RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Table of the Nations
Meshech (Assyr. Mushki) are the Moschi of Herodotus (III., xciv., VII., Ixxviii.), according to Assyrian data of the ninth century north of Cilicia; Herodotus places the Moschi between the upper Phasis and Kyros, the Tibareni east of Thermodon in the later kingdom of Pontus. Either the Assyrians or the Cimmerians drove them from their old settlements. For Tiras one would look somewhere in the neighborhood of Tubal and Meshech; the Tyrrheni seem to be too far to the west. The peoples named in verses 2-5a are all assigned to Japheth, and dwell northward from the Taurus, eastward as far as Media, westward to the isles and coasts of the Mediterranean, with the exception of Crete (see above). The Persians do not appear — are they included under the Medes? A satisfactory explanation of the name Japheth has not yet been given.
Under Ham P first names Cush (q.v.). By this name the Old Testament usually means the land and people south of Egypt. Originally the Cushites dwelt in the land rich in gold east of the Nile ; later, Syene was their northern boundary. They were usually despised by the Egyptians, who under the twelfth dynasty subdued their northern tribes,
while in the new kingdom their land
5. Cush in was an Egyptian province. By 1000
P. B.C. the land was lost to Egypt, and in
the eighth century the Cushite or Ethiopian kings subjected Egypt. Their chief city was Napata, the present Merawi between the third and fourth cataracts, and their culture was Egyptian. The So of II Kings xvii. 4 has been identified with Shabako of the twenty-fifth dynasty (Ethiopian); Winckler understands rather Sib'i (Shabi), the general of Pir'u, king of Muzri in northwestern Arabia (see Assyeia, VI., 3, § 10, and 2, § 1). Another king of this dynasty is mentioned in II Kings xix. 9. Several prophecies of Isaiah (xix., xxx. 1-5, xxxi. 1-3) relate to this people, whose rule over Egypt was broken by the campaigns of Esarhaddon and Asshurbanipal (see Assyeia, VI., 3, §§ 13- 14). Probably the campaign of the Persian Cambyses (see Medo-Pebsia) resulted in the fall of Merawi and the assumption of Meroe as the capital of the Cushites under a priesthood which fell at the beginning of the third century. The queen mother was the real power and had the title Candace (cf. Acts viii. 27 sqq.).
To Cush P gives five sons and two grandsons, among them Havilah and Seba, whom J assigns to Joktan (verses 28-29). Seba was frequently identified with Meroe (Josephus, Ant., I., vi. 2), though
Meroe is never called by this name.
6. The Strabo (XVI., iv. 8) and Ptolemseus
Sons of (IV., vii. 7-8) knew of a seaport Saba,
Cush. near the present Massowa, which may
have its name from a Cushite tribe of that name, living between the Nile and the sea. Havilah was probably a considerable territory in South Arabia, is named with Ophir (q.v.) in verse 29; in the course of the centuries it had various tribes as its inhabitants and consequently is in verse 29 reckoned to Joktan and in verse 7 to Cush; in Gen. xxv. 8 it seems to indicate a region in northern Arabia, and the name is known in both the northern and the southern part of the Arabia of
to-day. Whether it had any connection with the kolpos Ayalites and the Abalitai on the African coast near the straits of Bab al-Mandeb named by Ptolemseus and Pliny can not be made out. Glaser connects Sabtah (verse 7) with the city Saphtha named by Ptolemseus (VI., vii. 30) not far from the western coast of the Persian Gulf; others think of the old Arabian city Sabbatha or Sabota, the central point for the commerce in spices. Nothing certain is known of Sabtecha. Raamah has been newly found on Sabasan inscriptions as a placename within the region of the early Minseans north of Maryab. Sheba, one of the sons of Raamah, is no doubt the people often mentioned in the Old Testament and in early writers as the Sabaeans, who dwelt in Southwest Arabia and were connected always with gold and incense material (Isa. lx. 6) and with the commerce from India; their chief city, Sheba or Maryab, lay three days' journey from San'a, and numerous inscriptions show that their speech was Semitic. Little is known of their history; they rendered tribute to Tiglath- Pileser III., and Sargon the Assyrian. Of the extent of their territory and their relations to the Minasans almost nothing is certain. The fact that in the Old Testament they are now reckoned to Cush, now to Shem, and then to Joktan the son of Keturah (Gen. xxv. 3), is not to be construed as meaning three separate stocks, but simply as implying change of settlement and of relationships, and that alongside the settled Sabaeans there were those who lived a nomadic life and that groups broke away and led a separate existence. Dedan appears (Jer. xlix. 8; Ezek. xxv. 13) as being on the southern border of Edom; the present writer may have had in mind a part which wandered to the south and came into relations with the Sabaeans. The arrangement of the districts named under Cush in verse 7 shows that the writer did not limit Cush to Africa but extended it to the west coast of Arabia, whose inhabitants had connections with the regions of the Upper Nile, and he was not governed by the matter of language, since he included Sheba. The arrangement of Sheba as a son of Ramaah proves that he dealt with a late period. The Phut of verse 6 refers to the land of Punt, designating the coast east of the Nile and north of the region of the Cushites and the region opposite in Arabia. The connecting of Canaan with Cush, Egypt, and Phut again shows that the matter of language did not control the narrator. Ham meant for him the people on the southern Nile and the adjacent coast of the Red Sea; why -Canaan is brought in here is not clear, but perhaps it was the opposition between Israel and Canaan and also that the center of Phenician power in his time was transferred from the Phenician to the African coast at Carthage. With this J in verses 15-19 hardly agrees. If the division " Shem, Ham (instead of Canaan), and Japheth " issued first from P, the use of earlier pieces necessarily involved dissimilarity and contradiction. The relations of Cush imply the twentyfifth dynasty; were earlier data used, or were there migrations to us unknown?
The data of P concerning Shem are in verses 22-23. For Elam and Asshur see Elam; and As-
Table of the Nations Taffin, Jean