Asia,
Palestine, &c.
Shem
possesses
Shinar
and part of
Syria.
heir, was allotted what has been denominated the centre of the
earth, namely, Armenia, Shinar, and the rest of Mesopotamia,
with Assyria, Media, and Persia, as far as the Indus, likewise
Palestine and Arabia. To the sons of Ham, the last by allotment,
were given Cush and the region about the Persian Gulf,
namely, Susiana, and the principal part of the territory lying
in the second or western direction: Canaan having Palestine,
&c.; Mizraim, Egypt and Lybia.1 But according to ’Abu-1-
Faraj,2 Ham also had Teman or Idumea,3 as well as Ni-
gritia, Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, Scindia, and India east and
west of the river Indus. This allotment, though made by
Divine appointment,4 was only partially followed by the sons
of Noah when they quitted the patriarch in Armenia. The
followers of Shem, it is true, occupied, in the first instance, a
part of the countries destined for them, for, having proceeded
from Armenia, accompanied by a portion of the sons of Japhet,
they took, as already mentioned, a south-easterly direction,
and in all probability followed the course of the rivers Euphrates
and Tigris to the plain country.6 In allusion to this
change, Eusebius states, that the sons of Noah were the first
who descended from the mountains, and having fixed their
habitations in the plains, they persuaded others who, on account
of the recent flood had been afraid to venture, to follow their
example. The plain, it is added, which was thus occupied, is
called Shinar, and God commanded them to send forth colonies
to people the earth.6
Being thus in possession of Mesopotamia as a centre, the
Shemitic people appear to have gradually extended their limits
westward, from the borders of Assyria to those of Syria and
Samaria ;7 and we know that their high-priest Mclchizedek
was at Salem, when Abraham came into the country, where he
probably had been settled for some time.
But the most powerful, and by far the most numerous, of
these branches, was that of Ham, who appears to have con1
Hales’ Chron. Hist., vol. I., p. 354. 8 Hist. Dyn., p. 16.
3 Jeremiah, chap. X L IX ., v. 7, 20. 4 Euseb. Chron., p. 10.
5 Euseb. according to Polyhisfor, I., c. v., and Jos., lib. I ., cap. iv., s. i.
* Idem. 7 ’Abii-l-Faraj, Hist. Hyn., p. 16.
tinued at no great distance from Mount Ararat ; one of his Ham’s
grandsons, Havilah, occupying, it is supposed, part of the AskMmor.
eastern side of Lesser Asia ; and Ludim, another grandson, a
tract lying to the westward of the river Halys. This branch
appears to have occupied what afterwards became the territory
of Lydia, for we find them subsequently at Smyrna and
Umbria taking the name of their leader, Tyrrhenus the son of
Atys, who had conducted them thither.1 Three of Ham’s
sons, namely, Cush, Mizraim, and Phut, appear to have been They reign
born in Peræa,2 a name which was equally applied to the tractm Phoemoia-
beyond the Jordan, and the country on the other side of the
Euphrates ; but the latter was first occupied after the flood.
Subsequently to the allotment, Ham appears to have proceeded
from Asia Minor3 to the more central position of Byblus,4 in
Phoenicia,5 his sons being viceroys over the different countries
of which they had originally obtained unlawful possession.
Cush or Cutha was king of the territory called Kusdi Nimrud,6 Cash in
» Shinar. or Sinaar, which took the name of Babel after the dispersion.
But or Put, the Chaldaic of Phut7 or Pha,8 was, it is presumed,
sovereign of the extensive regions lying eastward of
Babylonia, which from Khous, son of Ham, were called
Kusdi Khorasân.9 At Byblus, Ham appears to have renewed
his idolatrous practices ; and Bishop Cumberland thinks it
more than probable that Niemaus, who is mentioned by Sanchoniatho
as being one of the wives of Chronus or Ham,
was Naamah, the sister of Tubal Cain, for (he adds) it is not
1 Herod., lib. I ., cap. lxxiv. xciv.
8 P . 13 of Ancient Fragments, by Isaac Preston Cory, Esq., W. Pickering,
1832 ; and Cumberland’s Times of First Planting of Nations, p. 174, compared
with Scaliger, pp. 116, 197.
3 Manes, son of Jupiter, supposed to be Jupiter Hammon, or Ham, founded
the Lydian Monarchy : Cumberland’s Sanchoniatho, p. 472.
4 Once Çrebel of the Amorites, and now Jubeil on the coast of Phoenicia :
see above, vol. I., p. 453.
5 Cumberland’s Sanchoniatho, p. 11.
6 St. Martin, Mémoires sur l’Arménie, tome I I ., pp. 72, 373. Euseb.,
I Præp. Evan., lib. IX ; Syncel., Chron. 44. Euseb., Chron. 13.
7 Wise's Fabulous Ages, p. 9.
8 The Bhud of the East. Harcourt’s Doctrine of the Delüge, vol. I ., p. 91.
9 St. Martin, Mémoires sur l’Arménie, tome I I . p. 392, 393.