propriately enough assigned to Javan, the most westerly of the sons of
Japheth. It can only be the assumption that Shem represents a middle zone between N and S that makes the position of Kittîm appear anomalous
to Di. Even if the island of Cyprus be meant (which, however, is
doubtful; p. 199), it must, on the view here taken, be assigned to Japheth.
It is true that in J traces of politico-historical grouping do appear
(
Hebrew characters) and (Hebrew characters) in 8-12; (Hebrew characters), (Hebrew characters) in 13f.).—As to the order within the
principal groups (of P), it is impossible to lay down any strict rule. Jen.
(ZA, x. 326) holds that it always proceeds from the remoter to the
nearer nations; but though that may be true in the main, it cannot be
rigorously carried through, nor can it be safely used as an argument
for or against a particular identification.
The defects of the Table, from the standpoint of modern
ethnology, are now sufficiently apparent. As a scientific
account of the origin of the races of mankind, it is disqualified
by its assumption that nations are formed through
the expansion and genealogical division of families; and
still more by the erroneous idea that the historic peoples of
the old world were fixed within three or at most four
generations from the common ancestor of the race. History
shows that nationalities are for the most part political units,
formed by the dissolution and re-combination of older peoples
and tribes; and it is known that the great nations of
antiquity were preceded by a long succession of social
aggregates, whose very names have perished. Whether a
single family has ever, under any circumstances, increased
until it became a tribe and then a nation, is an abstract
question which it is idle to discuss: it is enough that the
nations here enumerated did not arise in that way, but
through a process analogous to that by which the English
nation was welded together out of the heterogeneous elements
of which it is known to be composed.—As a historical
document, on the other hand, the chapter is of the highest
importance: first, as the most systematic record of the
political geography of the Hebrews at different stages of
their history; and second, as expressing the profound consciousness
of the unity of mankind, and the religious
primacy of Israel, by which the OT writers were animated.
Its insertion at this point, where it forms the transition from
primitive tradition to the history of the chosen people, has
