brethren as in P (x. 1), and Narrative, x. 21 shows that Japheth follows Shem. It appears that the order " Shem, Ham, Japheth " is late. The older J thinks of all mankind as springing from one family, that of Noah, who stands at the head of the new race after the flood, and so divides the whole into three branches derived from the three sons. But according to Gen. ix. 20-27 Noah was the original settler in Canaan, the founder there of agriculture and viticulture, while his sons represented the inhabitants of that region. The difference can not now be explained. The representation in the " table of the nations " does not have the usual purpose, viz., to trace the relationship of nations by speech* and descent. J was concerned with the Hebrew races in their widest extent and with the South Arabian stocks. The mention of Ham raises great difficulties. But it is not to be understood that the author brings together not only the Egyptians and neighboring peoples, but also Canaan, the Hittites, and even the Assyrian-Babylonians with Cush all under Ham under the relationship of blood and of speech; rather it is political and geographical relationships that influence him. He counts Israel as belonging to Shem, the Canaanites to Ham, although Israel spoke the speech of Canaan. If Cush (verse 8) belongs to South Arabia, it may be that the matter of verses 26-29 was derived from a tradition of early wanderings no longer in existence. Ham in the Old Testament is used for Egypt (Ps. lxxviii. 51, cv. 23, 27, cvi. 22); the word may correspond to the native name for the land, kam-t, Coptic kemi, khemi. The purpose of the narrative is ethnographic— to give a review of the peoples in the little world of the author; but the material employed is not all of a kind ; names of persons, cities, and peoples are commingled. The material dates from a time when Assyria and Babylon were known, when Assyria was the ruling power and had not gone down under the Medes and Babylonians. The most important people in Canaan were the Phenicians, while the Hittites had still importance for Palestine, and their cities were not yet overcome
by the Assyrians. The knowledge of the South Arabians is a consequence of the commerce under Solomon, a relation which was broken off when the Edomites got their freedom, c. 845. The age of this source, therefore, can not be lower than the eighth century, with parts still older.
Concerning Japheth the redactor used material
only from P, possibly because the data of J no longer
suited the situation. Japheth had seven sons. Of
these Gomer corresponds to the Cimmerians of the
Odyssey (xi. 14) and Herodotus (iv.
4. Japheth 11-12), the Gimir of the Assyrian in-
in the scriptions, dwelling to the north of the Narrative Black Sea and west of the Don, who
of P. migrated in the eighth century to Thrace, thence with Thracian tribes to Asia Minor c. 709 B.C., where about 650 they came into conflict with the Lydians and were driven back to the highland of the Halys. To Gomer are assigned three sons, Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. Ashkenaz has been taken to mean the Phrygian Ascanians; but Winckler (Altorientalische Forschungen, i. 484 sqq., Leipsic, 1893) would read Ashkuz instead of Ashkenaz, and see in them the Scythians, designated in the cuneiform documents Ashkuza. This is a possibility, but the mistake in writing is hardly a probability. In Jer. li. 27 Ashchenaz is named in an Armenian environment, or on the upper Euphrates and about the Araxes. Bochart and Lagarde look for Riphath in the Ribantians on the River Ribas in Bithynia not far from the Bosporus, while Josephus equates them with the Paphlagonians. Togarmah (cf. Ezek. xxvii. 14, xxxviii. 6) is by scholars brought into connection with the Armenians, who once stretched down into the Taurus and Antitaurus, who derived their descent from Haik, son of Thorgom. The locus indicated for Gomer and his sons is, therefore, chiefly in the neighborhood of Cappadocia and Armenia. The second son of Japheth, Magog, is first mentioned in Ezek. xxxix. 6 in close connection with Gog (see Gog and Magog). For the third son of Japheth, Madai, see Medo-Persia. Javan (q.v.) designates the Greeks in general (cf. verse 5), though in Ezek. xxvii. 13; Isa. lxvi. 19, Javan appears along with Tubal and Meshech, cf. verse 4, where the sons of Javan are Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim (q.v.). The Kittim were originally the inhabitants of the city Citium in Cyprus, then, generally, of Cyprus. Tarshish, the Greek-Roman Tartessus, was the Andalusian plain on both sides of Guadalquivir in Spain; Elisha is either Carthage or Sicily. Since these four names (of verse 4) stood originally in connection with the Phenicians, their arrangement under Javan is a surprise, to be explained by the consideration, however, that the expression " son " does not necessarily express derivation, but rather a relationship of influence, whether through cult, politics, or commerce. Hence for P what once was Phenician is now Greek, the latter having gained the hegemony of the Mediterranean Sea after about 700 B.C., Carthage alone remaining distinctly Phenician. Tubal and Meshech (verse 2) are in the Old Testament often named together (Ezek. xxvii. 13, xxxii. 26, etc.). The former (Assyr. Tabali) are the Tibareni, and