Josephus Heb Sam Sept restored Heb Sam Sept restored Heb Sam Sept restored, by Hales. A. M. 1997. A. C. 2007; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3318. A. C. 2093. GEN. CH. x. AND CH. xi. VER. 10. TO THE END. inhabitants of this isle) call themselves Kumero or Cym- | of Noah's family, but only that of Shem and his descenro; call a woman Kumeraes, and the language they dants in a direct line to Abraham; and the different speak Kumeraeg; which several words carry in them computations relating to them may be best perceived such plain marks of the original name from whence they by the following table :are derived, that if any regard is to be had to etymologies in cases of this nature, we cannot forbear concluding that the true old Britons, or Welsh, are the genuine descendants of Gomer. And since it is observed that the Germans were likewise the descendants of Gomer, particularly the Cymbri, to whom the Saxons, and especially the Angles, were near neighbours, it will hence likewise follow that our ancestors, who succeeded the old Britons in the eastern part of this isle, were in a manner descended from Gomer, the first son of Japheth. After the flood) 1. Shem was.. 2 2 2 3. Salah......... 30 130 130 4. Cainan...... 6 Reu........ | Josephon by Hales Josephas by Hales. 2 500 500 500 500 600 32 132 132 7. Serug...... 30 130 130 8. Nahor. 130 79 79 70 70 at the 29 79 9. Terah the 70 70 father of Abra ham, Haran, In all 292 942|1072 75 205 145 205 205 Now, whoever casts his eye into this table may easily perceive, that except the variations which may possibly have been occasioned by the negligence of transcribers, the difference between the Samaritan and Septuagint chronology, and that of Josephus, is so very small, that one may justly suspect that the Samaritan has been transcribed from the Septuagint, on purpose to supply Thus we see that the plantations of the world by the sons of Noah and their offspring, recorded by Moses in this tenth chapter of Genesis, and by the inspired author of the first book of Chronicles, are not unprofitable fables, or endless genealogies, but a most valuable piece of history, which distinguishes from all other people that particular nation of which Christ was to come; gives light to several predictions and other passages in the prophets; shows us the first rise and origin of all nations, their gradual increase and successive migrations, cities building, lands cultivating, kingdoms rising, governments settling, and all to the accomplish-some defect in its copy, and that Josephus had, for some ment of the divine benediction,- Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth; and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every other creature.' CHAP. III. Of the Sacred Chronology and Profane History, Letters, Learning, Religion, and Idolatry, &c., during this period. reason or other, adopted the chronology of the same version; but that the difference between the Greek and Hebrew chronology is so very great, that the one or other of them must be egregiously wrong; because the Seventy do not only add a patriarch, named Cainan, never mentioned in the Hebrew, and so make eleven generations from Shem to Abraham instead of ten; but, in the lives of most of these patriarchs, they insert 100 years before they came to have children, that is, they make them fathers 100 years later than the Hebrew text does, though (to bring the matter to a compromise) they generally deduct them in the course of their lives. On both sides have appeared men of great learning; but they who assert the cause of the Septuagint, are not unmindful to urge the testimony of St Luke, who, between Arphaxad and Salah, has inserted the name of Cainan, which (as he was an inspired writer) he could never have done, had not the Septuagint been right in correcting the Hebrew Scriptures: besides that, the numbers in the Septuagint give time for the propagation of mankind, and seem to agree better with the history of the first kingdoms of the world. BEFORE We enter upon the history of the world, as it is delivered in some heathen authors, from the time of the flood to the calling of Abraham, it may not be improper to settle the sacred chronology; and that the rather, because the difference is very considerable, as appears by the subsequent table, according as we follow the computation of the Hebrew text, of the Samaritan copies, of the Greek interpreters, or of Josephus. But, before we come to this, we must observe, that in the catalogue which we refer to, Moses takes notice of no other branch 'Millar's Church History, ch. i. per. 2. 2 Gen. ix. 1, 2. a To show how the western part of our island came likewise to be peopled, the above-cited author of Scripture chronology supposes, that when Joshua made his conquests in the land of Canaan, several of the inhabitants of Tyre, being struck with the terror of his arms, left their country, and being skilled in the art of navigation, sailed into Africa, and there built a city called Carthage, or the "city of the wanderers," as he interprets the word; that the Syrians and Phoenicians, being always considerable merchants, and now settling in a place convenient for their purpose, began to enlarge their trade; and, coasting the sea shore of Spain, Portugal, and France, happened at length to chop upon the islands called Cassiterides, now the islands of Scilly, whereof he gives us a description from Strabo; that, having here fallen into a trade for tin and lead, it was not long before they discovered the Land's End, on the west side of Cornwall, and finding the country much more commodious than Scilly, removed from thence, and here made their settlement. And this conjec-Usher's Chron. Sacr. c. 2. 'Shuckford's Connection, vol. 1.b. 3 ture he accounts more feasible, by reason of the great affinity Ch. iii. 36. between the Cornish language and the ancient Hebrew Phonivian.-B. ii. c. 4, p. 195. On the other hand, they who abide by the Hebrew text, cannot think that the authority of the Septuagint is so sacred as their adversaries imagine. Upon examination they find many things added, many things omitted, and, through the whole, so many faults almost every where occurring, that "were a man to recount them all" as St Jerom expresses it, "he would be obliged not only to write one, but many books;" "nor need we seek for distant examples of this kind," says Bochart, "since this very genealogy is all full of anachronisms, vastly different both from the Hebrew and the vulgar version." A. M. 1997. A. C. 2007; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3318. A. C. 2093. GEN. CH. x. AND CH. xi. VER. 10. TO THE END. Editions moreover there were of an ancient date, | which, in imitation of the Alexandrian manuscript preserved by Origen in his Hexapla, had none of this insertion. Both Philo and Josephus, though they make use of the Septuagint version, know nothing of Cainan; and Eusebius and Africanus, though they took their accounts of these times from it, have no such persons among their postdiluvians; and therefore it is highly reasonable to believe, that this name crept into the Septuagint through the carelessness of some transcriber, who, inattentive to what he was about, inserted an antediluvian name (for such a person there was before the flood) among the postdiluvians, and having no numbers for his name, wrote the numbers belonging to Salah twice over. Since therefore the Hebrew text, in all places where we find Noah's posterity enumerated, takes not the least notice of Cainan, but always declares Salah to be the immediate son and successor of Arphaxad; 2 we must either say that Moses did, or that he did not know of the birth of this pretended patriarch: if he did not, how came the LXX. interpreters by the knowledge of what Moses, who lived much nearer the time, was a diligent searcher into antiquity, and had the assistance of a Divine spirit in every thing he wrote, was confessedly ignorant of? If he did know it, what possible reason can be assigned for his concealing it, especially when his insertion or omission of it make such a remarkable variation in the account of time, from the flood to the call of Abraham, unless he was minded to impose upon us by a false or confused chronology, which his distinct observation of the series of the other generations, and his just assignment of the time which belonged to each, will not suffer us to think. Rather, therefore, than impeach this servant of God Heidegger's History of the Patriarchs, vol. 2. Essay 1. * Heidegger's History of the Patriarchs, vol. 2. Essay 1. Bishop Cumberland's Origin. Antiquis. p. 177, &c. a The ancient manuscript of the Gospels and Acts, both in Greek and Latin, which Beza presented to the university of Cambridge, wants it; nor is it to be found in some manuscripts which Archbishop Usher, in his Chron. Sacr., p. 32, makes mention of.-Millar's History of the Church, ch. i. period 2. Nor must the testimony of Varro be overlooked, which tells us, that there were but 1600 years between the first flood and the Olympiads; whereas this number is exceeded seven or eight hundred years by the Septuagint's account. These, and several other considerations," says he, "incline me to the Hebrew numbers of the patriarchs generating, rather than to the Septuagint's; because, by the numbers of the Septuagint, there must be about 900 years between the flood and the first year of Ninus, which certainly is too much distance between a grandfather and a grandchild's beginning to reign." Thus it seems reasonable to suppose, that the interpolation of the name of Cainan in the Septuagint version, might be the work of some ignorant and pragmatical transcriber: and in like manner, the addition and subtraction of several hundred years, in the lives of the fathers beforementioned, might be effected by such another instrument, who, thinking perhaps that the years of the antediluvian lives were but lunar ones, and computing that at this rate the six fathers (whose lives are thus altered) must have had their children at five, six, seven, and eight years old, which could not but look incredible, might be induced to add the 100 years, in order to make them of a more probable age of manhood, at the birth of their respective children. Or, if he thought the years of their lives to be solar, yet still he might imagine, that infancy and childhood were proportionably longer in men, who were to live 7, 8, or 900 years, than they are in us; and that it was too early in their lives for them to be fathers at sixty, seventy, or eighty years of age; for which reason he might add the 100 years, to make their advance to manhood (which is commonly not till one fourth part of our days is near over), proportionable to what was to be the ultimate term of their lives. "Shuckford's Connection, vol. 1. b. v. ex Lud. Capelli, Chron. Sacra in Apparatu Walton ad Bibl. Polyglot. b This last observation respecting the proportion that the length of the period before puberty bears to the longevity of men and of all other animals, is well founded, has been already shown in the discussion concerning the antediluvian chronology of the Hebrew Scriptures; and it is almost needless to observe, that the Jews who corrupted the Hebrew chronology, had the very same reason for curtailing the period between the flood and the birth of the human race and the flood. Their object in both cases, was Abraham, as for shortening the distance between the origin of to prove by the authority of their own Scriptures, to which the Christians as well as they appealed, that Jesus of Nazareth had come into the world a thousand years earlier than the period With this view, as they had sunk 600 years in the successive decreed for the advent of the Messiah promised to their fathers. generations of the antediluvian patriarchs, they chose to sink 700 in the generations of those descendants of Shem, from whom had sprung Abraham, the founder of their own nation, and the ancestor as well of Jesus of Nazareth as of the promised Messiah. culate purity of the Hebrew Scriptures, the postdiluvian genealogy Notwithstanding all that has been said in favour of the immaof those Scriptures in their present state, furnishes internal evidence of its own corruption more striking perhaps than even that by which the corruption of the antediluvian genealogy has been detected. In the antediluvian genealogy the sums total of the lives of the several patriarchs are uniformly given; but in the postdiluvian genealogy, they are all, except the life of Abraham, as uniformly omitted, though retained in the Samaritan copy. This cannot have been done but for some sinister purpose; and indeed the absurdity in which the editors of the present text have involved themselves in their genealogy of Terah and Abraham, shows how unsafe it would have been to persist in their short generations, and at the same time to give the ages of the several A. M. 1997. A. C. 2007; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3318. A. C. 2093. GEN. CH. 1. AND CH. xi. VER. 10. TO THE END. This seems to be the only method of reconciling the | to provide for such as would become their servants, difference between the Septuagint version and the Hebrew text, in point of chronology; and now to proceed to what we find recorded in profane history, during this period. After the dispersion of nations, the only form of government that was in use for some time, was paternal, when fathers of nations were as kings, and the eldest of families as princes; but as mankind increased, and their ambition grew higher, the dominion which was founded in nature, gave place to that which was acquired and established by power. 1 In early ages, a superiority of strength or stature was the most engaging qualification to raise men to be kings and rulers. The Ethiopians, as Aristotle informs us, made choice of the tallest persons to be their princes; and though Saul was made king of Israel by the special appointment of God, yet it appears to have been a circumstance not inconsiderable in the eyes of the people, 'that he was a choice young man, and goodly, and that there was not, among the children of Israel, a goodlier man than he' but when experience came to convince men that other qualifications, besides stature and strength were necessary for the people's happiness, they then chose persons of the greatest wisdom and prudence for their governors. 3 Some wise and understanding men, who knew best how to till and cultivate the ground, to manage cattle, to prune and plant fruit trees, &c., took into their families, and promised "Still, however, the Septuagint furnishes evidence of the omission, by retaining the last words, found uniformly in the Samaritan text, xaì ùæílavsv—and he died, throughout the whole. There cannot, therefore, remain a doubt, that the total lives were originally inserted in the ancient Jewish Hebrew copies, as well as in the Samaritan; no less than the total lives of the antediluvian patriarchs, in both Hebrew texts, and in all the ancient versions. And the centenary addition to the generations of the first seven patriarchs after the flood, is now fully established, by the triple evidence of the Samaritan text, the Septuagint version, and Josephus." The same learned chronologer has proved likewise that the short Hebrew computation is absurd in itself, and inconsistent with history sacred and profane. 1. Eusebius well remarks; "The error of the Jewish Hebrew text is evident from this; that it makes Abraham and Noah contemporaries; for since, according to that text, there are no more than 292 years from the flood to Abraham; and since, according to the same text, Noah survived the flood 350 years; it follows that he lived to the fifty-eighth year of Abraham, which is absurd. 2. Upon this supposition, idolatry must have begun and prevailed, and the patriarchal government have been overthrown by Nimrod and the builders of Babel, during the lifetime of the second founder of the human race, and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth," which is surely in a high degree improbable. 3. "If Shem lived until the 110th year of Isaac, and the fiftieth of Jacob, why was not he included in the covenant of circumcision made with Abraham and his family?" Or, if this was not compatible with God's general scheme of revelation, "Why was Shem passed over without notice in the history of the most illustrious members of his own family, with whom he was contemporary?" 4. "How could the earth be so populous in Abraham's days, or the mighty kingdoms of Assyria and Egypt be so soon established after the deluge?" and submit to their directions: and thus, in continuance of time, heads of families became kings; their houses, together with the near habitations of their domestics, became cities; their servants, in their several occupations and employments, became wealthy and considerable subjects; and the inspectors and overseers of them, became ministers of state, and managers of the public affairs of the kingdom. In the first beginning of political societies, almost every town (as we may suppose) had its own king,' who, more attentive to preserve his dominions than to extend them, restrained his ambition within the bounds of his native country; till disputes with neighbours (which were sometimes unavoidable) jealousy of a more powerful prince, an enterprising genius, or martial inclination, occasioned those wars which often ended in the absolute subjection of the vanquished; whose possessions, falling into the power of the conqueror, enlarged his dominions, and both encouraged and enabled him to push on his conquests by new enterprises. Nimrod was the first man we meet with in Scripture, who made invasions upon the territories of others: for he dispossessed Ashur, the son of Shem, who had settled himself in Shinar, and obliged him to remove into Assyria, whilst himself seized on Babylon, and having repaired, and not a little enlarged it, made it the capital of his kingdom. To this last question, our author produces a reply from Sir Isaac Newton's chronology, which is certainly not one of the most valuable of that immortal author's works. To prove that the world was but thinly peopled in the days of Abraham, Sir Isaac observes that four great kings with their armies were pur. sued and beaten by Abraham, though the whole force that he and the princes in alliance with him brought into the field amounted only to 318 men. But, answers our author, we learn from the joint testimony of Scripture and Josephus, that Abraham and his theee friends defeated the enemy by stratagem; for they overtook them on the fifth night, and attacked them on two different sides of their camp, when they were oppressed by sleep and wine. Newton proceeds to say, that at the birth of Moses, Egypt was so thinly peopled, that Pharaoh said the Israelites were more numerous and mighty than the Egyptians, and therefore ordered their male children to be drowned as soon as born; but this is not what Pharaoh is, in Scripture, represented as having said of the Israelites. We are there told, that he said, 'Come let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply; and it come to pass, that when there falleth out war, they join themselves to our enemies, and fight against us, and get them up out of the land.' Here it is evident that Pharaoh did not then consider the Israelites as more or mightier than the Egyptians, or that he was even afraid of their ever becoming so without foreign aid; and the multitudes, with whom he pursued them when they afterwards actually got up out of the land under the command of the same Moses, furnish a complete proof that Egypt must have been, not only then, but for many generations, a populous and powerful kingdom. The present Hebrew computation of time from the flood to the birth of Abraham is therefore undoubtedly erroneous; but the computation of the Septuagint is not to be followed implicitly. The insertion of Cainan between Arphaxad and Salah is unquestionably an interpolation; and it is not without other errors, The computation that comes nearest to the truth is that of Josephus as restored by Dr Hales; and on that account it has been inserted into the preceding table in addition to the Hebrew, Samaritan, and Septuagint computations published in all the former editions of this work.-Bp. Gleig. A. M. 1997. A. C. 2007; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3318. A. C. 2093. GEN. CH. x. AND CH. xi. VER. 10. TO THE END. b parallel with the river, and others from east to west, a The compass of the wall, which was surrounded with a vast ditch filled with water, was 480 furlongs, that is, about sixty miles; the height of it, 350 feet, and the breadth so vastly great, that carts and carriages might meet on the top of it, and pass one another without danger. Over the Euphrates (which cut the city into two equal parts, from north to south) there was a stately bridge, and at each end of the bridge, a magnificent palace, the one of four and the other of eight miles' circumference; and belonging to the larger palace, were those hanging gardens, which had so celebrated a name among the Greeks. They were made in form of a square of 400 feet on every side, and. were carried up aloft into the air, in the manner of several large terraces, one above another, till they came up to the height of the walls of the city. They were sustained by vast arches built upon arches, one above another, and strengthened by a wall on every side, that was twenty-two feet thick; and as they wanted no plants or flowers fit for a garden of pleasure, so there are said to have grown in them trees, which were no less than eight cubits thick in the body, and fifty feet in height. But this among other pompous things appertaining to this city, was the work of ages, subsequent to Nimrod, and built by Nebuchadnezzar, to gratify his wife Amytis, who, being the daughter of Astyages, king of Media, and much pleased with the mountainous and woody parts of her own country, was desirous of having something like it in Babylon. It can hardly be imagined that the first kings were able either to make or execute laws with that strictness and rigour which is necessary in a body of men so large as to afford numerous offenders: and for this reason it seems to have been a prudent institution in Nimrod, when his city of Babylon began to be too populous to be regulated by his inspection, or governed by his influence, to d lay the foundation of other cities; by which means he disposed of great numbers of his people, and, putting them under the direction of such deputies as he might appoint, brought their minds by degrees to a sense of government, until the beneficial use of it came to be experienced, and the force and power of laws settled and confirmed. He is supposed to have begun his reign A. M. 1757, to have reigned about 148 years, and to have died A. M. 1905. e About the beginning of Nimrod's reign, Ashur,f one of the descendants of Shem, being driven from Babel, as most suppose, by the invasion of Nimrod, led his company on the Tigris, and so settling in Assyria, laid the first foundation of Nineveh, which in process of time exceeded even Babylon itself in size. For, whereas we observed of Babylon, that it was in circuit 488 ruins of its fortifications are still visible, though demolished. Behind, and some little way beyond, is the tower of Babylon, which is half a league diameter, but so ruinous, so low, and so full of venomous creatures, which lodge in the holes they make in the rubbish, that no one durst approach nearer to it than when these animals never stir out of their holes.—Calmet's Dicwithin half a league, except during two months in the winter, tionary. From the Assyrians, this great and noble city came into the hands of the Persians, and from them into the hands of the Macedonians. Here it was that Alexander the Great died; but not long after his death the city began to decline apace, by the building of Selucia, about forty miles above it, by Seleucus Nicanor, who is said to d The cities which he founded are said to be Erec, Accad, and have erected this new city in spleen to the Babylo- Calne. Erec was the same that occurs in Ptolemy, under the nians, and to have drawn out of Babylon 500,000 southern turning of the common channel of the Tigris and name of Arecca, and which is placed by him at the last, or most persons to people it; so that the ancient city was, Euphrates. Accad lay northward of Erec, and very probably at in the time of Curtius the historian, lessened a fourth the common joining of the Tigris and Euphrates. And Calne part; in the time of Pliny, reduced to desolation; (which is said to be the same with Ctesiphon) upon the Tigris, in the days of St Jerom, turned into a park, wherein the about three miles distant from Seleucia, and was for some time kings of Persia used to hunt ; and, according to the rela-Ctesiphon, seems to be confirmed by the country which lies the capital city of the Parthians; for that it was the same with tion of some late travellers, is now reduced to one < a It must be observed, however, that all this compass of ground was not really built upon, for the houses stood at a considerable distance, with gardens and fields interspersed; so that it was a large city in scheme, rather than in reality.-Prideaux's Connection, part 1. b. 2. 6 The old palace (which was probably built by Nimrod) stood on the east side of the river, and the new one (which was built by Nebuchadnezzar) exactly over against it, on the west side. Ibid. e Mr Reuwolf, who, in 1574, passed through the place where this once famous city stood, speaks of the ruins of it in the following manner:-"The village of Elugo is now situate where heretofore Babylon of Chaldea stood. The harbour, where people go ashore in order to proceed by land to the city of Bagdad, is a quarter of a league distant from it. The soil is so dry and barren, that they cannot till it; and so naked, that I could never have believed that this powerful city, once the most stately and renowned in all the world, and situated in the fruitful country of Shinar, could have stood there, had I not seen, by the situation of the place, by many antiquities of great beauty, which are to be seen round about, and especially by the old bridge over the Euphrates, whereof some piles and arches, of incredible strength are still remaining, that it certainly did stand there. The whole front of the village Elugo is the hill upon which the castle stood, and the about it being called Chalonitis, which is evidently derived from Chalne, or Chalno, whereby we find it called in different parts of Scripture.-Wells' Geography, vol. 1. c. 5. e According to Dr Hales, Nimrod began his reign A. M. 2857, reigned about 98 years, and died A. M. 2955.-ED. f Many authors have imagined that Nineveh was not built by Ashur, but by Nimrod himself, because they think it not likely that Moses should give an account of the settlement of one of the sons of Shem, where he is expressly discoursing of Ham's family; and therefore they interpret (as the marginal note directs) Gen. x. 11, out of that land went forth Ashur,' he, that is, Nimrod, went forth into Assyria, which is the explanation that I have in some measure followed; but others imagine that Moses is not so exactly methodical, but that, upon mentioning Nimrod and his people, he might hint at a colony which departed from under his government, though it happened to be led by a person or another family; that the land of Ashur and the land of Nimrod are mentioned as two distinct countries in Micah v. 6, and that if Nimrod had built Nineveh, and planted Assyria, Babylon and Assyria would have been but one empire, nor could the one be said to have conquered the other with any propriety: whereas we are expressly told by Diodorus, that the Assyrians conquered the Babylonians; and may thence infer, that before Ninus united them, Babylonia and Assyria were two distinct kingdoms, and not the plantation of one and the same founder.-Shuckford's Connection, vol. 1. b. 4. f 2 A. M. 1997. A. C. 2007; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3318. A. C. 2093. GEN. CH. x. AND CH. xi. VER. 10. TO THE END. furlongs, the description which Diodorus gives us of | Menes, seated himself at first near the entrance of Egypt, Nineveh is, that it was 150 furlongs, that is, near nineteen and there perhaps built the city of Zoan, which was miles in length; ninety furlongs, that is, somewhat anciently the habitation of the kings of Egypt; but from above eleven miles in breadth; and 480 furlongs, that is, Zoan he removed farther into the country, and took pos just sixty miles in circumference; and for this reason it session of those parts, which were afterwards called is called 'an exceeding great city of three days' jour- Thebais, where he built the city of Thebes, and, as Heroney,' according to the common estimation of twenty dotus will have it, the city of Memphis likewise. He miles to a day's journey. And equal to the greatness reigned sixty-two years, and died A. M. 1943. © was the strength of this city: for its walls were 100 feet high, and so very broad, that three carts might go abreast on the top of them; whereon were raised 1500 turrets, and each of them 200 feet high, and so very strong, that the place was deemed impregnable, 3 till Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, having made an affinity with Astyages, king of Media, entered into a confederacy with him against the Assyrians, and hereupon joining their forces together, they besieged Nineveh, and after having taken the place, and slain the king thereof, to gratify the Medes, they utterly destroyed that ancient city, and from that time Babylon became the metropolis of the Assyrian empire. 3 1 Wells' Geography. ? Jonah iii. 3. 3 Prideaux's Connection, vol. 1. a The cities which Ashur is said to have built were Rehoboth, Resen, and Calah. The word Rehoboth, in the Hebrew tongue, signifies streets; and the sacred historian seems to have added the word city, on purpose to show that it was here to be taken as a proper name. Now, as there are no footsteps of this name in these parts, but a town there is, by Ptolemy called Birtha, which in the Chaldee tongue denotes the same as does Rehoboth in the Hebrew, in an appellative or common acceptation; it is hence probably conjectured, that Rehoboth and Birtha are only two different names of one and the same city, which was seated on the Tigris, about the mouth of the river Lycus. Resen is supposed by most learned men to be the same city which Xenophon mentions under the name of Larissa, and that not only because the situation of this Larissa well enough agrees with the situation of Resen, as it is described by Moses, lying between Nineveh and Calah; but because Moses observes in the same text, that Resen was a great city; in like manner, as Xenophon tells us, that Larissa, though then ruinated, had been a large city, of eight miles' circumference, with walls 100 feet high and twenty-five feet broad. And whereas Larissa is a Greek name, and in the days of Xenophon there were no Greek cities in Assyria; for this they account by supposing, that when the Greeks might ask, What city those were the ruins of ? the Assyrians might answer Laresen, or of Resen, which Xenophon expressed by Larissa, a name not unlike several cities in Greece. And, lastly, as to Calah, or Calach, since we find in Strabo a country about the head of the river Lycus called Calachene, it is very probable that the said country took this name from Calach, which was one of the capital cities of it. Ptolemy makes mention likewise of a country called Calacine in these parts: and whereas Pliny mentions a people called Classitæ, through whose country the Lycus runs, there is some reason to suppose, that Classite is a corruption of Calachitæ. -Wells' Geography, vol. 1. The person whom Moses calls Mizraim, is, by Diodorus and other heathen writers, commonly called Menes, by Syncellus, Mestraim. Menes is supposed to be the first king of Egypt by Herodotus, b. 2. by Diodorus b. 1. by Eratosthenes and Afri Belus succeeded Nimrod, and was the second king of Babylon; but whether he was related to his predecessor or not, is a thing uncertain. It seems most likely, that as Nimrod, though a young man in comparison of many then alive, was advanced, for some merit or other, to the regal dignity; so when he died, Belus might appear to be the most proper person, and for that reason was appointed to succeed him: for he is represented a prince of study, the inventor of the Chaldean astronomy, and one who spent his time in cultivating his country and improving his people. He reigned sixty years, and died A. M. 1969, d Ashur, king of Nineveh, dying much about this time, Ninus became the second king of Assyria, and proved a man of an ambitious and enterprising spirit. Babylonia lay too near him not to become the object of his desire; and, therefore, making all military preparations for that purpose, he invaded it, and as its inhabitants had no great skill in war, soon vanquished them, and laid them under tribute. His success in this attempt made him begin to think of subjecting other nations; and, as one conquest paved the way for another, in a few years he overran many of the infant states of Asia, and so, by uniting kingdom to kingdom, made a great accession to the Assyrian empire. His last attempt was upon Oxyartes, or Zoroastres, king of Bactria, where he met with a brisker opposition than he had hitherto experienced; but at length, by the contrivance and conduct of Semiramis, the wife of one Memmon, a captain in his army, he took the capital, and reduced the kingdom; but being hereupon charmed with the spirit and bravery of the woman, he fell in love with her, and prevailed with her husband (by giving him his own daughter in lieu of Semiramis in marriage) to consent to his having her for his wife. By her he had a son named Ninyas; and after a reign of fifty-two years he died A. M. 2017. e Ninyas was but a minor when his father died; and therefore his mother, who all along had a great sway in the administration of public affairs during her husband's canus from Manetho; by Eusebius and Syncellus in Chro Euseb.; and the time of Menes coincides very well with those of Moses' Mizraim, as Sir John Marsham [in his Can. Chron. p. 2.] has pretty clearly evinced.—Shuckford's Connection, vol. 1. b. 4. c According to Hales's chronology, Mizraim settled in Egypt A. M. 2798; but whether Mizraim the son of Noah was the same person with Menes, called by the Greek writers the first king of Egypt, is uncertain. According to the same chronologist, Menes began his reign, B. C. 2412; that is, A. M. 2999. d Dr Hales, and Bishop Gleig following him, think that Belus and Nimrod were the same person; this, however, is doubtful. See Bell's Dissertation on the Origin of the Assyrian Empire, Rollin, vol. 1. pp. 117-122.-ED. e The Ninus of whom all this is said, was not the son of either Ashur or Nimrod, but Ninus II. who succeeded to the Assyrian throne B, C. 1252, and A. M. according to Hales's chronology, 4159. |