275 CHAPTER X. This chapter, though it be a very difficult one, and puzzles not only a common reader with the hard words that are in it, but the best interpreters with the hard things that are in it, yet is a most excellent comment on two passages in the foregoing chapter concerning the sons of Noah. I. What was said to them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth; and II. What was said of them: Of them was the whole earth overspread. OW these are the generations of Nthe sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, sons : and Japheth and unto them were sons born after the flood. Much pains some learned men have taken to find out what particular nations came from the particular persons named in this chapter; but there appears to be no certainty as to most of them. It may not be amiss to enquire a little into the reasons of that uncertainty; whence it is that we are so much in the dark concerning the original of nations; there being no nation that I know of, extant under the sun, except that of the Jews, the origin of which can be confidently fixed. Five reasons may be assigned for this: 1. Distance of time; the footsteps of the greatest events, how deeply soever impressed, being easily trodden out by the feet of time. 2. The pride and ambition of many nations, who, scorning to stand upon the same level with their neighbours, sought to beget in men a belief of their self-origination, or perhaps of their divine extraction; in order to which it was necessary to rase out all traditions and records of any other original. If the Arcadians would assume the title of Proselenoi, and call themselves more ancient than the moon, they must necessarily renounce all alliance to Japheth or any of his sons. 3. The want of timely records among the nations, in which to preserve an account of their rise and beginning. For a long time, probably, nothing was delivered but by oral tradition; which must needs be uncertain, especially among the first planters of nations, who, when they came into a desolate place, (as every part of the world was after the flood,) found it enough to teach their children how to cultivate the earth, without teaching them their pedigree. So, for want of leisure and opportunity, they suffered the certain histories of their own former state to dwindle into fabulous stories; and were, at length, able to give no better an account of themselves than that they sprung out of the earth upon which they lived. 4. The great disorders and confusions that have prevailed in nations. War hath driven many people out of their first habitations, whilst other nations have taken possession of them by dint of the sword, and so both have been mixed together. 5. The change and corruption of names; which, partly by the confusion of Babel, partly by the carelessness of people, and partly by the lapse of time, have been either totally lost, or so sadly mangled, that it has been scarcely possible to know them again. So that, all things considered, it is vain to expect to find either the known names of nations, among the names of this chapter, or the names of this chapter among the known names of nations, any further than we have the light of other scriptures to direct us. And it is plain that the Holy Ghost doth here take most especial notice of those countries and people with which the nation of the Jews had most dealing, and which were therefore to be mentioned in the subsequent histories of the Scripture. 2 The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and A A Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. 3 And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah. 4 And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. 5 By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations. The posterity of Japheth peopled the isles of the Gentiles after the confusion of Babel; for from thence they were scattered. By the isles of the Gentiles are commonly understood the countries of Europe and of the north of Asia. Europe is almost surrounded with water, and contains an abundance of islands. The Jews, to whom chiefly respect was had by Moses in writing this history, did call all those places isles to which they went by sea out of Judea. Isa. xi. 11. Zeph. ii. 11. Hence the Isles are defined by the prophet to be places beyond the sea. Jer. xxv. 22. In this sense Greece and Italy were islands. Among these isles of the Gentiles, our British Isles are justly reckoned; and were therefore doubtless peopled by Japheth's posterity,—but by which it is hard to say. Mr. Camden is pleased to make the Britons the descendants of Gomer. Sir Walter Raleigh seats Gomer in the borders of Syria and Cilicia, and conducts his warlike issue into Germany and France. The best of it is, that the matter is not great. If we are born of God, by faith in Jesus Christ, we need not be much concerned whether we are descended from Gomer or not. 6 And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan. 7 And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtechah: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan. 8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. : 10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11 Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, |