the father of Abraham; we must therefore have occasional recourse to the conjectures and tradition of Jewish and christian writers, where we shall find some particulars worthy of attention.

The birth of Shem must have happened in the year of the world 1558, as, at the birth of Arphaxad, two years after the deluge, he was one hundred years old. The only action of his life recorded by Moses, is that which he performed with his brother Japhet, and for which he obtained the blessing of his father. He is said to have lived five hundred and two years after the flood, and to have died in the six hundredth year of his age, leaving behind him five sons; viz. Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram; the second of whom became the founder of the Assyrian kingdom, according to this express declaration of Moses" Out of the land (Shinaar): went forth Ashur, and built. Nineveh and the city of Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen, between Nineveh and Calah, the same is a great city.”

Elam may probably have been intended by the more modern Persian historians, when they asserted that their first king Caumarras, was a son of Shem, and this idea is strictly consonant to the Mosaic accounts.

Arphaxad had once considerable advantage above his brethren, in having the patriarchal line continued in him. Many authors derive both the name and nation of the Chaldeans from this person; and Josephus concurring in the same opinion, assures us, that he was the prince of the Arphaxadeans, at present called Chaldeans. It has been already observed, that he was born in the year. of the world 1658, and it appears from the sacred records that he lived to the age of four hundred and thirty-eight years.

As we find no circumstance related in scripture respecting the other sons, viz. Lud and Aram, we shall dismiss our remarks on his family, and return to that of Noah, whose youngest son, Ham, now demands our attention. When Noah was acquainted with the indelicacy of his son's conduct, he pronounced a heavy curse, not indeed against the offender himself, but against a

branch of his posterity" Cursed," says the patriarch, "be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." This curse falling upon a son of Ham rather than upon himself, has occasioned many conjectures among the learned. Some have supposed that Noah expressed himself in this manner to avoid cursing Ham, whom God had so recently blessed on his quitting the ark; others are for extending the curse both to Ham and his descendants, whom they therefore consider as the progenitors of the blacks! and a third class imagine, with a greater appearance of truth, that Moses, by reciting his prediction, designed to raise and invigorate the spirits of the Israelites, who were appointed to engage and finally vanquish the children of Canaan, previous to their complete possession of the promised land.

Ham, in consequence of his undutiful behaviour on an occasion which should rather have excited his compassion than his ridicule, has been considered by the generality of authors as the first introducer of impiety after the deluge; and the infamous character attached to his name in their writing, is perfectly consistent with Sanchoniatho's account of Gronus, who is supposed to have been the same person.

Canaan, whom, according to scripture, we may suppose to have been the fourth son of Ham, is believed to have lived and died in the country distinguished by his name, where his tomb was formerly shewn in a cave of the mountain of Leopards, at a small distance from Je rusalem. We are equally at a loss to ascertain the time of his birth, and the length of his life, neither of these circumstances being mentioned by Moses. Some writers, however, have ventured to affirm, that he was born in the ark, and that being the fruit of unseasonable incontinence, he was himself a profligate man. That part of Noah's curse, which foretold the humiliation of Canaan, as becoming a servant of servants to his brethren, seems to have been wholly accomplished in him, without extending to the rest of his brethren; with respect to Shem, it was fulfilled in the memorable victories of the Israelites, and the subsequent achievements of the

Assyrians and Persians; and with regard to Japhet, we see a completion of the prophecy in the successive conquests of the Canaanites by the Greeks and Romans, in Palestine and Phenicia, but more especially by the total subjugation of the once haughty and flourishing sons of Carthage.

Canaan seems to have been known to the ancient heathens, Sanchoniatho gives the name of Chna to the first man who was called a Phenician.

Nimrod, the sixth son of Cush, is mentioned in the book of Genesis as a mighty one on the carth, and a mighty hunter before the Lord; and we are there told that the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinaar." These words seem clearly to imply that he was a person of uncommon strength and courage. The term a mighty hunter, has been variously interpreted; some understanding that he was a great tyrant, and others accounting him a virtuous prince, who, being naturally of a martial disposition, and ambitious of distinguishing himself by his valour, armed a number of vigorous young men, and, by training them to the toils of the chase, rendered them equal to the task of braving danger with unshaken intrepidity.

Nimrod is supposed to have been the first man who obtained the regal dignity after the flood: (b. C. 1998) and the four cities mentioned by Moses constituted an extensive kingdom in those early times, when few kings could boast of more than one. By what means he ac quired the sovereignty we are unable to determine, but it was most probably by the force of arms; in consequence of which we suppose Ashur to have been driven from Shinaar, when he went and formed Nineveh, and other cities in Assyria. Various conjectures have been formed, concerning the time and manner of Nimrod's death; some pretending that he fell by the hand of Esau, whom they make his contemporary; and others affirming that he perished amidst the ruins of Babel, which was overthrown by a violent hurricane. Scripture is, however, silent upon these points; and the ancient traditions, va

rying from each other, afford at best an uncertain authority.

It is now requisite that we should return to the immediate descendants of Noah, who after the decease of their father, thought proper to quit the vicinage of Mount Ararat, and to establish themselves and their families on some other part of the earth. With this design they travelled from the east till they arrived at a plain in the land of Shinaar, which they immediately designed for their future abode. On this spot, which proved sufficiently attractive to terminate their journey, they resolved to erect a city, and a tower whose top might aspire to heaven, for the express purpose of avoiding the dispersion of their families. The building was accordingly begun, bricks being used instead of stone, and slime or bitumen supplying the want of mortar; but God, whose infinite wisdom had decreed the welfare of his creatures by the very circumstance which the builders attempted to elude, compelled them to relinquish their project, by confounding their language, so that one could not understand what another said. The city now took the name of Babel, or confusion, and the dispersion of mankind imme diately ensued.

Prior to this important event, which, according to the Hebrew calculation, happened just before the birth of Peleg, in the year of the flood 101, all mankind spoke the same language and lived together in one body; but it now became indispensably necessary that they should divide themselves according to their respective tongues and families, in order to people the earth.

This disposition and the subsequent planting of nations were performed in the most orderly manner; for we are informed with regard to the sons of Japhet, that, "By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after their families, after their tongues, in their nations." The account given of the sons of Ham ends in a similar manner, "These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, in their nations:" and that of the sons of Shem terminates thus; "These are the sons of Shem, after their families,

after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.” All which texts serve to corroborate and justify our assertion. Notwithstanding, some writers have imagined that the first plantations were made without any method or regularity, every colony being settled by chance, and each individual seizing on his portion as chance or caprice directed.

Allowing Shem to have spent the remainder of his life after the confusion of tongues in Shinaar, we may endeavor to follow his descendants in their migration. There were seven chiefs of his line, concerned in the dispersion, viz. his five sons already mentioned, Selah the son of Arphaxad, and Eber the son of Selah, who seem to have settled from Media westward to the sea coast of Aram or Syria.

Elam fixed his habitation in the country of Elam, lying to the southeast of Shinaar. Ashur's territory, first distinguished by his name, and known to the Greeks by the name of Assyria, we find lying contiguous to Elam's, on the west or northwest. Arphaxad seems to have settled in Chaldea, where his descendants continued till the time of Abraham; yet some authors have assigned him a place in Arrapacitus, a province of Assyria, and others who confound him with Canaan, pronounce him founder of the Chinese monarchy. Selah the son of Arphaxad, might very probably have settled in Chaldea, where we suppose there was sufficient room for his posterity till the time of Abraham; and for similar reasons we imagine the abode of Eber to have been in the same country. With respect to Lud, we are totally unable to ascertain the seat of his habitation, he is indeed fixed by Josephus in Lydia; but it appears needless that he should have wandered so far from his friends, and the ancient name of the Lydians is a strong objection against this opinion. Aram, the youngest son of Shem, obtained the countries of Mesopotamia and Syria, which, exclusive of Phenicia and Palestine, comprehended all the territories westward of Assyria as far as the Mediterranean; and Aram's name is accordingly given in scripture both to the whole of these countries, and their several regions.