NATIONS, DISPERSION OF (nashiins, dis per-shun ov).
Under this or some similar desig-nation, it has been the prevalent opinion that the outspreading, which is the entire subject of Genesis, ch. x, and the scattering narrated in ch. xi:]-9, refer to the same event, the latter being included in the for mer description, and being a statement of the manner in which the separation was effected. From this opinion, however, we dissent.
/. Two Accounts. An unbiased reading of the text appears most plainly to mark the distinctness, in time and character, of the two narratives. The first was universal, regulated, orderly, quiet, and progressive: the second, local, embracing only a part of mankind, sudden, turbulent, and attended with marks of the divine displeasure.
(1) Of Noah's Sons. The former is intro duced and entitled in these words :=Shem, and Ham, and Japheth ;—these are the three sons of Noah ; and from them was the whole earth over spread.' After the mention of the sons of Japheth it is added, 'From these the isles of the nations were dispersed, in their lands, each to its lan guage, to their families in their nations.' A for mula somewhat differing is annexed to the de scendrnts of Ham : 'These are the sons of Ham, (accot ding) to their families, to their tongues, in their lands, in their nations.' The same phrase follows the enumeration of the house of Shem: and the whole concludes with, 'These are the families of the sons of Noah, (according) to their generations, in their nations; and from these the nations were dispersed in the earth after the Flood' (Gen. ix :19 ; x :5, 20, 31, 32).
(2) After the Confusion of Tongues. The second relation begins in the manner which often, in the Hebrew Scriptures, introduces a new sub ject. We shall present it in a literality even ser vile, that the reader may gain the most prompt apprehension of the meaning. 'And it was (col ha-arets) all the earth (but with perfect pro priety it might be rendered the whole land, coun try, region, or district); lip one and words one (i. e. the sante, similar). And it was in their
going forwards that they discovered a plain in the country Shinar; and they fixed (their abode) there.' Then comes the narrative of their resolv ing to build a lofty tower which should serve as a signal-point for their rallying and remaining united. The defeating of this purpose is ex pressed in the anthropomorphism, which is char acteristic of the earliest Scriptures, and was adapted to the infantile condition of mankind. 'And Jehovah scattered them from thence upon the face of the whole earth (or land), and they ceased to build the city' ch. xi:2-9. (See ANTHRO POMORPHISM ; BABEL, TOWER OF. Also J. Pye Smith's Scripture and Geology, lect. vii, where this characteristic of primeval style is investigated).
2. Ancient History. 'The most ancient his tory of the human race, perhaps in the world, is a work in Hebrew ;' of which the initial portions (Gen. i, ii) are 'a preface to the oldest civil history now extant ; we see the truth of them confirmed by antecedent reasoning, and by evidence in part highly probable, and in part certain; but the con nection of the Mosaic history with that of the gospel, by a chain of sublime predictions unques tionably ancient, and apparently fulfilled, must in duce us to think the Hebrew narrative more than human in its origin, and consequently true in every substantial part of it ; though possibly ex pressed in figurative language (referring to the accounts of the creation and the fall). It is no longer probable only, but it is absolutely certain, that the whole race of man proceeded from Iran (the proper and native name of Persia and some connected regions), as from a center, whence they migrated at first in three great colonies; and that those three branches grew from a common stock, which had been miraculously preserved in a gen eral convulsion and inundation of this globe (Sir William Jones, On the Origin and Families of Nations, Works, ed. by Lord Teignmouth, 8vo. h1:191-196).