Aram” ; but, in 1 Chron. i. 17, the same four are catalogued as BeNI-SAeM; that is,
“ sons of Shem.”
Hence one of two conclusions is submitted to hagiography. Either the writer of
Chronicles follows a different genealogical list from that of Xth Genesis — in which
case we are at a loss to which document to ascribe “ plenary inspiration”—or (as we
maintain with every Orientalist) the word BeNI (sons) does not mean, whether in the
former or in the latter text, the bona fide offspring of a man called A r a m , or of a man
called S h e m ; but simply a generaY affiliation; such as in English we comprehend by
Wilkin-son ; or by J^'fó-Gerald, Afc-Donald, O’-Brien, Ap-Shenkyn, &c.
¿JUTs, first of the four, cannot well have been Shem’s son and grandson at one and
the same time; unless it be claimed that Shem wedded his own daughter: an escape not
provided, for in either tex t; and if it were, what becomes of Aram’s paternity ? Again
an imaginary human being called SAeM could not physically have been progenitor of a
country called A r am . Common sense, however, based upon the spirit of familiar Oriental
personifications, finds no contradiction between the authors of Xth Genesis and
of 1 Chronicles; to whom $UTs and his three figurative brethren, as BeNI, “ affiliations,”
were colonies or emigrants from an especial land termed ABaM; itself classified
generically among countries occupied by Shemitish families.
This example, we presume, suffices to show the absurdity of seeing human individuals
where the writer of Xth Genesis catalogued naught but countries, cities, and
tribes, after the symbolical names “ Shem, Ham, and Japheth.’L-r-But, our difficulties
end not here.
Genesis X.
V. 23—And sons of ABaM, aUTs, and
HAUL, and GTiB, and MaSA.
Genesis XXII.
V. 20 — Milcah has also given sons to
Nahor thy brother.
“ 2 i — AUTs his first born, and BUZ
his brother, and KM UAL,
A third AUTs occurs among the de- Father of ABaM.
scendants of Esau {Gen. xxxvi. 28). “ 22 — And KaSD—(i. e. Chaldoea) &c.
With three distinct personifications (above exhibited), each called AUTs, it is next
to impossible for a commentator to avoid equivoques; and the country, or tribe, of
one AUTs may be erroneously assigned to eitker of the two others ; even without supposing
mistakes in the two later genealogical lists; which discrepancies, however, do
not otherwise concern us. Xth Genesis, in every instance, has stood the test of
critical geography heretofore; and errors in this case are ours, not its venerable
compiler’s.
Nevertheless, in the second list (Gen. xxii.), AUTs becomes the uncle of ABAM;
whereas in Xth Genesis he is the latter’s son: while KaSD, Chesed, (singular of
KaSDIM, Chaldceans,) unmentioned by the former author, figures, in the latter’s list,
among the descendants of N a h o r , A b r a h a m ’s brother.
It is to the land, called AUTs in Xth Genesis, that Job’s residence is generally
assigned, 'owing to its proximity to Chaldoea; wherefore the latter passage indicates a
country, rather than a tribe — but in no. case a man.
These triple chances of error, ab'ove noticed, compel archaeology to be extremely
wary in deciding to which of numerous Arabian resemblances of name we are to attribute
the AUTs of Xth Genesis—or really “ land of AUTs.” Bochart ingeniously guessed
the JEsitce, Ausilis, Ausite, of Ptolemy, in the Syrian desert towards the Euphrates;
where the Idumaean Arabs Beni-Tamln have dwelt; to whom, Jeremiah exclaims —
“ Bejoice thee, daughter of Edom, who livest in the land of AUTs.” Lenormant follows
Michaelis in selecting Damascus.
In Arab tradition, Owz was the parent of the lost Addite tribes ; and, assuming this
wild legend to be historical, by dint of mistranslations, Forster has raised a fabric of
delusion exceeded only in extravagance by the same enthusiastic divine’s Sinaic inscriptions
I It is in the ill-advised Appendix to his excellent Geography, entitled “ Hadra-
mfitic Inscriptions,” that this erudite Orientalist lost his balance when supposing that,
in these very modern Himyarite petroglyphs, he found himself “ conversing, as it were,
with the immediate descendants of Shem and Noah, not through the doubtful medium
of ancient history, or the dim light of Oriental tradition, but in their own records of
their own annals, g graven with an iron pen, and lead, in the rock for ever I ’ ” He
translates the second line of Wellsted’s short inscription as follows : “ Aws assailed
the Beni-Ac, and hunted [them] down, and covered their faces with blackness.”
Happy, indeed, though not perhaps to the pious extent of the Bev. Mr. Forster,
should we be to recognize AUTs in these inscriptions; but some trifling obstacles intervene.
Suppose, for instance, that the Hadramautic inscription (No. 4), read into Arabic,
should say nothing of the kind? Ex. gr., that which Forster translates “Aws assailed
the Beni-Ac;” &c., should be, according to Hunt, “ the effeminate youths are adorned
and perfume their garments and strut proudly” ! And suppose, that the language
in which these inscriptions of Hisn Ghorab are written, being the old Ehkkelee or Cushite
tongue, does not admit of their being transcribed directly into Arabic idioms at a ll!
Fresnel, the Himyarite discoverer “ par excellence,” gives the same inscription (No. 4),
in Arabic letters, but has ventured no translation. These suppositions Forster, so far
as we can learn^ has never taken notice o f; but goes on translating anything and
everything into an Arabic “ sui generis,” with the same serene composure that Father
Kircher, two centuries ago, read off at sight ( ! ) those identical Sinaic inscriptions on
which Forster has latterly exercised his orthodoxy without mentioning the labors of
his Herculean.prototype.
AUTs, under these circumstances, remains on our hands. Probabilities favor the
JEsitce, Ausitis, of Ptolemy the geographer; and Job’s “ land of AUTs,” on the Arabian
frontier of Chaldaea, seems to answer best to the Aramaean analogies of Xth Genesis.
AUTs, we infer, was a tribe.^36
52. S i n —KMJL —‘Hu l.’
We enliven the reader with orthodox lexicography as we proceed—<“ Hul, pain,
infirmity, bringing forth children, sand, or expectation ! ”
Most authorities abandon KAUL in despair: but Grotius indicated that a Coelo-
Syrian city called Ohollce by Ptolemy might represent KAUL; and Bochart noticed the
frequency of this word in the Armenian localities of Cholua, Choluata, Chplvmma, and
Cholobetene; which last might be an Hellenic corruption of KhTJh-Beth, “ house of
KAUL.” Becent researches favor the adoption of the “ land of Huleh/ ’ in which is
the Lake Huleh, at the north of Palestine.637
53. irij — GTiR — ‘ Gether.’
Koranic tradition execrates the memory of “ Thamoud, son of G a t h e r , son of the
Aram,” among ante-historical tribes distinguished for their idolatry: but nothing can
exceed the vagueness of these legends.
Gadara, the metropolis of the Persea, east of the Jordan, and one of the cities of
Decapolis, has been assumed to represent GTiB. Here the well-known miracle of the
“ swine ” is said to have been performed. There are many other places whose names,
with the slightest modifications, answer equally well: among them, Katara, a town
and district placed by Ptolemy on the Persian Gulf, sufficiently important to have
become the bishopric of Gadara.
Gaddir, in Kanaanitish dialects (according to Pliny and Solinus, also in the “ Punica
lingua”) meaning a hedge, limit, boundary, or “ a place walled-round,” renders the
confusion still more perplexing; for in countries traversed by Phoenician caravans,
and occupied by their factors, any form of GTzB is as likely to have signified frontier
or station, as to be derived from the tribe called GTiB in Xth Genesis.638