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"The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras." (Ver. 2.)

Gomer is regarded as the founder of the tribes which first settled on the shores of the Black Sea, and from thence, under the names of Cimmerians, Cimbri, or Kymry, ultimately spread throughout Northern Europe. His sons were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The first is supposed by some to have given its name to Asia; others regard it as equivalent to the Gothic As-chunis, the race of Ases, representing "the Germanic and Scandinavian nations not yet separated, and inhabiting a limited district to the north-east of the Black Sea." + Riphath is "the group of Celts, or Gauls, then established in their first European settlements on the Riphaan Mountains, the present Carpathians,

- before entering on their last migration toward the France of our days."

sally regarded as Armenia.

Togarmah is univer

Magog was the progenitor of an extensive race of wild people, north of the Caucasus, called by the Greeks Scythians. The ultimate subdivisions of this race, and their migrations in Europe and Asia, are little known. Many suppose them to constitute

* Philip Smith's Hist. of the World, p. 41. † Anc. Hist. of the East, vol. ii. p. 61.

Ibid.

what is called the Turanian races, including the Hungarians and Sarmatians of the west, the Turks, Finns, Tatars of the north, and the original tribes of Central and Southern India on the south.

Madai represents the Medes, or the great Iranian family of Persia.

Favan was the father of the Ionians and Greeks. Of his four sons, Elishah is supposed to be the same as Hellas; Tarshish is thought to be Tartessus, in Spain, or, as others suggest, "the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians, who formed the primitive population of a great part of Italy; * Kittim, the inhabitants of Cyprus, where was the ancient town of Citium; and Dodanim, the Dardanians of Asia Minor, or the Epirotes, among whom was the famous town and oracle of Dodona.

Tubal is identified with the Tibareni of Pontus. Meshech is probably the Moschi mentioned by Herodotus, as living in the same vicinity.

Tiras was the ancestor of the Thracians.

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3. HAM was the youngest son of Noah. (Chap. ix. 24.) The word means "black," or sunburned," and is especially applicable to the darkskinned families of mankind, although individuals of other families, living in hot countries, acquire also dark complexions.

*Anc. Hist. of the East, vol. ii. p. 61.

"The sons of Ham: Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan." (Ver. 6.)

Cush was the ancestor of the Ethiopians. His eldest son, Seba, gave his name to the capital of the ancient kingdom of Meroe, and perhaps to the Sabeans, who dwelt partly in Arabia and partly in Abyssinia. His remaining sons, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabtechah, occupied the Arabian peninsula, and regions adjacent. From some one of these was descended Nimrod, the founder of the Babylonian empire, embracing the cities of Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar, and possibly also the Assyrian kingdom, including the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth, Caleh, and Resen. Traces of this dynasty are seen in the names Cuthah, Cossaei, Chuzistan (Susiana), as also in the Hindu Koosh, the name still borne by the mountain regions of the Upper Indus.

Mizraim, a word in the dual form, meaning the two Egypts, i. e., the Upper and Lower. The Arabs still apply the name Misr both to the country itself and to its capital. The Ludim,

* The reading of Gen. x. 11, now generally preferred, is, "Out of that land he (i. e., Cush) went into Assyria." But it is not certain that the authorized version is not correct. Asshur, the son of Shem, may have been driven from the country before by this fierce Cushite invader, and founded the more northern monarchy called from him Assyria.

Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, and Caphtorim are not personal names, but the appellations of tribes descended from Mizraim, which settled the country west of Egypt, the Delta, the maritime coast of Philistia, and perhaps Crete, and some of the neighboring islands. The Caphtorim may have given their name to the Copts, which, in turn, originated the Greek designation of the country, viz., Ai-guptos, Egypt, the land of the Copt.

Phut was probably the ancestor of the Libyans, inhabiting the country lying west of Egypt, along the northern shore of Africa.

Canaan was the father of the tribes which originally occupied Palestine, and which for the most part were exterminated by the Hebrews after their exodus from Egypt.

Such is a concise view of the origin and affinities of the various nations of mankind, as given in the Scriptures. That it is in entire harmony with secular history, so far as the latter is known, is evident to all intelligent readers. Now, this general fact, even if we can go no further, is very remarkable. We need not suggest how utterly unlike this inspired genealogy is to those which are found in the literature of any other people. Confessedly one of the oldest documents in the world, written in an

age when as yet historical science had not begun to be, it maps out the existing families of mankind, and the localities they occupied, so minutely and accurately that the very latest investigations of modern science, with all the helps which have accumulated through thousands of years, serve only to verify and illustrate it. The very names contained in these patriarchal lists, entering into the numerous and intermingling channels of history, and floating down through the most diverse languages and dialects, are still, for the most part, recognizable as the distinctive appellations of the leading nationalities and peoples of this day. We know not how to resist the demonstration thus afforded both of the unity of all the known branches of the human race, and their origin at a date no more remote than the family of Noah.

But there are, or have been, nations and tribes of men whose descent from Noah can not be traced through any line of actual history. When his descendants migrated from the primitive seats in which, after the flood, they settled, to the countries which were to be their future homes, they found everywhere, it is said, aboriginal races already occupants of the soil. "We have," says Agassiz, "nowhere a positive record of a people having migrated far, and found countries entirely destitute

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