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Genesis 10:1. Now these are the generations, &c.— To give an exact and satisfactory comment on this chapter, would far exceed the bounds we have prescribed ourselves: we shall therefore beg leave only to insert as plain an exposition of the names as we can collect, and refer our learned readers for proof and fuller discussion of these matters to those writers who have treated of them at large, but especially to the Phaleg of Bochart, Calmet, the Universal History, Wells, Shuckford, and others. It may be proper to observe, that though this chapter be placed before the eleventh, yet in order of time it ought to follow; for the foundation of Nimrod's kingdom, and the dispersion of mankind through the different regions of the earth, are facts posterior to the confusion of Babel. And it should also be observed, that the design of the holy penman is not to present us with an exact enumeration of all Noah's descendants, (this would have been endless,) nor to determine who were the leading men above all the rest; but only to give us a catalogue or general account of the names of some certain persons descended from Noah, who were patriarchs and founders of such nations, as were more immediately known to the Hebrews in the time of Moses.

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Genesis 10:2. Sons of Japheth— Japheth is here mentioned in his due rank, as the eldest, see Genesis 10:21. He was known to the Greeks, under the name of Japetus, whom they acknowledge to have been their father: more ancient than Japetus, was a proverb among them, for any thing whose origin could not be known. Japheth had seven sons: Gomer, who inhabited Phrygia; Magog,

Scythia; Madai, Media; Javan, Ionia and Greece; Tubal, Tibarene; Meshech, Moschiah; Tiras, Thrace.

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Genesis 10:3. Sons of Gomer— Who were three: Ashkenaz, inhabited Bythinia and Troas; Ripkath, Paphlagonia and the Riphaean mountains; Togarmah, Cappadocia.

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Genesis 10:4. Sons of Javan— Who were four: Elishah, inhabited Elis and Peloponnesus; Tarshish, Cilicia, whose capital was Tarsus; Kittim, Macedonia; Dodanim, or Rhodanim, Epirus. Bochart observes, that Rhodanim peopled France, and gave its name to the river Rhodanus.

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Genesis 10:5. By these were the isles, &c.— By isles here we are not to understand merely countries encompassed round by the sea; for the Hebrews use the word to signify all those countries divided from them by the sea. Isaiah 11:11; Isaiah 40:15.Jeremiah 2:10; Jeremiah 2:10. Ezekiel 27:3. Besides, the word we translate isle, signifies a region, country, or province. Job 22:30. Isaiah 20:6. These descendants of Japheth, says Le Clerc, peopled by degrees, with their colonies, Europe and the adjacent islands, besides a large part of Asia; and being widely dispersed through the largest regions, so corrupted their original language, as neither to understand one another, nor to remember their common origin.

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Genesis 10:6. The sons of Ham— Ham, there is great reason to believe, was the Ham, or Jupiter Ammon of the AEgyptians: his sons were four: Cush, who peopled Susiana, or some part of Arabia; Mizraim, AEgypt; Phut, part of Lybia; Canaan, the country so called, and places adjacent.

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Genesis 10:7. Sons of Cush— Were five: Seba, Sabtah, and Sabtecah, there is great reason to believe, have peopled Arabia Felix: Havilah lived within the branch of the river Pison, which ran out of the Euphrates into the bay of Persia, and bounded Arabia Felix on the east: Raamah, with his sons Sheba and Dedan, peopled the parts adjacent to the Red-Sea.

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Genesis 10:8. Cush begat Nimrod, &c.— Nimrod's impiety and apostacy are here marked out, as well as his tyranny and domination. The word Nimrod signifies an apostate or rebel. The word rendered hunter, ציד tzaid, is used as well for catching, or ensnaring souls, as for catching game. See Ezekiel 18:20-21. Great oppressors also are called hunters, Jeremiah 16:16. And the phrase, before the Lord, may signify, his opposition to the Lord, his own desertion of the divine presence and regard, as well as his endeavours to seduce others from it. So that, I conceive, he is called thus mighty, because of the tyrannical domination which he exercised over the men of his times; disregarding the worship and reverence of God, and totally apostatizing from it, oppressing and subjugating men to himself, as hunters do the wild beasts they have taken. See Lamentations 3:52. The versions confirm this interpretation: the LXX has it, "he began to be a giant hunter against the Lord God." The Arabic has it, "he was a terrible giant before the Lord." The Syriac, "he was a giant warrior before, or against, the Lord." In which places the word giant has probably a reference to the race of giants and their enormities before the flood; Nimrod having acted in the same spirit and manner as they had done before.

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