Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

" sons of God" (DTiijsn ""jn) and " daughters of men" (D^TSn n^^a). Three different views have been entertained from the very earliest times: the " sons of God" being regarded as (a) the sons of princes, (5) angels, (c) the Sethites or godly men; and the " daughters of men," as the daughters (a) of people of the lower orders, (b) of mankind generally, (c) of the Cainites, or of the rest of mankind as contrasted with the godly or the children of God. Of these three views, the first, although it has become the traditional one in orthodox rabbinical Judaism, may be dismissed at once as not warranted by the usages of the language, and as altogether unscriptural. The second, on the contrary, may be defended on two plausible grounds: first, the fact that the " sons of God," in Job i. 6; ii. 1, and xxxviH. 7, and in Dan. iii. 25, are unquestionably angels (also DvK '•pn in Ps. xxix. 1 and Ixxxix. 7); and secondly, the antithesis, " sons of God" and " daughters of men." Apart from the context and tenor of the passage, these two points would lead us most naturally to regard the "sons of God" as anijels, in distinction from men and the daughters of men. But this explanation, though the first to suggest itself, can only lay claim to be received as the correct one, provided the language itself admits of no other. Now that is not the case. For it is not to angels only that the term " sons of Elohim," or " sons of Elim," is applied; but in Ps. Ixxiii. 15, in an address to Elohim, the godly are called " the generation of Thy sons," i.e. sons of Elohim; in Deut. xxxii. 5 the Israelites are called His (God's) sons, and in Hos. i. 10, " sons of the living God;" and in Ps. Ixxx. 17, Israel is spoken of as the son, whom Elohim has made strong. These passages show tliat the expression " sons of God" cannot be elucidated by philological means, but must be interpreted by theology alone. Moreover, even when it is applied to the angels, it is questionable whether it is to be understood in a physical or ethical sense. The notion that " it is employed in a physical sense as nomen naturce, instead of angels as nomen officii^ and presupposes generation of a physical kind," we must reject as an unscriptural and gnostic error. According to the scriptural view, the heavenly spirits are creatures of God, and not begotten from the divine essence. Moreover, all the other terms applied to the angels are ethical in their character. But if the title " sons of God" cannot involve the notion of physical generation, it cannot be restricted to celestial spirits, but is applicable to all beings which bear the image of God, or by virtue of their likeness to God participate in the glory, power, and blessedness of the divine life, — to men therefore as well as angels, since God has caused man to " want but little of Elohim," or to stand but a little behind Elohim (Ps. viii. 5), so that even magistrates are designated " Elohim, and sons of the Most High" (Ps. Ixxxii. 6). When Delitzscli objects to the application of the expression " sons of Elohim" to pious men, because, " although the idea of a child of God may indeed have pointed, even in the O. T., beyond its theocratic limitation to Israel (Ex. iv. 22; Deut. xiv. 1) towards a wider ethical signification (Ps. Ixxiii. 15; Prov. xiv. 26), yet this extension and expansion were not so completed, that in historical prose the terms ^ sons of God' (for w^hich ' sons of Jehovah' should have been used to prevent mistake), and ' sons (or daughters) of men,' could be used to distinguish the children of God and the children of the world," — this argument rests upon the erroneous supposition, that the ex pression '-' sons of God" was introduced by Jehovah for the first time when He selected Israel to be the covenant nation. So much is true, indeed, that before the adoption of Israel as the first-born son of Jehovah (Ex. iv. 22), it would have been out of place to speak of sons of Jehovah; but the notion is false, or at least incapable of proof, that there were not children of God in the olden time, long before Abraham's call, and that, if there were, they could not have been called " sons of Elohim." The idea was not first introduced in connection with the theocracy, and extended thence to a more universal signification. It had its roots in the divine image, and therefore was general in its application from the very first; and it was not till God in the character of Jehovah chose Abraham and his seed to be the vehicles of salvation, and left the heathen nations to go their own way, that the expression received the specifically theocratic signification of " son of Jehovah," to be again liberated and expanded into the more comprehensive idea of vloOeaia rov Seov {i.e. JEloJiim, not rod KvpLov = Jehovah), at the coming of Christ, the Saviour of all nations. If in the olden time there were pious men who, like Enoch and Noah, walked with Elohim, or who, even if they did not stand in this close priestly relation to God, made the divine image a reality through their piety and fear of God, then there were sons (children) of God, for whoni the only correct appellation was " sons of Elohim," since sonship to Jehovah was introduced with the call of Israel, so that it could only have been proleptically that the children of God in the old world could be called " sons of Jehovah." But if it be still argued, that in mere prose the term " sons of God" could not have been applied to children of God, or pious men, this would be equally applicable to " sons of Jehovah." On the other hand, there is this objection to our applying it to angels, that the pious, who walked with God and called upon the name of the Lord, had been mentioned just before, whereas no allusion had been made to angels, not even to their creation.

Again, the antithesis " sons of God" and " daughters of men" does not prove that the former were angels. It by no means follows, that because in ver. 1 DIKH denotes man as a genus, i.e. the whole human race, it must do the same in ver. 2, where the expression " daughters of men" is determined by the antithesis " sons of God." And with reasons existing for understanding by the sons of God and the daughters of men two species of the genus Dl5<n, mentioned in ver. 1, no valid objection can be offered to the restriction of Dixn, through the antithesis Elohim, to all men with the exception of the sons of God; since this mode of expression is by no means unusual in Hebrew. " From the ex-

pression * daughters of men^ " as Dettinger observes, " it by no means follows that the sons of God were not men; any more than it follows from Jer. xxxii. 20, where it is said that God had done miracles ^in Israel, and among men,'* or from Isa. xliii. 4, where God says He will give men for the Israelites, or from Judg. xvi. 7, where Samson says, that if he is bound with seven green withs he shall be as weak as a man, or from Ps. Ixxiii. 5, where it is said of the ungodly they are not in trouble as men^ that the Israelites, or Samson, or the ungodly, were not men at all. In all these passages D*it< (men) denotes the remainder of mankind in distinction from those who are especially named."

Cases occur, too, even in simple prose, in which the same term is used, first in a general, and then directly afterwards in a more restricted sense. We need cite only one, which occurs in Judg. xix.-xxi. In chap. xix. 30 reference is made to the coming of the children of Israel (i.e. of the twelve tribes) out of Egypt; and directly afterwards (chap. xx. 1, 2) it is related that " all the children of Israel," " all the tribes of Israel," assembled together

(to make war, as we learn from vers. 3 sqq., upon Benjamin); and in the whole account of the w^ar, chap. xx. and xxi., the tribes of Israel are distinguished from the tribe of Benjamin: so that the expression " tribes of Israel" really means the rest of the tribes with the exception of Benjamin. And yet the Benjamites were Israelites. Why then should the fact that the sons of God are distinguished from the daughters of men prove that the former could not be men? There is not force enough in these two objections to compel us to adopt the conclusion that the sons of God were angels.

The question whether the " sons of Elohim " were celestial or terrestrial sons of God (angels or pious men of the family of Seth) can only be determined from the context, and from the substance of the passage itself, that is to say, from what is related respecting the conduct of the sons of God and its results. That the connection does not favour the idea of their being angels, is acknowledged even by those who adopt this view. " It cannot be denied," says Delitzsch, " that the connection of chap. vi. 1-8 with chap. iv. necessitates the assumption, that such intermarriages (of the Sethite and Cainite families) did take place about the time of the flood (cf. Matt. xxiv. 38; Luke xvii. 27); and the prohibition of mixed marriages under the law (Ex. xxxiv. 16; cf. Gen. xxvii. 46, xxviii. 1 sqq.) also favours the same idea." Bat this ''' assumption " is placed beyond all doubt, by what is here related of the sons of God. In ver. 2 it is stated that " the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose," i.e. of any with whose beauty they were charmed; and these wives bare children to them (ver. 4). Now HK'N n\)b (to take a wife) is a standing expression throughout the whole of the Old Testament for the marriage relation established by God at the creation, and is never applied to iropveUiy or the simple act of physical connection. This is quite sufficient of itself to exclude any reference to angels. For Christ Himself distinctly states that the angels cannot marry (Matt. xxii. 30; Mark xii. 25; cf. Luke xx. 34 sqq.). And when Kurtz endeavours to weaken the force of these words of Christ, by arguing that they do not prove that it is impossible for angels so to fall from their original holiness as to sink into an unnatural state; this phrase has no meaning, unless by conclusive analogies, or the clear testimony of Scripture/ it can be proved that the angels either possess by nature a material corporeality adequate to the contraction of a human marriage, or that by rebellion against their Creator they can acquire it, or that there are some creatures in heaven and on earth which, through sinful degeneracy, or by sinking into an unnatural state, can become possessed of the

^ We cannot admit that there is any force in HofmanrCs argument in his Schriftbeweis 1, p. 426, that 'Hhe begetting of children on the part of angels is not more irreconcilable with a nature that is not organized, like that of man, on the basis of sexual distinctions, than partaking of food is with a nature that is altogether spiritual; and yet food was eaten by the angels who visited Abraham." For, in the first place, the eating in this case was a miracle wrought through the condescending grace of the omnipotent God, and furnishes no standard for judging what angels can do by their own power in rebellion against God. And in the second place, there is a considerable difference between the act of eating on the part of the angels of God who appeared in human shape, and the taking of wives and begetting of children on the part of sinning angels. "We are quite unable also to accept as historical testimony, the myths of the heathen respecting demigods, sons of gods, and the begetting of children on the part of their gods, or the fables of the book of Enoch (chap. vi. sqq.) about the 200 angels, with their leaders, who lusted after the beautiful and delicate daughters of men, and who came down from heaven and took to themselves wives, with whom they begat giants of 3000 (or according to one MS. 300) cubits in height. Nor do 2 Pet. ii. 4 and Jude 6 furnish any evidence of angel marriages. Peter is merely speaking of sinning angels in general {dyyi'Kuv ufcdprm^vruu) whom God did not spare, and not of any particular sin on the part of a small number of angels; and Jude describes these angels as rov; f^ri r/ipyiaxi/roc^ tviv totvruv ccp^yjv^ aXAot d'TcoKi'Trovrix.g to iliou oixrYiryiptou, those who kept not their princedom, their position as rulers, but left their own habitation. There is nothing here about marriages with the daughters of men or the begetting of children, even if we refer the word rovTOis in the clause rov ofcotov rovrotg rpo'rrou iKTropvivacctrxi in ver. 7 to the angels mentioned in ver. 6; for iK'Tropvivny^ the commission of fornication, would be altogether different from marriage, that is to say, from a conjugal bond that was permanent even though unnatural. But it is neither certain nor probable that this is the connection of rovroig. Hiither, the latest commentator upon this Epistle, who gives the preference to this explanation of rovToig^ and therefore cannot be accused of being biassed by doctrinal prejudices, says distinctly in the 2d Ed. of his commentary, " rovrotg may be gi-ammatically construed as referring to Sodom and Gomorrah, or per synesin to the inhabitants of these cities; but in that case the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah would only be mentioned indirectly." There is nothing in the rules of syntax, therefore, to prevent our connecting the word with Sodom and Gomorrah; and it is not a fact, that ^' grammatic» et logicse prascepta compel us to refer this word to the angels," as G. v. Zeschwitz says. But power, which they have not by nature, of generating and propagating their species. As man could indeed destroy by sin the nature which he had received from his Creator, but could not by his own power restore it when destroyed, to say nothing of implanting an organ or a powder that was wanting before; so we cannot believe that angels, through apostasy from God, could the very same reason which Huther assigns for not connecting it with Sodom and Gomorrah, may be also assigned for not connecting it with the angels, namely, that in that case the sin of the angels would only be mentioned indirectly. We regard Philipprs explanation (in his Glaubenslehre iii. p. 303) as a possible one, viz. that the word tovtoi? refers back to the oLv&pwTrot dai'h'/ui; mentioned in ver. 4, and as by no means set aside by De T^e^/e'5 objection, that the thought of ver. 8 would be anticipated in that case; for this objection is fully met by the circumstance, that not only does the word oZtoi^ which is repeated five times from ver. 8 onwards, refer back to these men, but even the word rovroig in ver. 14 also. On the other hand, the reference of tovtoi; to the angels is altogether precluded by the cla^jse x»l oi%ihdovaoci OTTiao) crocpKog eripoi;^ which follows the word iKTrbpvivaxcott, For fornication on the part of the angels could only consist in their going after flesh, or, as Hofmann expresses it, " having to do with flesh, for which they were not created," but not in their going after other^ or foreign flesh. There would be no sense in the word sripxg unless those who were sKTropvsvaotvrsg were themselves possessed of adio^; so that this is the only alternative, either we must attribute to the angels a cixp^ or fleshly body, or the idea of referring tovtois to the angels must be given up. When Kurtz replies to this by saying that " to angels human bodies are quite as much a ir£p» (jocp^^ i.e. a means of sensual gratification opposed to their nature and calling, as man can be to human man," he hides the difficulty, but does not remove it, by the ambiguous expression '' opposed to their nature and calling." The eTipot, Qotp^ must necessarily presuppose an ihlec axp^. — But it is thought by some, that even if rovrotg in ver. 7 do not refer to the angels in ver. 6, the words of Jude agree so thoroughly with the tradition of the book of Enoch respecting the fall of the angels, that we must admit the allusion to the Enoch legend, and so indirectly to Gen. vi., since Jude could not have expressed himself more clearly to persons who possessed the book of Enoch, or were acquainted with the tradition it contained. Now this conclusion would certainly be irresistible, if the only sin of the angels mentioned in the book of Enoch, as that for which they were kept in chains of darknes still the judgment-day, had been their intercourse with human wives. For the fact that Jude was acquainted with the legend of Enoch, and took for granted that the readers of his Epistle were so too, is evident from his introducing a prediction of Enoch in vers. 14, 15, which is to be found in chap. i. 9 of Dillmann's edition of the book of Enoch. But it is admitted by all critical writers upon this book, that in the book of Enoch which has been edited by Dillmann^ and is only to be found in an Ethiopia version, there are contradictory legends concerning the fall and judgment

Ver. 3. The sentence of God upon the " sons of God" is also appropriate to men only. " Jehovah said: My spirit shall not rule in men for ever; in their wandering they are fleshr The verb 1^"^=^ signifies to rule (hence P'^^5 the ruler), and to judge, of the angels; that the book itself is composed of earlier and later materials; and that those very sections (chap, vi.-xvi. 106, etc.) in which the legend of the angel marriages is given without ambiguity, belong to the so-called book of Noah^ i.e. to a later portion of the Enoch legend, which is opposed in many passages to the earlier legend. The fall of the angels is certainly often referred to in the earlier portions of the work; but among all the passages adduced by Dillmann in proof of this, there is only one (chap. xix. 1) which mentions the angels who had taken wives. In the others, the only thing mentioned as the sin of the angels or of the hosts of Azazel, is the fact that they were subject to Satan, and seduced those who dwelt on the earth (chap. liv. 3-6), or that they came down from heaven to earth, and revealed to the children of men what was hidden from them, and tlien led them astray to the commission of sin (chap. Ixiv. 2). There is nothing at all here about their taking wives. Moreover, in the earher portions of the book, besides the fall of the angels, there is frequent reference made to a fall, i.e. an act of sin, on the part of the stars of heaven and the army of heaven, which transgressed the commandment of God before they rose, by not appearing at their appointed time (vid. chap, xviii. 14, 15, xxi. 3, xc. 21, 24, etc.); and their punishment and place of punishment are described, in just the same manner as in the case of the wicked angels, as a prison, a lofty and horrible place in which the seven stars of heaven lie bound Hke great mountains and flaming with fire (chap. xxi. 2, 3), as an abyss, narrow and deep, dreadful and dark, in which the star which fell first from heaven is lying, bound hand and foot (chap. Ixxxviii. 1, cf. xc. 24). From these passages it is quite evident, that the legend concerning the fall of the angels and stars sprang out of Isa.:^iv. 21, 22 (" And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall visit the host of the height (Di")?2n {<2V, the host of heaven, by which stars and angels are to be understood) on high (i.e. the spiritual powers oi the heavens) and the kings of the earth upon the earth, and they shall be gathered together, bound in the dungeon, and shut up in prison, and after many days they shall be punished"), along with Isa. xiv. 12 (" How art thou fallen from heaven, thou beautiful morning starl"), and that the account of the sons of God in Gen. vi., as interpreted by those who refer it to the angels, was afterwards combined and amalgamated with it. Now if these different legends, describing the judgment upon the stars that fell from heaven, and the angels that followed Satan in seducing man, in just the same manner as the judgment upon the angels who begot giants from women, were in circulation at the time when the Epistle of Jude was written; we must not interpret the sin of the angels, referred to by Peter and as the consequence of ruling, n^n is the divine spirit of life bestowed upon man, the principle of physical and ethical, natural and spiritual life. This His spirit God will withdraw from man, and thereby put an end to their life and conduct. D3K^3 is regarded by many as a particle, compounded of ^^ K^ a contraction

Jude, in a one-sided manner, and arbitrarily connect it with only such passages of the book of Enoch as speak of angel marriages, to the entire disregard of all the other passages, which mention totally different sins as committed by the angels, that are punished with bands of darkness; but we must interpret it from what Jude himself has said concerning this sin, as Peter gives no further explanation of what he means by 6t,^a.pT^act.i. Now the only sins that Jude mentions are /«»j t»j/9^o-«/ t^jv eccvrcjv dpy^yju and ilTcoT^iTcuu TO fhtov oUnr'npiov. The two are closely connected. Through not keeping the dpx^ i}^- the position as rulers in heaven) which belonged to them, and was assigned them at their creation, the angels left " their own habitation" (Jliov oiKYiTTipiov); just as man, when he broke the commandment of God and failed to keep his position as ruler on earth, also lost " his own habitation" (ihioi/ oUriTrjptoi^)^ that is to say, not paradise alone, but the holy body of innocence also, so that he needed a covering for his nakedness, and will continue to need it, until we are *' clothed upon with our house which is from heaven" (otKYiryjpwv vj/iccou s^ oi/pxuou). In this description of the angels' sin, there is not the slightest allusion to their leaving heaven to woo the beautiful daughters of men. The words may be very well interpreted, as they were by the earlier Christian theologians, as relating to the fall of Satan and his angels, to whom all that is said concerning their punislunent fully applies. If Jude had had the Tropueiec of the angels, mentioned in the Enoch legends, in his mind, he would have stated this distinctly, just as he does in ver. 9 in the case of the legend concerning Michael and the devil, and in ver. 11 in that of Enoch's prophecy. There was all the more reason for his doing this, because not only do contradictory accounts of the sin of the angels occur in the Enoch legends, but a comparison of the parallels cited from the book of Enoch proves that he deviated from the Enoch legend in points of no little importance. Thus, for example, according to Enoch liv. 3, " iron chains of immense weight " are prepared for the hosts of Azazel, to put them into the lowest hell, and cast them on that great day into the furnace with flaming fire. Now Jude and Peter say nothing about iron chains, and merely mention "everlasting chains under darkness " and "chains of darkness." Again, according to Enoch x. 12, the angel sinners are " bound fast under the earth /or seventy generations^ till the day of judgment and their completion, till the last judgment shall be held for all eternity." Peter and Jude make no allusion to this point of time, and the supporters of the angel marriages, therefore, have thought well to leave it out when quoting this parallel to Jude 6. Under these circumstances, the silence of the apostles as to either marriages or fornication on the part of the sinful angels, is a sure sign that they gave no credence to these fables of a Jewish gnosticizing tradition.

of *'^'^., and 05 (also), used in the sense of quoiiiam, because, (K^3 = "»^«3, as K^ or ^ = "i^'« Judg. v. 7, vi. 17; Song of Sol. i. 7). But the objection to this explanation is, that the 05, " because he also is flesh," introduces an incongruous emphasis into the clause. We therefore prefer to regard D2C^ as the tVi/. of JiC' = n:^ with the suffix: " in their erring (that of men) he (man as a genus) is flesh;^'' an explanation to which, to our mind, the extremely harsh change of number (they^ he), is no objection, since many examples might be adduced of a similar change (vid. Hupfeld on Ps. v. 10). Men, says God, have proved themselves by their erring and straying to be flesh, i.e. given up to the flesh, and incapable of being ruled by the Spirit of God and led back to the divine goal of their life. "^ j^2 is used already in its ethical signification, like adp^ in the New Testament, denoting not merely the natural corporeality of man, but his materiality as rendered ungodly by sin. " Therefore his days shall be 120 years:*'' this means, not that human life should in future never attain a greater age than 120 years, but that a respite of 120 years should still be granted to the human race. This sentence, as we may gather from the context, was made known to Noah in his 480th year, to be published by him as " preacher of righteousness" (2 Pet. ii. 5) to the degenerate race. The reason why men had gone so far astray, that God determined to withdraw His spirit and give them up to destruction, was that the sons of God had taken wives of such of the daughters of men as they chose. Can this mean, because angels had formed marriages with the daughters of men? Even granting that such marriages, as being unnatural connections, would have led to the complete corruption of human nature; the men would in that case have been the tempted, and the real authors of the corruption would have been the angels. Why then should judgment fall upon the tempted alone? The judgments of God in the world are not executed with such partiality as this. And the supposition that nothing is said about the punishment of the angels, because the narrative has to do with the history of man, and the spiritual world is intentionally veiled as much as possible, does not meet the difficulty. If the sons of God were angels, the narrative is concerned not only with men, but with angels also; and it is not the custom of the Scriptures merely to relate the judgments which fall upon the tempted, and say nothing at -all about the tempters. For the contrary, see chap. iii. 14 sqq. If the " sons of God" were not men, so as to be included in the term D^^<, the punishment would need to be specially pointed out in their case, and no deep revelations of the spiritual world would be required, since these celestial tempters would be living with men upon the earth, when they had taken wives from among their daughters. The judgments of God are not only free from all unrighteousness, but avoid every kind of partiality.

Yer. 4. " The Nephilim were 07i the earth in those days, and also after that, when the so7is of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them: these are the heroes (D''")35n) who from the olden time {^^^^^, as in Ps. xxv. 6; 1 Sam. xxvii. 8) are the men ofname^^ (i.e. noted, renowned or notorious men). ^YPh from ^^^ to fall upon (Job i. 15; Josh. xi. 7), signifies the invaders {e'miri'TTT0VTe<; Aq., /SiaioL Sym.). Luther gives the correct meaning, "tyrants:" they were called Nephilim because they fell upon the people and oppressed them.^ The meaning of the verse is a subject of dispute. To an unprejudiced mind, the words, as they stand, represent the Nephilim, who were on the earth in those days^ 'aS existing before the sons of God began to marry the daughters of men, and clearly distinguish them from the fruits of these marriages. Vn can no more be rendered " they became, or arose," in this connection, than ^l[} in chap. i. 2. ^""n^l would have been the proper word. The expression " in those days" refers most naturally to the

1 The notion that the Nephilim were giants, to which the Sept. rendering yiyuurss has given rise, was rejected even by Luther as fabulous. He bases his view upon Josh. xi. 7: " Nephilim non dictos a magnitudine corporum^ sicut Rahbini putant, sed a tyrannide et oppressione quod vi grassati sint^ nulla hahita ratione legum aut honestati<i^ sed simpliciter indulgentes suis voluptatibus et cupiditatihusy The opinion that giants are intended derives no support from Num. xiii. 32, 33. When the spies describe the land of Canaan as " a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof," and then add (ver. 33), " and there we saw the Nephilim^ the sons of Anak among (p lit.

frem, out of, in a partitive sense) the Nephilim," by the side of whom they were as grasshoppers; the term Nephilim cannot signify giants, since the spies not only mention them especially along with the inhabitants of the land, who are described as people of great stature, but single out only a portion of the Nephilim as "sons of Anak" (pjy ijs), i-e. long-necked people or giants. The explanation " fallen from heaven" needs no refutation; inasmuch as the main element, "from heaven," is a purely arbitrary addition.

time when God pronounced the sentence upon the degenerate race; but it is so general and comprehensive a term, that it must not be confined exclusively to that time, not merely because the divine sentence was first pronounced after these marriages were contracted, and the marriages, ii they did not produce the corruption, raised it to that fulness of iniquity which was ripe for the judgment, but still more because the words " after that" represent the marriages which drew down the judgment as an event that followed the appearance of the Nephilim. " The same were mighty men:" this might point back to the Nephilim; but it is a more natural supposition, that it refers to the children born to the sons of God. " These/* i,e» the sons sprung from those marriages, " are the heroes, those renowned heroes of old.^^ Now if, according to the simple meaning of the passage, the Nephilim were in existence at the very time when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, the appearance of the Nephilim cannot afford the shghtest evidence that the " sons of God" were angels, by whom a family of monsters were begotten, whether demigods, daemons, or angelmen.^

^ How thoroughly irreconcilable the contents of this verse are with the angel-hypothesis is evident from the strenuous efforts of its supporters to bring them into harmony with it. Thus, in Renter'' s Repert.^ p. 7, DeL observes that the verse cannot be rendered in any but the following manner: " The giants were on the earth in those days, and also afterwards, when the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, these they bare to them, or rather, and these bare to them; " but, for all that, he gives this as the meaning of the words, " At the time of the divine determination to inflict punishment the giants arose^ and also afterwards, when this unnatural connection between super-terrestrial and human beings continued, the. 3 arose such giants;" not only substituting "arose" for "were," but changing " when they connected themselves with them" into " when this connection continued." Nevertheless he is obliged to confess that " it is strange that this unnatural connection, which I also suppose to be the intermediate cause of ^he origin of the giants, should not be mentioned in the first clause of ver. 4." This is an admission that the text says nothing about the origin of the giants being traceable to the marriages of the sons of God, but that the commentators have been obliged to insert it in the text to save their angel marriages. Kurtz has tried three different explanations of this verse, but they are all opposed to the rules of the language. (1) In the History of the Old Covenant he gives this rendering: " Nephilim were on earth in these days, and that even after the sons of God had formed connections with the daughters of men;" in which he not only gives to D5 the unsupportable

Vers. 5-8. Now when the wickedness of man became great, and " every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil the whole day,'^ i.e. continually and altogether evil, it repented God that He had made man, and He determined to destroy them. This determination and the motive assigned are also irreconcilable with the angel-theory. " Had the godless race, which God destroyed by the flood, sprung either entirely or in part from the marriage of angels to the daughters of men, it would no longer have been the race first created by God in Adam, but a grotesque product of the Adamitic factor created by God, and an entirely foreign and angelic factor" (Phil.).^ The force of Dm"., "it repented the Lord,"

feet!|X3. (2) In his Ehen der Sohne Gottes (p. 80) he gives the choice of this and the following rendering: " The Nephilim were on earth in those days, and also after this had happened, that the sons of God came to the daughters of men and begat children," where the ungrammatical rendering of the imperfect as the perfect is artfully concealed by the interpolation of " after this had happened." (3) In " die Sohne Gottes,'' p. 85: " In these days and also afterwards, when the sons of God came (continued to come) to the daughters of men, they bare to them (sc. Nephilim)," where ^{<h\

But when he observes in defence of this quid pro quo, that " the imperfect denotes here, as Hengstenberg has correctly affirmed, and as so often is the case, an action frequently repeated in past times," this remark only shows that he has neither understood the nature of the usage to which H. refers, nor what Ewald has said (§ 136) concerning the force and use of the imperfect.

^ When, on the other hand, the supporters of the angel marriages maintain that it is only on this interpretation that the necessity for the flood, i.e. for the complete destruction of the whole human race with the exception of righteous Noah, can be understood, not only is there no scriptural foundation for this argument, but it is decidedly at variance with those statements of the Scriptures, w^hich speak of the corruption of the men whom God had created, and not of a race that had arisen through an unnatural connection of angels and men and forced their way into God's creation. If it were really the case, that it would otherwise be impossible to understand where the necessity could lie, for all the rest of the human race to be destroyed and a new beginning to be made, whereas afterwards, when Abraham was chosen, the rest of the human race was not only spared, but preserved for subsequent participation in the blessings of salvation: we should only need to call Job to mind, who also could not comprehend the necessity for the fearful sufferings which overwhelmed him, and was unable to discover the justice of God, but who was afterwards taught a better may be gathered from the explanatory 2^Vn\, " it grieved Him at His heart." This shows that the repentance of God does not presuppose any variableness in His nature or His purposes. In this sense God never repents of anything (1 Sam. xv. 29), " quia nihil illi inopinatum vel non prcRvisum accidit'' (Calvin). The repentance of God is an anthropomorphic expression for the pain of the divine love at the sin of man, and signifies that " God is hurt no less by the atrocious sins of men than if they pierced His heart with mortal anguish" {Calvin). The destruction of all, " from man unto beast," etc., is to be explained on the ground of the sovereignty of man upon the earth, the irrational creatures being created for him, and therefore involved in his fall. This destruction, however, was not to bring the human race to an end. " Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." In these words mercy is seen in the midst of wrath, pledging the preservation and restoration of humanity.

The important relation in which Noah stands both to sacred and universal history, arises from the fact, that he found mercy on account of his blameless walk with God; that in him the human race was kept from total destruction, and he was preserved from the all-destroying flood, to found in his sons a new lesson by God Himself, and reproved for his rash conclusions, as a suflBcient proof of the deceptive and futile character of all such human reasoning. But this is not the true state of the case. The Scriptures expressly afl&rm, that after the flood the moral corruption of man was the sa-me as before the flood; for they describe it in chap. viii. 21 in the very same words as in chap. vi. 6: and the reason they assign for the same judgment not being repeated, is simply the promise that God would no more smite and destroy all living, as He had done before — an evident proof that God expected no change in human nature, and out of pure mercy and long-suffering would never send a second flood. " Now, if the race destroyed had been one that sprang from angel-fathers, it is difficult to understand why no improvement was to be looked for after the flood; for the repetition of any such unnatural angel-tragedy was certainly not probable, and still less inevitable" {Philippi).

beginning to the history of the world. The piety of Noah, his preservation, and the covenant through which God appointed him the head of the human race, are the three main points in this section. The first of these is dismissed in a very few words. The second, on the contrary, viz. the destruction of the old world by the flood, and the preservation of Noah, together with the animals enclosed in the ark, is circumstantially and elaborately described, " because this event included, on the one hand, a work of judgment and mercy of the greatest significance to the history of the kingdom of God " — a judgment of such universality and violence as will only be seen again in the judgment at the end of the world; and, on the other hand, an act of mercy which made the flood itself a flood of grace, and in that respect a type of baptism (1 Pet. iii. 21), and of life rising out of death. *^ Destruction ministers to preservation, immersion to purification, death to new birth; the old corrupt earth is buried in the flood, that out of this grave a new world may arise" {Delitzsch),

Vers. 9-12 contain a description of Noah and his contemporaries; vers. 13-22, the announcement of the purpose of God with reference to the flood. — Ver. 9. " Noah, a righteous man, was blameless among his generations:" righteous in his moral relation to God; blameless (reXeio^;, integer) in his character and conduct, nil'^j yevealj were the generations or families " which passed by Noah, the Nestor of his time." His righteousness and integrity were manifested in his walking with God, in which he resembled Enoch (chap. v. 22). — In vers. 10-12, the account of the birth of his three sons, and of the corruption of all flesh, is repeated. This corruption is represented as corrupting the whole earth and filling it with wickedness; and thus the judgment of the flood is for the first time fully accounted for. " The earth was corrupt before God (JElohim points back to the previous ^Zo/wm in ver. 9)," it became so conspicuous to God, that He could not refrain from punishment. The corruption proceeded from the fact, that " all flesh " — i.e, the whole human race which had resisted the influence of the Spirit of God and become flesh (see ver. 3) — " had corrupted its way^^ The term " flesh" in ver. 12 cannot include the animal world, since the expression, " corrupted its way/' is applicable to man alone. The fact that in vers. 13 and 17 this term embraces both men and animals is no proof to the contrary, for the simple reason, that in ver. 19 " all flesh" denotes the animal world only, an evident proof that the precise meaning of the word must always be determined from the context. — Yer. 13. " The end of all flesh is come before MeJ^ ^^ ^^3, when applied to rumours, invariably signifies " to reach the ear" (vid. chap, xviii. 21; Ex. iii. 9; Esth. ix. 11); hence ^^Q^ &<3 in this case cannot mean a me constitutus est (Ges.). Ti?, therefore, is not the end in the sense of destruction, but the end (extremity) of depravity or corruption, which leads to destruction. ^' For the earth has become full of wickedness Dn^jQD/' i.e. proceeding from them, " and I destroy them along with the earths Because all flesh had destroyed its way, it should be destroyed with the earth by God. The lex talionis is obvious here. — Vers. 14 sqq. Noah was exempted from the extermination. He was to build an ark, in order that he himself, his family, and the animals might be preserved, narij which is only used here and in Ex. ii. 3, 5, where it is applied to the ark in which Moses was placed, is probably an Egyptian word: the LXX. render it kl^odto^ here, and Ol^rj in Exodus; the Vulgate area, from which our word ark is derived. Gopher-wood (ligna bituminata; Jerome) is most likely cypress. The air, Xey. gopher is related to "isb^ resin, and Kxnrapiacro^; it is no proof to the contrary that in later Hebrew the cypress is called berosh, for gopher belongs to the pre-Hebraic times. The ark was to be made cells, i.e, divided into cells, D''3p (^Ut. nests, niduli, mansiunculce), and pitched ("IS3 denom, from "I23) -vN^thin and without with copher, or asphalte (LXX. d(T(f>aXTo<;, Vulg. bitumen). On the supposition, which is a very probable one, that the ark was built in the form not of a ship, but of a chest, with flat bottom, like a floating house, as it was not meant for sailing, but merely to float upon the water, the dimensions, 300 cubits long, 50 broad, and 30 high, give a superficial area of 15,000 square cubits, and a cubic measurement of 450,000 cubits, probably of the ordinary standard, " after the elbow of a man" (Deut. iii. 11), i.e, measured from the elbow to the end of the middle finger. — Ver. 16. " Light shalt thou make to the ark^ and in a cubit from above shalt thou finish itr As the meaning light for "inV is established by the word

^^.1\'.^> "double-light" or mid-day, the passage can only signify that a hole or opening for light and air was to be so constructed as to reach within a cubit of the edge of the roof. A window only a cubit square could not possibly be intended; for nnv is not synonymous wath p^n (chap. viii. 6), but signifies, generally, a space for light, or by which light could be admitted into the ark, and in which the window, or lattice for opening and shutting, could be fixed; though we can form no distinct idea of what the arrangement was. The door he was to place in the side; and to make " lower^ second^ and third (sc. cells)," i.e. three distinct stori^s.^ — Vers. 17 sqq. Noah was to build this ark, because God was about to bring a flood upon the earth, and would save him, with his family, and one pair of every kind of animal. hspj (the flood), is an archaic word, coined expressly for the waters of Koah (Isa. liv. 9), and is used nowhere else except Ps. xxix. 10. p.^'7 ''^ ^1^ is in apposition to mahhul: "' / bring the flood, waters upon the earth, to destroy/ all flesh, wherein is a living breath ^^ (i.e. man and beast). With Noah, God made a covenant. On ri^"|Zi see chap. xv. 18. As not only the human race, but the animal world also was to be preserved through Noah, he was to take with him into the ark his wife, his sons and their wives, and of every living thing, of all flesh, two of every sort, a male and a female, to keep them alive; also all kinds of food for himself and family, and for the sustenance of the beasts. — Yer. 22. " Thus did Noah, according to all that God commanded hirn^ (with regard to the building of the ark). Cf. Heb. xi. 7.

^ As the height of the ark was thirty cubits, the three stories of cells can hardly have filled the entire space, since a room ten cubits high, or nine cubits if we deduct the thickness of the floors, would have been a prodigality of space beyond what the necessities required. It has been conjectured that above or below these stories there was space provided for the necessary supplies of food and fodder. At the same time, this is pure conjecture, Uke every other calculation, not only as to the number and size of the cells, but also as to the number of animals to be collected and the fodder they would require. Hence every objection that has been raised to the suitabiHty of the structure, and the possibility of collecting all the animals in the ark and providing them with food, is based upon arbitrary assumptions, and should be treated as a perfectly groundless fancy. As natural science is still in the dark as to the formation of species, and therefore not in a condition to determine the number of pairs from which all existing species are descended, it is ridiculous to talk, as Pfaff and others do, of 2000 species of mammalia, and 6500 species of birds, which Noah would have had to feed every day.

The account of the commencement, course, and termination of the flood abounds in repetitions; but although it progresses somewhat heavily, the connection is well sustained, and no link could be erased without producing a gap. — Vers. 1-16. When the ark was built, and the period of grace (vi. 3) had passed, Noah received instructions from Jehovah to enter the ark with his family, and with the animals, viz. seven of every kind of clean animals, and two of the unclean; and was informed that within seven days God would cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights. The date of the flood is then given (ver. 6): " Noah was six hundred years old, and the flood was (namely) water upon the earth;^^ and the execution of the divine command is recorded in vers. 7-9. There follows next the account of the bursting forth of the flood, the date being given with still greater minuteness; and the entrance of the men and animals into the ark is again described as being fully accomplished (vers. 10-16). — The fact that in the command to enter the ark a distinction is now made between clean and unclean animals, seven of the former being ordered to be taken, — i.e. three pair and a single one, probably a male for sacrifice, — is no more a proof of different authorship, or of the fusion of two accounts, than the interchange of the names Jehovah and Elohim. For the distinction between clean and unclean animals did not originate with Moses, but was confirmed by him as a long established custom, in harmony with the law. It reached back to the very earliest times, and arose from a certain innate feeling of the human mind, when undisturbed by unnatural and ungodly influences, which detects t3rpes of sin and corruption in many animals, and instinctively recoils from them (see my biblische Archdologie ii. p. 20). That the variations in the names of God furnish no criterion by which to detect different documents, is evident enough from the fact, that in chap. vii. 1 it is Jehovah who commands Noah to enter the ark, and in ver. 4 Noah does as Elohim had commanded, whilst in ver. 16, in two successive clauses, Elohim alternates with Jehovah — the animals entering the ark at the command of Elohim, and Jehovah shutting Noah in. With regard to the entrance of the animals into the ark, it is worthy of notice, that in vers. 9 and 15 it is stated that ^^they came two and two" and in ver. 16 that ''the coming ones came male and female of all flesh." In this expression " they came " it is clearly intimated, that the animals collected about Noah and were taken into the ark, without his having to exert himself to collect them, and that they did so in consequence of an instinct produced by God, like that which frequently leads animals to scent and try to flee from dangers, of which man has no presentiment. The time when the flood commenced is said to have been the 600th year of Noah's life, on the 17th day of the second month (ver. 11). The months must be reckoned, not according to the Mosaic ecclesiastical year, which commenced in the spring, but according to the natural or civil year, which commenced in the autumn at the beginning of sowing time, or the autumnal equinox; so that the flood would be pouring upon the earth in October and November. " The same day were all the fountains of the great deep (Dinn the unfathomable ocean) broken up, and the sluices (windows, lattices) of heaven opened, arid there was (happened, came) pouring rain (DK^fi in distinction from "itOD) upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights." Thus the flood was produced by the bursting forth of fountains hidden within the earth, which drove seas and rivers above their banks, and by rain which continued incessantly for 40 days and 40 nights. — Ver. 13. " In the self-same day had Noah... entered into the ark;" t^^i, pluperfect " had come" not came, which would require K3\ The idea is not that Noah, with his family and all the animals, entered the ark on the very day on which the rain began, but that on that day he had entered, had completed the entering, which occupied the seven days between the giving of the command (ver. 4) and the commencement of the flood (ver. 10).

Vers. 17-24 contain a description of the flood: how the water increased more and more, till it was 15 cubits above all the lofty mountains of the earth, and how, on the one hand, it raised the ark above the earth and above the mountains, and, on the other, destroyed every living being upon the dry land, from man to cattle, creeping things, and birds. " The description is simple and majestic; the almighty judgment of God, and the love manifest in the midst of the wrath, hold the historian fast. The tautologies depict the fearful monotony of the immeasurable expanse of water: omnia pontus erant et deerant litera pontor The words of ver. 17, " and the flood was (came) upon the earth for forty days^^ relate to the 40 days' rain combined with the bursting forth of the fountains beneath the earth. By these the water was eventually raised to the height given, at which it remained 150 days (ver. 24). But if the water covered " all the high hills under the whole heaven^^ this clearly indicates the universality of the flood. The statement, indeed, that it rose 15 cubits above the mountains, is probably founded upon the fact, that the ark drew 15 feet of water, and that when the w^aters subsided, it rested upon the top of Ararat, from which the conclusion would very naturally be drawn as to the greatest height attained. Now as Ararat, according to the measurements of Perrot^ is only 16,254 feet high, whereas the loftiest peaks of the Himalaya and Cordilleras are as much as 26,843, the submersion of these mountains has been thought impossible, and the statement in ver. 19 has been regarded as a rhetorical expression, like Deut. ii. 25 and iv. 19, which is not of universal application. But even if those peaks, which are higher than Ai'arat, were not covered by water, we cannot therefore pronounce the flood merely partial in its extent, but must regard it as universal, as extending over every part of the world, since the few peaks uncovered would not only sink into vanishing points in comparison with the surface covered, but would form an exception not worth mentioning, for the simple reason that no living beings could exist upon these mountains, covered with perpetual snow and ice; so that everything that lived upon the dry land, in whose nostrils there was a breath of life, would inevitably die, and, with the exception of those shut up in the ark, neither man nor beast would be able to rescue itself, and escape destruction. A flood which rose 15 cubits above the top of Ararat could not remain partial, if it only continued a few days, to say nothing of the fact that the water was rising for 40 days, and remained at the highest elevation for 150 days. To speak of such a flood as partial is absurd, even if it broke out at only one spot, it would spread over the earth from one end to the other, and reach everywhere to the same elevation. However impossible, therefore, scientific men may declare it to be for them to conceive of a universal flood of such a height and duration in accordance with the l<nown laws of nature, this inability on their part does not justify any one in questioning the possibihty of such an event being produced by the omnipotence of God. It has been justly remarked, too, that the proportion of such a quantity of water to the entire mass of the earth, in relation to which the mountains are but like the scratches of a needle on a globe, is no greater than that of a profuse perspiration to the body of a man. And to this must be added, that, apart from the legend of a flood, which is found in nearly every nation, the earth presents unquestionable traces of submersion in the fossil remains of animals and plants, which are found upon the Cordilleras and Himalaya even beyond the limit of perpetual snow.^ In ver. 23, instead of riD'l {imperf. Niphal) read np*J (imperf. Kal): " and He (Jehovah) destroyed every existing thing^^ as He had said in ver. 4.

Chap. viii. 1-5. With the words, ''then God remembered Noah and all the animals.., in the ark^^ the narrative turns to the description of the gradual decrease of the water until the ground was perfectly dry. The fall of the water is described in the same pictorial style as its rapid rise. God's " remembering" was a manifestation of Himself, an effective restraint of the force of the raging element. He caused a wind to blow over the earth, so that the waters sank, and shut up the fountains of the deep, and the sluices of heaven, so that the rain from heaven was restrained. " Then the waters turned {}'^'Pl i.e. flowed o^)from, the earth, flowing continuously (the inf. absol. ^itjn Tjipn expresses continuation), and decreased at the end of 150 days.^^ The decrease first became perceptible when the ark rested upon the

^ The geological facts which testify to the submersion of the entire globe are collected in Buckland^s reliquias diluv., Schubert'' s Gesch. der Natur^ and C. V. Raumerh Geography^ and are of such importance that even Cuvier acknowledged " Je pense done, avec MM. Deluc et Dolomieu, que s'il y a quelque chose de constate en geologic; c'est que la surface de notre globe a ete victime d'une grande et subite revolution, dont la date ne pent remonter beaucoup au delk de cinq ou six mille ans " (Discours sur les revoh de la surface du globe^ p. 290, ed. 6). The latest phase of geology, however, denies that these facts furnish any testimony to the historical character of the flood, and substitutes the hypothesis of a submersion of the entire globe before the creation of man: 1. because the animals found are very different from those at present in existence; and 2. because no certain traces have hitherto been found of fossil human bones. We have already shown that there is no force in these arguments. Vid. Keerl^ pp. 489 sqq.

mountains of Ararat on the 17tli day of the seventh month; i.e., reckoning 30 days to a month, exactly 150 days after the flood commenced. From that time forth it continued without intermission, so that on the first day of the tenth month, probably 73 days after the resting of the ark, the tops of the mountains were seen, viz. the tops of the Armenian highlands, by which the ark was surrounded. Ararat was the name of a province (2 Kings xix. 37), which is mentioned along with Minni (Ai'menia) as a kingdom in Jer. li. 27, probably the central province of the country of Armenia, which Moses v. Chorene calls Arairad, Araratia. The mountains of Ararat are, no doubt, the group of mountains which rise from the plain of the Araxes in two lofty peaks, the greater and lesser Ararat, the former 16,254 feet above the level of the sea, the latter about 12,000. This landing-place of the ark is extremely interesting in connection with the development of the human race as renewed after the flood. Armenia, the source of the rivers of paradise, has been called " a cool, airy, well-watered mountain-island in the midst of the old continent; " but Mount Ararat especially is situated almost in the middle, not only of the great desert route of Africa and Asia, but also of the range of inland waters from Gibraltar to the Baikal Sea — in the centre, too, of the longest line that can be drawn through the settlements of the Caucasian race and the Indo-Germanic tribes; and, as the central point of the longest land-line of the ancient world, from the Cape of Good Hope to the Behring Straits, it was the most suitable spot in the world, for the tribes and nations that sprang from the sons of Noah to descend from its heights and spread into every land {vid. K. v. Raumer, Palast. pp. 456 sqq.).

Vers. 6-12. Forty days after the appearance of the mountain tops, Noah opened the window of the ark and let a raven fly out {lit, the raven, i.e. the particular raven known from that circumstance), for the purpose of ascertaining the drying up of the waters. The raven went out and returned until the earth was dry, but without being taken back into the ark, as the mountain tops and the carcases floating upon the water afforded both resting-places and food. After that, Noah let a dove fly out three times, at intervals of seven days. It is not distinctly stated that he sent it out the first time seven days after the raven, but this is implied in the statement that he stayed yet other seven days before sending it out the second time, and the same again before sending it the third time (vers. 10 and 12). The dove, when first sent out, '^ found no rest for the sole of its foot;^^ for a dove will only settle upon such places and objects as are dry and clean. It returned to the ark and let Noah take it in again (vers. 8, 9). The second time it returned in the evening, having remained out longer than before, and brought a fresh (c)iD freshly plucked) olive-leaf in its mouth. Noah perceived from this that the water must be almost gone, had " abated from off the earth,'* though the ground might not be perfectly dry, as the olive-tree will put out leaves even under water. The fresh olive-leaf was the first sign of the resurrection of the earth to new life after the flood, and the dove with the olive-leaf a herald of salvation. The third time it did not return; a sign that the waters had completely receded from the earth. The fact that Noah waited 40 days before sending the raven, and after that always left an interval of seven days, is not to be accounted for on the supposition that these numbers were already regarded as significant. The 40 days correspond to the 40 days during which the rain fell and the waters rose; and Noah might assume that they would require the same time to recede as to rise. The seven days constituted the week established at the creation, and God had already conformed to it in arranging their entrance into the ark (chap. vii. 4, 10). The selection which Noah made of the birds may also be explained quite simply from the difference in their nature, with which Noah must have been acquainted; that is to say, from the fact that the raven in seeking its food settles upon every carcase that it sees, whereas the dove will only settle upon what is dry and clean.

Vers. 13-19. Noah waited some time, and then, on the first day of the first month, in the 601st year of his life, removed the covering from the ark, that he might obtain a freer prospect over the earth. He could see that the surface of the earth was dry; but it w^as not till the 27th day of the second month, 57 days, therefore, after the removal of the roof, that the earth was completely dried up. Then God commanded him to leave the ark with his family and all the animals; and so far as the latter were concerned. He renewed the blessing of the creation (ver. 17 cf. i. 22). As the flood commenced on the 17th of the second month of the 600th year of Noah's life, and ended on the 27th of the second month of the 601st year, it lasted a year and ten days; but whether a solar year of 360 or 365 days, or a lunar year of 352, is doubtful. The former is the more probable, as the first five months are said to have consisted of 150 days, which suits the solar year better than the lunar. The question cannot be decided with certainty, because we neither know the number of days between the 17th of the seventh month and the 1st of the tenth month, nor the interval between the sending out of the dove and the 1st day of the first month of the 601st year.

Two events of Noah's life, of world-wide importance, are recorded as having occurred after the flood: his sacrifice, with the divine promise which followed it (chap. viii. 20-ix. 17); and the prophetic curse and blessing pronounced upon his sons (ix. 18- 29).— Vers. 20-22. The first thing which Noah did, was to build an altar for burnt sacrifice, to thank the Lord for gracious protection, and pray for His mercy in time to come. This altar — narp, lit, a place for the offering of slain animals, from n^J, like Ovaiao-TrjpLov from Oveiv — is the first altar mentioned in history. The sons of Adam had built no altar for their offerings, because God was still present on the earth in paradise, so that they could turn their offerings and hearts towards that abode. But with the flood God had swept paradise away, withdrawn the place of His presence, and set up His throne in heaven, from which He would henceforth reveal Himself to man (cf. chap, xi. 5, 7). In future, therefore, the hearts of the pious had to be turned towards heaven, and their offerings and prayers needed to ascend on high if they were to reach the throne of God. To give this direction to their offerings, heights or elevated places were erected, from which they ascended towards heaven in fire. From this the offerings received the name of nVy from npiy, the ascending, not so much because the sacrificial animals ascended or were raised upon the altar, as because they rose from the altar to heaven (cf. Judg. xx. 40; Jer. xlviii. 15; Amos iv. 10). Noah took his offerings from every clean beast and every clean fowl — from those animals, therefore, which were destined for man's food; probably the seventh of every kind, which he had taken into the irk. " And Jehovah smelled the smell of satisfaction^^ i.e. He graciously accepted the feelings of the offerer which rose to Him in the odour of the sacrificial flame. In the sacrificial flame the essence of the animal was resolved into vapour; so that when man presented a sacrifice in his own stead, his inmost being, his spirit, and his heart ascended to God in the vapour, and the sacrifice brought the feeling of his heart before God. This feeling of gratitude for gracious protection, and of desire for further communications of grace, was well-pleasing to God. He " said to His heart " (to, or in Himself; i.e. He resolved), " I will not again curse the ground any more for maiUs sake, because the image (i.e. the thought and desire) of marHs heart is evil from his youth up (i.e. from the very time when he begins to act with consciousness)." This hardly seems an appropriate reason. As Luther says: " Hie inconstantiae videtur Deus accusari posse. Supra puniturus hominem causam consilii dicit, quia figmentum cordis humani malum est. Hie promissurus homini gratiam, quod posthac tali ira uti nolit, eandem causam allegat." Both Luther and Calvin express the same thought, though without really solving the apparent discrepancy. It was not because the thoughts and desires of the human heart are evil that God would not smite any more every living thing, that is to say, would not exterminate it judicially; but because they are evil from his youth up, because evil is innate in man, and for that reason he needs the forbearance of God; and also (and here lies the principal motive for the divine resolution) because in the offering of the righteous Noah, not only were thanks presented for past protection, and entreaty for further care, but the desire of man was expressed, to remain in fellowship with God, and to procure the divine favour. ''All the days of the earth;^^ i.e. so long as the earth shall continue, the regular alternation of day and night and of the seasons of the year, so indispensable to the continuance of the human race, would never be interrupted again.

Chap. ix. 1-7. These divine purposes of peace, which were communicated to Noah while sacrificing, were solemnly confirmed by the renewal of the blessing pronounced at the creation and the establishment of a covenant through a visible sign, which would be a pledge for all time that there should never be a flood again. In the words by which the first blessing was transferred to Noah and his sons (ver. 2), the supremacy granted to man over the animal world was expressed still more forcibly than in chap. i. 26 and 28; because, inasmuch as sin with its consequences had loosened the bond of voluntary subjection on the part of the animals to the will of man, — man, on the one hand, having lost the power of the spirit over nature, and nature, on the other hand, having become estranged from man, or rather having rebelled against him, through the curse pronounced upon the earth, — henceforth it was only by force that he could rule over it, by that "fear and dread" which God instilled into the animal creation. Whilst the animals were thus placed in the hand (power) of man, permission was also given to him to slaughter them for food, the eating of the blood being the only thing forbidden. Vers. 3, 4. " Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; even as the green of the herb have I given you all (73"nx = 73n)." These words do not affirm that man then first began to eat animal food, but only that God then for the first time authorized, or allowed him to do, what probably he had previously done in opposition to His will. " Only flesh in its soul, its blood (^OT in apposition to itJ'D^n)^ shall ye not eat;^^ i.e. flesh in which there is still blood, because the soul of the animal is in the blood. The prohibition applies to the eating of flesh with blood in it, whether of living animals, as is the barbarous custom in Abyssinia, or of slaughtered animals from which the blood has not been properly drained at death. This prohibition presented, on the one hand, a safeguard against harshness and cruelty; and contained, on the other, " an undoubted reference to the sacrifice of animals, which was afterwards made the subject of command, and in which it was the blood especially that was offered, as the seat and soul of life (see note on Lev. xvii. 11, 14); so that from this point of view sacrifice denotes the surrender of one's own inmost life, of the very essence of life, to God " (Ziegler). Allusion is made to the first again in the still further limitation given in ver. 5: " and only Q\^]) your blood, with regard to your souls (^ indicative of reference to an individual object, Ewald, § 310a), will I seek (demand or avenge, cf. Ps. ix. 13) from the hand of every beast, and from the hand of man, from the hand of every one, his brother; " i.e. from every man, whoever he may be, because he is his (the slain man's) brother, inasmuch as all men are brethren. The life of man was thus made secure against animals as well as men. Gcd would avenge or inflict punishment for every murder, — not directly, however, as He promised to do in the case of Cain, but indirectly by giving the command, " Whoso sheddeth mans blood, hy man shall his blood be shed^^ and thus placing in the hand of man His own judicial power. " This was the first command," says Luther, " having reference to the temporal sword. By these words temporal government was established, and the sword placed in its hand by God." It is true the punishment of the murderer is enjoined upon " man " universally; but as all the judicial relations and ordinances of the increasing race were rooted in those of the family, and grew by a natural process out of that, the family relations furnished of themselves the norm for the closer definition of the expression " man." Hence the command does not sanction revenge, but lays the foundation for the judicial rights of the divinely appointed "powers that be" (Rom. xiii. 1). This is evident from the reason appended: "/or in the image of God made He man^ If murder was to be punished with death because it destroyed the image of God in man, it is evident that the infliction of the punishment was not to be left to the caprice of individuals, but belonged to those alone who represent the authority and majesty of God, i.e. the divinely appointed rulers, who for that very reason are called JElohim in Ps. Ixxxii. 6. This command then laid the foundation for all civil government,^ and formed a necessary complement to that unalterable continuance of the order of nature which had been promised to the human race for its further development. If God on account of the innate sinfulness of man would no more bring an exterminating judgment upon the earthly creation, it was necessary that by commands and authorities He should erect a barrier against the supremacy of evil, and thus lay the foundation for a well-ordered civil development of humanity, in accordance with the words of the blessing, which are repeated in ver. 7, as showing the intention and goal of this new historical beginning.

^ " Hie igitur fons est, ex quo manat totiim jus civile et jus gentium. Nam si Deus concedit homini potestatem super vitam et mortem, profecto etiam concedit potestatem super id, quod minus est, ut sunt fortunse, familia, uxor, liberi, servi, agri; Hsec omnia vult certorum hominum potestati esse obnoxia Deus, ut reos puniant." — Luther.

Vers. 8—17. To give Noah and his sons a firm assurance of the prosperous continuance of the human race, God condescended to establish a covenant with them and their descendants, and to confirm this covenant by a visible sign for all generations, n^"\!i D''|pn is not equivalent to r\p3. TTG; it does not denote the formal conclusion of an actual covenant, but the " setting up of a covenant," or the giving of a promise possessing the nature of a covenant. In summing up the animals in ver. 10, the prepositions are accumulated: first 2i embracing the whole, then the partitive |p restricting the enumeration to those which went out of th<* ark, and lastly (•, " with regard to," extending it again to every individual. There was a correspondence between the covenant (ver. 11) and the sign which was to keep it before the sight of men (ver. 12): " I give (set) Mi/ bow in the cloud^* (ver. 13). When God gathers {\^V ver. 14, lit, clouds) clouds over the earth, " tJie bow shall be seen in the cloudj^ and that not for man only, but for God also, who will look at the bow, " to remember His everlasting covenant," An " everlasting covenant" is a covenant '^ for perpetual generations " i.e. one which shall extend to all ages, even to the end of the world. The fact that God Himself would look at the bow and remember His covenant, was " a glorious and living expression of the great truth, that God's covenant signs, in which He has put His promises, are real vehicles of His grace, that they have power and essential worth not only with men, but also before God" (0. v, Gerlach), The establishment of the rainbow as a covenant sign of the promise that there should be no flood again, presupposes that it appeared then for the first time in the vault and clouds of heaven. From this it may be inferred, not that it did not rain before the flood, which could hardly be reconciled with chap. ii. 5, but that the atmosphere was differently constituted; a supposition in perfect harmony with the facts of natural history, which point to differences in the climate of the earth's surface before and after the flood. The fact that the rainbow, that " coloured splendour tlirown by the bursting forth ef the sun upon the departing clouds," is the result of the reciprocal action of light, and air, and water, is no disproof of the origin and design recorded here. For the laws of nature are ordained by God, and have their ulti mate ground and purpose in the divine plan of the universe which links together both nature and grace. " Springing as it does from the effect of the sun upon the dark mass of clouds, it typifies the readiness of the heavenly to pervade the earthly; spread out as it is between heaven and earth, it proclaims peace between God and man; and whilst spanning the whole horizon, it teaches the all-embracing universality of the covenant of grace" {Delitzsch),

Vers. 18-29. The 5€co7ic? occurrence in the life of Noah after the flood exhibited the germs of the future development of the human race in a threefold direction, as manifested in the characters of his three sons. As all the families and races of man descend from them, their names are repeated in ver. 18; and in prospective allusion to what follows, it is added that ''Ham was the father of CanaanJ^ From these three " the earth (the earth's population) spread itself out^ " The eartK^ is used for the population of the earth, as in chap, x. 25 and xi. 1, and just as lands or cities are frequently substituted for their inhabitants, nvw: probably Niphal for *^^\j from p3 to scatter (xi. 4), to spread out. " And Noah the husbandman began, and planted a vineyard^ As ncnKn k?^« cannot be the predicate of the sentence, on account of the article, but must be in apposition to Noah, V^^^ and i'n^l must be combined in the sense of " began to plant" {Ges. § 142, 3). The writer does not mean to affirm that Noah resumed his agricultural operations after the flood, but that as a husbandman he began to cultivate the vine; because it was this which furnished the occasion for the manifestation of that diversity in the character of his sons, which was so eventful in its consequences in relation to the future history of their descendants. In ignorance of the fiery nature of wine, Noah drank and was drunken, and uncovered himself in his tent (ver. 21). Although excuse may be made for this drunkenness, the words of Luther are still true: " Qui excusant patriarcham, volentes hanc consolationem, quam Spiritus S, ecclesiis necessariam judicavit, abjiciunt, quod scilicet etiam summi sancti aliquando labuntury This trifling fall served to display the hearts of his sons. Ham saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. Not content with finding pleasure himself in his father's shame, " nunquam enim vino victum patrem filius risisset, nisi prius ejecisset animo illam reverentiam et opinionem,, quce in liberis de parentibus ex mandato Dei existere debei*^ (^Luther), he must proclaim his disgraceful pleasure to his brethren, and thus exhibit his shameless sensuality. The brothers, on the contrary, with reverential modesty covered their father with a garment (p?p\^r\_ the garment, which was at hand), walking backwards that they might not see his nakedness (ver. 23), and thus manifesting their childlike reverence as truly as their refined purity and modesty. For this they receive their father's blessing, whereas Ham reaped for his son Canaan the patriarch's curse. In ver. 24 Ham is called l^pn 1^3 "his (Noah's) little son," and it is questionable whether the adjective is to be taken as comparative in the sense of "the younger," or as superlative, meaning " the youngest." Neither grammar nor the usage of the language will enable us to decide. For in 1 Sam. xvii. 14, where David is contrasted with his brothers, the word means not the youngest of the four, but the younger by the side of the three elder, just as in chap. i. 16 the sun is called "the great" light, and the moon " the little" light, not to show that the sun is the greatest and the moon the least of all lights, but that the moon is the smaller of the two. If, on the other hand, on the ground of 1 Sam. xvi. 11, where "the little one" undoubtedly means the youngest of all, any one would press the superlative force here, he must be prepared, in order to be consistent, to do the same with haggadol, " the great one," in chap. X. 21, which would lead to this discrepancy, that in the verse before us Ham is called Noah's youngest son, and in chap. x. 21 Shem is called Japhet's oldest brother, and thus implicite Ham is described as older than Japhet. If we do not wish lightly to introduce a discrepancy into the text of these two chapters, no other course is open than to follow the LXX., Vulg, and others, and take " the little" here and " the great" in chap. X. 21 as used in a comparative sense. Ham being represented here as Noah's younger son, and Shem in chap. x. 21 as Japhet's elder brother. Consequently the order in which the three names stand is also an indication of their relative ages. And this is not only the simplest and readiest assumption, but is even confirmed by chap, x., though the order is inverted there, Japhet being mentioned first, then Ham, and Shem last; and it is also in harmony with the chronological datum in chap. xi. 10, as compared with chap. v. 32 {yid, chap. xi. 10).

To understand the words of Noah with reference to his sons (vers. 25—27), we must bear in mind, on the one hand, that as the moral nature of the patriarch was transmitted by generation

1o his descendants, so the diversities of character in the sons of Noah foreshadowed diversities in the moral incHnations of the tribes of which they were the head; and on the other hand, that Noah, through the Spirit and power of that God with whom he walked, discerned in the moral nature of his sons, and the different tendencies which they already displayed, the germinal commencement of the future course of their posterity, and uttered words of blessing and of curse, which were prophetic of the history of the tribes that descended from them. In the sin of Ilam " there lies the great stain of the whole Hamitic race, whose chief characteristic is sexual sin" (Ziegler); and the curse which Noah pronounced upon this sin still rests upon the race. It was not Ham who was cursed, however, but his son Canaan. Ham had sinned against his father, and he was punished in his son. But the reason why Canaan was the only son named, is not to be found in the fact that Canaan was the youngest son of Ham, and Ham the youngest son of Noah, as Hofmann supposes. The latter is not an established fact; and the purely external circumstance, that Canaan had the misfortune to be the youngest son, could not be a just reason for cursing him alone. The real reason must either lie in the fact that Canaan was already walking in the steps of his father's impiety and sin, or else be sought in the name Canaan, in which Noah discerned, through the gift of prophecy, a significant omen; a supposition decidedly favoured by the analogy of the blessing pronounced upon Japhet, which is also founded upon the name. Canaan does not signify lowland, nor was it transferred, as many maintain, from the land to its inhabitants; it was first of all the name of the father of the tribe, from whom it was transferred to his descendants, and eventually to the land of which they took possession. The meaning of Canaan is " the submissive one," from Vp3 to stoop or submit, Hiphil, to bend or subjugate (Deut. ix. 3; Judg. iv. 23, etc.). " Ham gave his son the name from

the obedience which he required, though he did not render it himself. The son was to be the servant (for the name points to servile obedience) of a father who was as tyrannical towards those beneath him, as he was refractory towards those above. The father, when he gave him the name, thought only of submission to his own commands. But the secret providence of God, which rules in all such things, had a different submission

in view" (Hengstenberg, ChnstoLi. 28, transl.). "Servant of servants (i.e, the lowest of slaves, vid. Ewald, § 313) let him become to his brethren." Although this curse was expressly pronounced upon Canaan alone, the fact that Ham had no share in Noah's blessing, either for himself or his other sons, was a sufficient proof that his whole family was included by implication in the curse, even if it was to fall chiefly upon Canaan. And history confirms the supposition. The Canaanites were partly exterminated, and partly subjected to the lowest form of slavery, by the Israelites, who belonged to the family of Shem; and those who still remained were reduced by Solomon to the same condition (1 Kings ix. 20, 21). The Phoenicians, along with the Carthaginians and the Egyptians, who all belonged to the family of Canaan, were subjected by the Japhetic Persians, Macedonians, and Romans; and the remainder of the Hamitic tribes either shared the same fate, or still sigh, like the negroes, for example, and other African tribes, beneath the yoke of the most crushing slavery. — Ver. 26. In contrast with the curse, the blessings upon Shem and Japhet are introduced with a fresh " and he said,^' whilst Canaan's servitude comes in like a refrain and is mentioned in connection with both his brethren: " Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be servant to themJ' Instead of wishing good to Shem, Noah praises the God of Shem, just as Moses in Deut. xxxiii. 20, instead of blessing Gad, blesses Him " that enlargeth Gad," and points out the nature of the good which he is to receive, by using the name Jehovah, This is done '^propter excellentem benedictionem. Non enim loquitur de corporali benedictione, sed de benedictione futura per semen promissum. Earn tantam videt esse ut explicari verbis non possity ideo se vertit ad gratiarum actionem^* (^Luther), Because Jehovah is the God of Shem, Shem will be the recipient and heir of all the blessings of salvation, which God as Jehovah bestows upon mankind. Su? = urv neither stands for the singular ih {Ges, § 103, 2), nor refers to Shem and Japhet. It serves to show that the announcement docs not refer to the personal relation of Canaan to Shem, but applies to their descendants. — Ver. 27. " Wide let God make it to Japhet, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem J* Starting from the meaning of the name, Noah sums up his blessing in the word ^Pl (japht), from nrjQ to be wide (Prov. XX. 19), in the Hiphil with p, to procure a wide space for any one, used either of extension over a wide territoiy, or of removal to a free, unfettered position; analogous to?^''ni'7> chap, xxvi. 22; Ps. iv. 1, etc. Both allusions must be retained here, so that the promise to the family of Japhet embraced not only a wide extension, but also prosperity on every hand. This blessing was desired by Noah, not from Jehovaliy the God of Shem, who bestows saving spiritual good upon man, but from Elohim, God as Creator and Governor of the world; for it had respect primarily to the blessings of the earth, not to spiritual blessings; although Japhet would participate in these as well, for he should come and dwell in the tents of Shem. The dis puted question, whether God or Japhet is to be regarded as the subject of the verb " shall dwell," is already decided by the use of the word Elohim, If it were God whom Noah described as dwelling in the tents of Shem, so that the expression denoted the gracious presence of God in Israel, we should expect to find the name Jehovah, since it was as Jehovah that God took up His abode among Shem m Israel. It is much more natural to regard the expression as applying to Japhet, (a) because the refrain^ "Canaan shall be his servant," requires that we should understand ver. 27 as applying to Japhet, like ver. 26 to Shem; {h) because the plural, tents, is not applicable to the abode of Jehovah in Israel, inasmuch as in the parallel passages " we read of God dwelling in His tent, on His holy hill, in Zion, in the midst of the children of Israel, and also of the faithful dwelling in the tabernacle or temple of God, but never of God dwelling in the tents of Israel " (Hengstenberg); and (c) be* cause we should expect the act of affection, which the two sons so delicately performed in concert, to have its corresponding blessing in the relation established between the two {DelitzscK), Japhet's dwelling in the tents of Shem is supposed by Bochart and others to refer to the fact, that Japhet's descendants would one day take the land of the Shemites, and subjugate the inhabitants; but even the fathers almost unanimously understand the words in a spiritual sense, as denoting the participation of the Japhetites in the saving blessings of the Shemites. There is truth in both views. Dwelling presupposes possession; but the idea of taking by force is precluded by the fact, that it would be altogether at variance with the blessing pronounced upon Shem. If history shows that the tents of Shem were conquered and taken by the Japhetites, the dwelling predicted here still relates not to the forcible conquest, but to the fact that the conquerors entered into the possessions of the conquered; that along with them they were admitted to the blessings of salvation; and that, yielding to the spiritual power of the vanquished, they lived henceforth in their tents as brethren (Ps. cxxxiii. 1). And if the dwelling of. Japhet in the tents of Shem presupposes the conquest of the land of Shem by Japhet, it is a blessing not only to Japhet, but to Shem also, since, whilst Japhet enters into the spiritual inheritance of Shem, he brings to Shem all the good of this world (Isa. Ix.). " The fulfilment," as Delitzsch says, " is plain enough, for we are all Japhetites dwelling in the tents of Shem; and the language of the New Testament is the language of Javan entered into the tents of Shem." To this we may add, that by the Gospel preached in this language, Israel, though subdued by the imperial power of Rome, became the spiritual conqueror of the orbis terrarum Romanus, and received it into his tents. Moreover it is true of the blessing and curse of Noah, as of all prophetic utterances, that they are fulfilled with regard to the nations and families in question as a whole, but do not predict, like an irresistible fate, the unalterable destiny of every individual; on the contrary, they leave room for freedom of personal decision, and no more cut off the individuals in the accursed race from the possibility of conversion, or close the way of salvation against the penitent, than they secure the individuals of the family blessed against the possibility of falling from a state of grace, and actually losing the blessing. Hence, whilst a Kahab and an Araunah were received into the fellowship of Jehovah, and the Canaanitish woman was relieved by the Lord because of her faith, the hardened Pharisees and scribes had woes pronounced upon them, and Israel was rejected because of its unbelief. In vers. 28, 29, the history of Noah is brought to a close, with the account of his age, an 1 of his death.

Of the sons of Noah, all that is handed down is the pedigree of the nations, or the hst of the tribes which sprang from them (chap. X.), and the account of the confusion of tongues, together with the dispersion of men over the face of the earth (chap. xi. 1-9); two events that were closely related to one another, and of the greatest importance to the history of the human race and of the kingdom of God. The genealogy traces the origin of the tribes which were scattered over the earth; the confusion ol tongues shows the cause of the division of the one human race into many different tribes with peculiar languages.

The genealogy of the tribes is not an ethnographical myth, nor the attempt of an ancient Hebrew to trace the connection of his own people with the other nations of the earth by means of uncertain traditions and subjective combinations, but a historical record of the genesis of the nations, founded upon a tradition handed down from the fathers, which, to judge from its contents, belongs to the time of Abraham (cf. Havernick's Introduction to Pentateuch, p. 118 sqq. transl.), and was inserted by Moses in the early history of the kingdom of God on account of its universal importance in connection with sacred history. For it not only indicates the place of the family which was chosen as the recipient of divine revelation among the rest of the nations, but traces the origin of the entire world, with the prophetical intention of showing that the nations, although they were quickly suffered to walk in their own ways (Acts xiv. 16), were not intended to be for ever excluded from the counsels of eternal love. In this respect the genealogies prepare the way for the promise of the blessing, which was one day to spread from the chosen family to all the families of the earth (chap. xii. 2, 3). — The historical character of the genealogy is best attested by the contents themselves, since no trace can be detected, either of any pre-eminence given to the Shemites, oi of an intention to fill up gaps by conjecture or invention. It gives just as much as had been handed down with regard to the origin of the different tribes. Hence the great diversity in the hsts of the descendants of the different sons of Noah. Some are brought down only to the second, others to the third or fourth generation, and some even further; and whilst in several instances the founder of a tribe is named, in others we have only the tribes themselves; and in some cases we are unable to determine whether the names given denote the founder or the tribe. In many instances, too, on account of the defects and the unreliable character of the accounts handed down to us from different ancient sources with regard to the origin of the tribes, there are names which cannot be identified with absolute certainty.^

Vers. 1-5. Descendants of Japhet. — In ver. 1 the names of the three sons are introduced according to their relative ages, to give completeness and finish to the Tholedoth; but in the genealogy itself Japhet is mentioned first and Shem last, according to the plan of the book of Genesis as already explained at p. 37. In ver. 2 seven sons of Japhet are given. The names, indeed, afterwards occur as those of tribes; but here undoubtedly they are intended to denote the tribe-fathers, and may without hesitation be so regarded. For even if in later times many nations received their names from the lands of which they took possession, this cannot be regarded as a universal rule, since unquestionably the natural rule in the derivation of the names w^ould be for the tribe to be called after its ancestor, and for the countries to receive their names from th^ir earliest inhabitants. Gomer is most probably the tribe of the Cimmerians^ who dwelt, according to Herodotus, on the Maeotis, in the Taurian Chersonesus, and from whom are descended the Cumri or Cymry in

* Sam. Bochart has brought great learning to the explanation of the table of nations in Phaleg^ the first part of his geographia sacra^ to which Michaelis and Rosenmuller made valuable additions, — the former in his spicil. geogr. Hebr. ext. 1769 and 1780, the latter in his Biblical Antiquities. Knohel has made use of all the modern ethnographical discoveries in his " Volkertafel der Genesis" (1850), but many of his combinations are very speculative. Kiepert, in his article iiber d. geograph. Stellung der nordlichen Lander in der phdnikisch'Jiebrdischen Erdkunde (in the MonatsbericJite d. Berliner Akad. 1859), denies entirely the ethnographical character of the table of nations, and reduces it to a mere attempt on the part of the Phoenicians to account for the geographical position of the nations with -v^'bich they were acquainted.

Wales and Brittany, whose relation to the Germanic Cimhri is still in obscurity. Magog is connected by Josephus with tlie Scythimis on the Sea of Asof and in the Caucasus; but Kiepert associates the name with Macija or Maka, and applies it to Scythian nomad tribes which forced themselves in between the Arian or Arianized Medes, Kurds, and Armenians. Madai are the Medes, called Mada on the arrow-headed inscriptions. Javan corresponds to the Greek ^Idoyv, from whom the lonians (^Idove^i) are derived, the parent tribe of the Greeks (in Sanskrit Javana, old Persian Jund), Tubal and Meshech are undoubtedly the Tiharerd and Moschiy the former of whom are placed by Herodotus upon the east of the Thermodon, the latter between the sources of the Phasis and Cyrus. Tiras: according to Josephus^ the Thracians, whom Herodotus calls the most numerous tribe next to the Indian. As they are here placed by the side of Meshech, so we also find on the old Egyptian monuments Mashuash and Tiiirash, and upon the Assyrian Tubal and Misek (Rawlinson), — Ver. 3. Descendants ofGomer, Ashkenaz: according to the old Jewish explanation, the Germani; according to Knobel, the family of Asiy which is favoured by the German legend of Mannus, and his three sons, Jscus (Ask, ^AcrKdvLos;)^ Ingus, and Hermino. Kiepert^ however, and Bockart decide, on geographical grounds, in favour of the Ascanians in Northern Phrygia. Hiphath: in KnobeTs opinion the Celts, part of whom, according to Plutarch, crossed the oprf ^PcTrata, Monies Rhipaei, towards the Northern Ocean to the furthest limits of Europe; but Josephus, whom Kiepert follows, supposed 'PL^dOr)<^ to be Paphlagonia. Both of these are very uncertain. Togarmah is the name of the Armenians, who are still called the house of Thorgom or TorkomatsL — Ver. 4. Descendants of Javan, Elishah suggests Elis, and is said by Josephus to denote the uEolians, the oldest of the Thessalian tribes, whose culture was Ionian in its origin; Kiepert, however, thinks of Sicily. Tarshish (in the Old Testament the name of the colony of Tartessus in Spain) is referred by Knobel to the Etruscans or Tyrsenians, a Pelasgic tribe of Greek derivation; but Delitzsch objects, that the Etruscans were most probably of Lydian descent, and, like the Lydians of Asia Minor, who were related to the Assyrians, belonged to the Shemites. Others connect the name with Tarsus in Cilicia. But the connection with the Spanish Tartessus must be retained, although, so long as the origin of this colony remains in obscurity, nothing further can be determined with regard to the name. Kittim embraces not only the Citicei, Citienses in Cyprus, with the town Cition, but, according to Knohel and Delitzschy probably " the Carians, who settled in the lands at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea; for which reason Ezekiel (xxvii. 6) speaks of the " isles of Chittim." Dodanim {Dardani): according to Delitzschy " the tribe related to the lonians and dwelling with them from the very first, which the legend has associated with them in the two brothers Jasion and Dardanos;" according to Knohelj " the whole of the Illyrian or north Grecian tribe." — Ver. 5. " From these have the islands of the nations divided themselves in their lands;" i.e, from the Japhetites already named, the tribes on the Mediterranean descended and separated from one another as they dwell in their lands, " every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.''* The islands in the Old Testament are the islands and coastlands of the Mediterranean, on the European shore, from Asia Minor to Spain.

Vers. 6-20. Descendants of Ham. — Cush: the Ethiopians of the ancients, who not only dwelt in Africa, but were scattered over the whole of Southern Asia, and originally, in all probability, settled in Arabia, where the tribes that still remained, mingled with Shemites, and adopted a Shemitic language. Mizraim is Egypt: the dual form was probably transferred from the land to the people, referring, however, not to the double strip, i,e. the two strips of land into which the country is divided by the Nile, but to the two Egypts, Upper and Lower, two portions of the country which differ considerably in their climate and general condition. The name is obscure, and not traceable to any Semitic derivation; for the term ">to in Isa. xix. 6, etc., is not to be regarded as an etymological interpretation, but as a significant play upon the word. The old Egyptian name is Kemi (Copt. Chemi, Keme), which, Plutarch says, is derived from the dark ash-grey colour of the soil covered by the slime of the Nile, but which it is much more correct to trace to Ham, and to regard as indicative of the Hamitic descent of its first inhabitants. Put denotes the Libyans in the wider sense of the term (old Egypt. Phet; Copt. Phaiat), who were spread over Northern Africa as far as Mauritania, where even in the time of Jerome a river with the neighbouring district still bore the name of Phut; cf. Bochart, Phal. iv. 33. On Canaan, see chap. ix. 25. — Ver. 7. Descendants of Cush. Seba: the inhabitants of Meroe; according to Knobel, the northern Ethiopians, the ancient Blemmi/er, and modern Bisharin, Havilah: the AvaXlrac or ^A^aXcrac of the ancients, the Macrobian Ethiopians in modern Habesh. Sahtah: the Ethiopians inhabiting Iladhramant, whose chief city was called Sabatha or Sabota. liaamah: *Peyfidj the inhabitants of a city and bay of that name in southeastern Arabia {Oman), Sabtecah: the Ethiopians of Caramauia, dwelling to the east of the Persian Gulf, where the ancients mention a seaport town and a river Ha/jbvBaKTj. The descendants of Raamah, Sheba and Dedan, are to be sought in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf, "from which the Sabaean and Dedanitic Cushites spread to the north-west, where they formed mixed tribes with descendants of Joktan and Abraham." See notes on ver. 28 and chap. xxv. 3.

Vers. 8-12. Besides the tribes already named, there sprang from Cush Nimrod, the founder of the first imperial kingdom, the origin of which is introduced as a memorable event into the genealogy of the tribes, just as on other occasions memorable events are interwoven with the genealogical tables (cf. 1 Chron. ii. 7, 23, iv. 22, 23, 39-41).^ Nimrod " began to be a mighty one in the earths "<33 is used here, as in chap. vi. 4, to denote a man who makes himself renowned for bold and daring deeds. Nimrod was mighty in hunting, and that in opposition to Jehovah {evavTLOv Kvpiov, LXX.); not before Jehovah in the sense of, according to the purpose and will of Jehovah, still less, like D''n:5K7 in Jonah iii. 3, or rw ©ew in Acts vii. 20, in a simply superlative sense. The last explanation is not allowed by the usage of the language, the second is irreconcilable with the context. The name itself, Nimrod from ^']^, " we will revolt," points to some violent resistance to God. It is so characteristic that it can only have been given by his contemporaries, and thus have become a proper name.^ In addition to this, Nimrod

^ These analogies overthrow the assertion that the verses before us have been interpolated by the Jehovist into the Elohistic document; since the use of the name Jehovah is no proof of difference of authorship, nor the use of l^'» for Th>\T\^ as the former also occurs in vers. 13, 15, 24, and 26.

as a mighty hunter founded a powerful kingdom; and the founding of this kingdom is shown by the verb ^^J]^l with) consec. to have been the consequence or result of his strength in hunting, so that the hunting was most intimately connected with the establishment of the kingdom. Hence, if the expression " a mighty hunter " relates primarily to hunting in the literal sense, we must add to the literal meaning the figurative signification of a " hunter of men " (" a trapper of men by stratagem and force,'* Herder); Nimrod the hunter became a tyrant, a powerful hunter of men. This course of life gave occasion to the proverb, " like Nimrod, a mighty hunter against the Lord," which immortalized not his skill in hunting beasts, but the success of his hunting of mon in the establishment of an imperial kingdom by tyranny and power. But if this be the meaning of the proverb, T\S:v ""^dp *^ in the face of Jehovah " can only mean in defiance of Jehovah, as Josephus and the Targums understand it. And the proverb must have arisen when other daring and rebellious men followed in Nimrod's footsteps, and must have originated with those who saw in such conduct an act of rebellion against the God of salvation, in other words, with the possessors of the divine promises of grace. ^ — Ver. 10. ''And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel" the well-known city of Babylon on the Euphrates, which from the time of Nimrod downwards has been the symbol of the power of the world in its hostility to God; — ''and Erech" (Opix^ LXX.), one of the seats of the Cutheans (Samaritans), Ezra iv. 9, no doubt Orchoe, situated, according to Rawlinson, on the site of the present ruins of Warka, thirty hours' journey to the south-east of Babel; — and Accad (Ap^aB, LXX.), a place not yet determined, though, judging from its situation between Erech and Calneh, it was not