north of Yemen; but both are very improbable. Sepher is supposed by Mesnel to be the ancient Himyaritish capital, Shafâr, on the Indian Ocean; and the mountain of the East, the mountain of incense, which is situated still farther to the east. - The genealogy of the Shemites closes with Gen 10:31, and the entire genealogy of the nations with Gen 10:32. According to the Jewish Midrash, there are seventy tribes, with as many different languages; but this number can only be arrived at by reckoning Nimrod among the Hamites, and not only placing Peleg among the Shemites, but taking his ancestors Salah and Eber to be names of separate tribes. By this we obtain for Japhet 14, for Ham 31, and for Shem 25, - in all 70 names. The Rabbins, on the other hand, reckon 14 Japhetic, 30 Hamitic, and 26 Semitic nations; whilst the fathers make 72 in all. But as these calculations are perfectly arbitrary, and the number 70 is nowhere given or hinted at, we can neither regard it as intended, nor discover in it “the number of the divinely appointed varieties of the human race,” or “of the cosmical development,” even if the seventy disciples (Luk 10:1) were meant to answer to the seventy nations whom the Jews supposed to exist upon the earth.
Verse 32
The words, “ And by these were the nations of the earth divided in the earth after the flood,” prepare the way for the description of that event which led to the division of the one race into many nations with different languages.
Chap. 11
Verse 1
“ And the whole earth (i.e., the population of the earth, vid., Gen 2:19) was one lip and one kind of words:” unius labii eorundemque verborum. The unity of language of the whole human race follows from the unity of its descent from one human pair (vid., Gen 2:22). But as the origin and formation of the races of mankind are beyond the limits of empirical research, so no philology will ever be able to prove or deduce the original unity of human speech from the languages which have been historically preserved, however far comparative grammar may proceed in establishing the genealogical relation of the languages of different nations.
verses 2-4
As men multiplied they moved from the land of Ararat “ eastward,” or more strictly to the south-east, and settled in a plain. בּקעה does not denote a valley
