But yet another question is mooted: How did Heber and his son Peleg each found a nation, if they had but one language? For no doubt the Hebrew nation propagated from Heber through Abraham, and becoming through him a great people, is one nation.How, then, are all the sons of the three branches of Noah's family enumerated as founding a nation each, if Heber and Peleg did not so? It is very probable that the giant Nimrod founded also his nation, and that Scripture has named him separately on account of the extraordinary dimensions of his empire and of his body, so that the number of seventy-two nations remains.But Peleg was mentioned, not because he rounded a nation (for his race and language are Hebrew), but on account of the critical time at which he was born, all the earth being then divided.
Nor ought we to be surprised that the giant Nimrod lived to the time in which Babylon was rounded and the confusion of tongues occurred, and the consequent division of the earth.For though Heber was in the sixth generation from Noah, and Nimrod in the fourth, it does not follow that they could not be alive at the same time.For when the generations are few, they live longer and are born later; but when they are many, they live a shorter time, and come into the world earlier.We are to understand that, when the earth was divided, the descendants of Noah who are registered as founders of nations were not only already born, but were of an age to have immense families, worthy to be called tribes or nations.And therefore we must by no means suppose that they were born in the order in which they were set down; otherwise, how could the twelve sons of Joktan, another son of Heber's, and brother of Peleg, have already founded nations, if Joktan was born, as he is registered, after his brother Peleg, since the earth was divided at Peleg's birth? We are therefore to understand that, though Peleg is named first, he was born long after Joktan, whose twelve sons had already families so large as to admit of their being divided by different languages.There is nothing extraordinary in the last born being first named: of the sons of Noah, the descendants of Japheth are first named; then the sons of Ham, who was the second son; and last the sons of Shem, who was the first and oldest.
Of these nations the names have partly survived, so that at this day we can see from whom they have sprung, as the Assyrians from Assur, the Hebrews from Heber, but partly have been altered in the lapse of time, so that the most learned men, by profound research in ancient records, have scarcely been able to discover the origin, I do not say of all, but of some of these nations.There is, for example, nothing in the name Egyptians to show that they are descended from Misraim, Ham's son, nor in the name Ethiopians to show a connection with Gush, though such is said to be the origin of these nations.And if we take a general survey of the names, we shall find that more have been changed than have remained the same.
CHAP.12.--OF THE ERA IN ABRAHAM'S LIFE FROM WHICH A NEW PERIOD IN THEHOLY
SUCCESSION BEGINS.
Let us now survey the progress of the city of God from the era of the patriarch Abraham, from whose time it begins to be more conspicuous, and the divine promises which are now fulfilled in Christ are more fully revealed.We learn, then, from the intimations of holy Scripture, that Abraham was born in the country of the Chaldeans, a land belonging to the Assyrian empire.
Now, even at that time impious superstitions were rife with the Chaldeans, as with other nations.The family of Terah, to which Abraham belonged, was the only one in which the worship of the true God survived, and the only one, we may suppose, in which the Hebrew language was preserved; although Joshua the son of Nun tells us that even this family served other gods in Mesopotamia.1 The other descendants of Heber gradually became absorbed in other races and other languages.And thus, as the single family of Noah was preserved through the deluge of water to renew the human race, so, in the deluge of superstition that flooded the whole world, there remained but the one family of Terah in which the seed of God's city was preserved.And as, when Scripture has enumerated the generations prior to Noah, with their ages, and explained the cause of the flood before God began to speak to Noah about the building of the ark, it is said, "These are the generations of Noah;" so also now, after enumerating the generations from Shem, Noah's son, down to Abraham, it then signalizes an era by saying, "These are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah."2 This Iscah is supposed to be the same as Sarah, Abraham's wife.
CHAP.13.--WHY, IN THE ACCOUNT OF TERAH'S EMIGRATION, ON HIS FORSAKINGTHE
CHALDEANS AND PASSING OVER INTO MESOPOTAMIA, NO MENTION IS MADE OFHIS SON
NAHOR.
Next it is related how Terah with his family left the region of the Chaldeans and came into Mesopotamia, and dwelt in Haran.
But nothing is said about one of his sons called Nahor, as if he had not taken him along with him.For the narrative runs thus: