after the time of Alexander the Great, as an expression of the friendly
feeling of the Jews for their Hellenic conquerors.[1]—Gu.'s explanation,
which is put forward with all reserve, breaks ground in an opposite
direction. Canaan, he suggests, may here represent the great wave of
Semitic migration which (according to some recent theories) had swept
over the whole of Western Asia (c. 2250 B.C.), leaving its traces in
Babylonia, in Phœnicia, perhaps even in Asia Minor,[2] and of which the
later Canaanites of Palestine were the sediment. Shem is the Hebræo-Aramaic
family, which appears on the stage of history after 1500 B.C.,
and no doubt took possession of territory previously occupied by
Canaanites. It is here represented as still in the nomadic condition.
Japheth stands for the Hittites, who in that age were moving down
from the north, and establishing their power partly at the cost of both
Canaanites and Arameans. This theory hardly explains the peculiar
contempt and hatred expressed towards Canaan; and it is a somewhat
serious objection to it that in 1015 (which Gu. assigns to the same source
as 920ff.) Heth is the son of Canaan. A better defined background would
be the struggle for the mastery of Syria in the 14th cent. B.C.[3] If, as
many Assyriologists think probable, the Ḥabiri of the Tel-Amarna
Letters be the (
Hebrew characters) of the OT,—i.e. the original Hebrew stock to
which Israel belonged,—it would be natural to find in Shem the representative
of these invaders; for in 1021 (J) Shem is described as 'the
father of all the sons of Eber.' Japheth would then be one or other of
the peoples who, in concert with the Ḥabiri, were then seeking a foothold
in the country, possibly the Suti or the Amurri, less probably (for
the reason mentioned above) the Hittites.—These surmises must be
taken for what they are worth. Further light on that remote period of
history may yet clear up the circumstances in which the story of Noah
and his sons originated; but unless the names Shem and Japheth should
be actually discovered in some historic connexion, the happiest conjectures
can never effect a solution of the problem.
Ch. X.—The Table of Peoples (P and J).
In its present form, the chapter is a redactional composition, in which are interwoven two (if not three) successive attempts to classify the known peoples of the world, and to
- ↑ See We. Comp. 14 f.; Bu. Urg. 325 ff.; Sta. GVI, i. 109; Mey. GA1, i. p. 214; Bertholet, Stellung d. Isr. zu. d. Fremden, 76 f. Meyer's later theory (INS, 220 f.), that Japheth (= Eg. Kefti?) stands for the whole body of northern invaders in the 12th cent., to whom the Philistines belonged, does not diminish the improbability that such a prophecy should have originated under the monarchy.
- ↑ See Mey. GA1, i. p. 212 ff.; Wi. GI, i. 37, 130, 134; Peiser, KIB, iv. p. viii.
- ↑ Already suggested by Ben. (p. 158), who, however, is inclined to identify the Ḥabiri with Japheth.
