the poets make heaven all in an uproar, upon the invasion of the giants,) yet, since they were contrary to his gracious design of having the earth replenished, it was an act highly consistent with his infinite wisdom and goodness to see them disappointed.

A. M. 1757. A. C. 2247; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 2857. A. C. 2554. GEN. CH. xi. TO VER. 10. should be given of replenishing the earth, as Petavius themselves competent for any thing, that they shall have elegantly expresses it. a fancy to do. For though God could have no reason But, after all, there seems to be no occasion for sup-to apprehend any molestation from their attempts (as posing an extraordinary increase of people, or for confining the first undertaking of this great building to the compass of one hundred years after the flood. In the tenth chapter of Genesis it is said indeed, that unto Eber were born two sons, and that the name of one was Peleg,' which being derived from an Hebrew word, that signifies to divide, has this reason annexed to it, for in his days was the earth divided. Now by the subsequent account of Peleg's ancestors we find that he was born in the 101st year after the flood; from whence it is concluded that the earth began to be divided at his birth. But this is a conclusion, that by no means results from the text, which only says, that in his days was the earth divided;' words which can, with no manner of propriety, imply that this division began at his birth.

His name, indeed, was called Peleg; but it does not therefore follow that this name was given him at his birth; it might have been given at any time after, from his being a principal agent among his own family, in the division made in his days; as several names have throughout all ages been given upon the like accidents, not only to private persons but to whole families. Or suppose the name to be given at his birth, yet no reason can be assigned why it might not be given prophetically, as well as that of Noah, from an event then foreseen, though it might not come to pass for some considerable time after the name was given.

Since Peleg, then, according to the sacred account, lived 239 years, and his younger brother Jocktan, and his sons, were a considerable colony in the distribution of the world, it is much more rational to suppose, that this distribution did not begin till a good part of Peleg's life was expended. Suppose it however to be no more than an hundred years after his birth, yet we may still retain the Hebrew computation, and have time and hands enough for carrying on the great work of Babel before this distribution, since mankind might very well be multiplied to some millions in the compass of two hundred years.

Putting all these considerations together, then, we can hardly imagine that there wanted a sufficient number of men to go upon an enterprise, which, though not strictly chargeable with sin, because there was no previous command forbidding it, yet, in the sense of God himself, bold and presumptuous enough:3Behold the people is one, and they have all one language, and now this they begin to do this is their first attempt, and after this nothing a will be restrained from them; they will think

'Doct. Temp. b. 9. c. 14.

Revelation Examined, vol. 2. Dissert. 3.

Gen. xi. 6.

The divine purpose was that men should not live within the limits of one country only, and so be exposed to perpetual contentions, while every one would pretend to make himself master of the nearest and most fertile lands; but that, possessing themselves of the whole, and cultivating almost every place, they might enjoy a proportionable increase of the fruits of the earth. Thorns and briars were springing up every where; woods and thickets spreading themselves around; wild beasts increasing; and all this while the sons of Noah gathering in a cluster, and designing so to continue; so that it was highly seasonable for God to confound their mistimed projects, and disperse them.

Their purpose was to make themselves a name by enslaving others. But God foresaw, that absolute power and universal empire were not to be trusted in any mortal hand; that the first kings would be far from being the best men; but as they acquired a superiority by fraud and violence, so they would not be backward to maintain it by oppression and cruelty: and therefore, to remedy such public grievances, he determined with himself that there should be a diversity of governments in the world; that if the inhabitants of any place chanced to live under a tyrannical power, those that were no Waterland's Scripture Vindicated, part 1.

Le Clerc's Dissertation.

What their attempts were, the historian has represented in their own words: and they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven,' Gen. xi. 4. But far be it from any one to imagine, that these builders could be so stupidly ignorant, as ever to think by this means to climb up to heaven, plain or a valley for this, if they could once have entertained so gross an imagination.

or that they would not have chosen a mountain rather than a

It is a common hyperbole this in the Sacred Writings, to signify any great and lofty building, as may be seen in Deut. i. 18., Dan. iv. 8., and in several other places; nor is the like manner of expression unusual among profane authors likewise: for Homer, speaking of the island of Calypso, tells us, that in it was a place

where a various sylvan scene
Appeared around, and groves of living green,
Poplars and alders ever quivering played,
And nodding cypress formed a fragrant shade,
Whose lofty branches waving swept the sky, &c.
Odyss. v. 238.

By a literal interpretation of the Hebrew idioms, however, it is a common thing for the greatest absurdities to be received by the unwary for realities; and not at all a wonder, that the misunderstanding the text should give rise to what we are told of the giants in the fable attempting to scale heaven, and of the expedi a The common versions say of the builders of the tower of tion of Cosigna and his companions, who had contrived ladders for Babel, And now nothing will or shall be restrained from them that end; hoping that so they might make their nearer addresses to which they have imagined to do.' But this is false in fact; be- the queen of heaven, And thus even the silliest of the Pagan cause God soon put a stop to their design by confounding them, tales may be traced up to their original; for there is generally some and scattering them abroad from thence, over the face of the foundation for them in truth, either misunderstood or misapplie carth.' We may observe, therefore, that the same particle which is-See Le Clerc's Commentary; Voss. Hist. Græc, b. 1. c. 3. and indeed sometimes taken negatively, is evidently here to be taken interrogatively, and is equal to the most express affirmation: and c By this remark our author evidently implies that the whole therefore the text should thus be translated, Shall they not be of mankind were not engaged in this enterprise. For if the restrained in all they imagine to do?' Yes, they shall; which whole race were so, there could have been no others to enslave; it accordingly was immediately executed.—Essay for a New Trans-is therefore surprising that a few paragraphs before, he should have lation.

Bibliotheca Biblica ad locum.

asserted this to be the case.--ED.

A. M. 1757. A. C. 2247; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 2857. A. C. 2554. GEN. CH. xi. TO VER. 10.

longer able to endure the yoke, might flee into other | many perhaps as there were either tribes or heads of countries and dominions (which they could not do if the families,) and all the rest were no more than derivatives whole was one entire monarchy) and there find a shelter from them, the operations of an Almighty power are from oppression. And as he knew how conducive the equally visible, and the footsteps of divine wisdom bad example of princes would be towards a general apparent, in the very method of his disappointing these corruption of manners, he therefore took care to provide ambitious builders. against this malady, by appointing several distinct kingdoms and forms of governments, at one and the same time; that if the infection of vice got ascendency, and prevailed in one place, virtue and godliness, and whatever is honourable and praiseworthy, might find a safe retreat, and flourish in another. Thus all the mischiefs which might possibly arise from an universal monarchy, and all the advantages that do daily accrue from separate and distinct governments, were in the divine foresight and consideration, when he put a surprising stop to the building of these men, and their ambitious schemes of empire together.

For in what manner soever it was that he effected this; whether it was by disturbing their memories, or perverting their imaginations, by diversifying their hearing, or new-organizing their tongues, by an immediate infusion of new languages, or a division of the old into so many different dialects; and again, whether these tongues, or dialects of tongues, b were few or more; whether there were only so many originals at first, (as

« Since Moses has nowhere acquainted us, says the learned Heidegger (in Hist. Patriar. b. 1. Essay 211) in what manner the confusion of languages was effected, every one is left to follow what opinion he likes best, so long as that opinion contains nothing incongruous to the received rule of faith: nay, it may not be inconvenient to produce several opinions upon this subject, to the intent that every one may embrace that which seems to him must conformable to truth. And therefore he instances in the opinions of several learned men, but in those more particularly of Julius Scaliger, who ascribes this event to a confusion of notions which God miraculously sent among the builders; and that of Isac Casaubon, who will needs have all the different languages now extant to be no more than derivatives from the Hebrew. Scaliger's words, as Heidegger quotes them, are these:-"For they the Hebrews) say that in order to put a stop to their impi

GUS undertaking, God the omnipotent and all-wise caused, that to him who asked for a stone, one would bring mortar, another sand, another pitch, another bitumen, and another water, I even think, that perhaps there would not be wanting some who would think that a reproach was meant to them, and who on that account weald quarrel and fight when some signal act of cunning befell them. For, if to him that sought for a stone, one brought one thing, others other things, and all different things, the mode of one sound, increased to a diversity of species, would seem to have entered into different understandings: therefore one old language would still remain, though indeed of various meanings." The words of Casaubon are as follows: "If at Babel languages became totally different, the Chaldeans and Assyrians should of necessity retain these strangely-begotten tongues. But we see that the very contrary has happened; for other languages have preserved and still preserve traces of a Hebrew origin, just the more evident and explicit in proportion as they are farther removed from the ancient and first abode of man. For every tribe that in situation is nearest to the Hebrew nation, uses a language most akin to its language, and the greater the distance is from it, the greater is the difference. This is evident from a comparison of the Syriac, Chaldaic, Arabic, Carthaginian languages, with that of the Hebrews, and still more evident on a diligent inspection of the Greek language. The Greeks at first dwelt in Asia. Thence the Ionians (or as Eschylus, in a Hebrew manner calls them Javones,) passed into Europe. In the most ancient writers of the Greeks there are many Hebrew words which afterwards became obsolete, or somewhat changed. We observe also, that the Greeks of Asia Hebrewized more than those of Europe."

It is not to be thought that there were as many several dialects

1 He could, no doubt, with the same facility, have sent down fire from heaven to consume them; but then that would have been but a momentary judgment, whereof we should have known nothing but what we read in the dead letter of a book; whereas, by this means, the remembrance of God's interposition, is preserved to all future ages, and in every new language that we hear we recognise the miracle.

2 It was equally the finger of God, we allow, whether the minds or the tongues of the workmen were confounded; but then, in that case, the miracle does not so plainly and so flagrantly appear, nor would it have had so good an effect upon the builders themselves; because men may quarrel, and break off'society without a miracle, whereas they cannot speak with new tongues by their own natural strength and ingenuity.

Nor was the formation of a new language only more miraculous, but to the imaginations of the persons, upon whom it is wrought, incredibly more surprising than any disagreement in opinion, or any quarrel that might thereupon ensue. And therefore I have always thought, that this account of the confusion of tongues which God wrought at Babel, would scarce have been told so particularly, and represented as God's own act and deed, had it only arisen from a quarrel among the builders, which obliged them to leave off their work, and scatter themselves over the face of the earth. For when God is bere described as coming down in person to view their work, something almost as solemn as the creation, full as solemn as the denunciation of the flood, when Noah was commanded to build the ark, is certainly intended by that expression: and therefore, when Moses acquaints us, that there was but one language at that time,' the circumstance would be impertinent, if he did not intimate withal, that very soon after there were to be more.

Heidegger's Hist. Patriar, vol. 1. Essay 21. Wotten on the Confusion of Languages at Babel. as there were men at Babel, so that none of them understood one another. This would not only have dispersed mankind, but utterly destroyed them; because it is impossible to live without society, or to have any society without understanding one another. It is likely therefore that every family had its peculiar dialect, or rather that some common dialect, or form of speaking, was given to those families whom God designed to make one colony in the following dispersion. Into how many languages the people were divided it is impossible to determine. The Hebrews fancy seventy, because the descendants of the sons of Noah, as they are enumerated in Scripture, are just so many: the Greek fathers make them seventy-two, because the LXX. version adds two more, (Elisa among the sons of Japheth, and Canaan among the sons of Shem,) and the Latin fathers follow them. But this is all conjecture, and what is built upon a very weak foundation. For, in many places, so many people concurred in the use of the same speech, that of the seventy scarce thirty remained distinct, as Bochart has observed: and among these, others have supposed that the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic, in the east; the Greek and Latin in the west; and the Finnish, Sclavonian, Hungarian, Cantabrick, and the ancient Gaulish in the north, are generally reputed originals; besides some more that might be discovered in Persia, China, the East Indies, the midland parts of Africa, and all America, if we had but a sufficient knowledge of the history of these people.-See Patrick's Commentary and Wotten on the Confusion of Languages at Babel,

Р

A. M. 1757. A. C. 2247; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 2857. A. C. 2554. GEN. CH. xi. TO VER. 10. The prophet Isaiah, indeed, speaking of the conversion of some Egyptians to the Jewish faith, tells us, that in that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language (or lip, as it is in the margin) of Canaan, and swear to the Lord of Hosts.' Speaking the language of Canaan' is thought by some to mean no more than being of the same religion with the Jews, who inhabited the land of Canaan, but why may it not be interpreted literally, as it is in our translation? Might not these five cities particularly, to show the value and reverence that they had for the religion of the Jews, learn their language; especially since they would thereby be better enabled to understand the books of Moses and the prophets, which were written in that tongue? Do not the Mahometans, whatever they are, Turks, Tartars, Persians, Moguls, or Moors, all learn Arabic, because Mahomet wrote the Alcoran in that language? Why, then, should we be offended at the literal sense of the words, when the figurative is so low and flat in comparison of it? In that day Egypt shall be like a woman; it shall be afraid and fear, because of the shaking of the hand of the Lord of Hosts;' the Lord of Hosts shall be a terror unto Egypt,' and in that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt,' that is, they shall become proselytes to the law of Moses; and, that they may not mistake in understanding the sense of the law, which they shall then embrace, they shall agree to learn the language in which it is written. This is an easy and genuine sense of the words: but instead of that, to fly to a forced and abstruse one, merely to evade the evidence of a miracle, savours of vanity at least, if not of irreligion.

all the alterations we now perceive in them, supposing them all descended from one common stock.

Now, in order to this, we must observe, that every language consists of two things, matter and form: the matter of any language are the words, wherein men who speak the language express their ideas and the several ways whereby its nouns are declined, and verbs conjugated, are its form.

The Latins and Greeks vary their nouns by terminations, as, vir, viri, viro, virum, äbgwños, ávłęwπov,ávtgww, go. We decline by the prepositions of, to, from, the, in both numbers; but the Hebrews have no different terminations in the same number, and only vary thus,-ish, man; ishim, men; ishah, woman; ishoth, women: the rest are varied by prepositions inseparably affixed to the words, as, ha-ish, the man; le-ish, to the man; be-ish, in the man, &c., which prepositions thus joined make one word with the noun to which they are affixed, and are herein different from all those languages which come from a Latin, or Teutonic original.

36

In short, all interpreters, both Jewish and Christian, understood this confusion of Babel to be a confusion of languages, not of opinions. They saw the texts, if literally understood, required it; they observed a surprising variety of tongues essentially different from one another; and they knew that this was not in the least inconsistent with the power of God. They did not question, but that he, who made the tongue, could make it speak what and how he pleased; and they acquiesced (as all wise and honest interpreters should) in the literal explication, perceiving that nothing unworthy of God, or trifling or impossible in itself, resulted from it.

But why should we have recourse to miracles, say they, when the business may as well be done without them; when it is but supposing, that all languages, now extant, sprung originally from one common root; and that they are no more than different forms or dialects of it, which the force of time, assisted with some incidental courses, without the intervention of any superior power, naturally produces.

To give this objection a satisfactory answer, we shall be obliged to look a little into the nature of languages in general, that thereby we may show, that there are some languages, now extant in the world, which are essentially different from each other; that languages, when once established, are not so subject to variation as is pretended; and that, in the ages subsequent to this extraordinary event, they could not, in any natural way, undergo

The western and northern people consider every transitive verb, either actively or passively, and then they have done; as amo, in Latin is, I love; amor, I am loved; and so in Greek, άyáñw, ȧyaπшμai: but in Hebrew, every word has, or is supposed to have, seven conjugations; in Chaldee and Syriac six; and in Arabic thirteen, all differing in their significations.

The western languages abound with verbs that are compounded with prepositions, which accompany them in all their moods and tenses, and therein vary their signification; but in the eastern there is no such thing. For though they have, in Arabic especially, many different significations, some literal and some figurative, yet still their verbs as well as nouns are uncompounded.

In the Greek, both ancient and barbarous, in the Latin, and the dialects arising from it, and in all the branches of what we call the old Teutonic, the possessive pronouns, my, thy, his, yours, theirs, &c., make a distinct word from the noun to which they are joined, as Пarng nuwv, Pater noster, fader vor, our father, &c. But in all oriental tongues the pronoun is joined to the end of the noun, in such a manner as to make but one word. Thus, ab, in Hebrew, is father; abi, my father; abinu, our father. In Chaldee, from the same root, abouna, is our father; in Syriac, abun; in Arabic and Ethiopic the same.

Once more. All western languages mark the degree of comparison in their adjectives, by proper terminations, as, wise, wiser, wisest ; sapiens, sapientior, sapientissimus; roDòs, σODÚTEROS, σODÚTαTоs: but none of the eastern tongues, already mentioned, have any thing in them like this.

These are some of the marks and characters which distinguish the eastern from the western languages; and, what is farther observable, these characters have none of them disappeared, or shifted from one to another, for near three thousand years. They appear in every book of the Old Testament, from Moses down to Malachi; in the Chaldee paraphrasts, in the Syriac versions, in the Misna, in the Gemara, and in every other rabbinical book, down to the Jewish writers of the present age: but, on the other side, if we consider Homer's poems, which are the oldest monuments we have of the Greck

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language; if we take Theocritus for the Doric dialect; | several ages more. And, in like manner, we may say, Euripides, or Thucydides, for the Attic; Herodotus, or Hippocrates, for the Ionic; and Sappho for the Folic, and so descend to the Greek, which is spoken at this day, we shall see the general marks of western languages running through them all. These idioms show themselves, at first sight, to be nothing more than dialects manifestly springing from the same common root, which never did, and (as far as we may judge from the practice of above two thousand years) never will, conjugate verbs, decline nouns, or compare adjectives, like the Hebrew or Arabic. These languages did always compound verbs and nouns with prepositions, which essentially alter the sense. These languages had never any possessive pronouns affixed to their nouns, to determine the person, or persons, to whom of right they belong; nor do they affix any single letter to their words, which may be equivalent to conjunctions, and connect the sense of what goes before with what follows, which any person, but tolerably initiated in the eastern languages, must know to be their properties.

that had not the Turks, when they overrun Greece, brought darkness and ignorance along with them, the Greek tongue might have continued even to this day; since it is manifest, from Homer's poems, and Eustathius's commentaries upon them, that it subsisted for above two thousand years, without any considerable alteration; for the space of time between the poet and his commentator was no less.

And if the languages which we are acquainted with remained so long unchanged, to any great degree, in times of more commerce and action than what could be subsequent upon the dispersion; there is reason to believe, that (though it be difficult to define the number of them) there are many more original languages in the world than some men imagine: for, if we consider their great antiquity, their mutual agreement in the fundamentals (which we have described) can be no argument that any one of them is derived from the rest; since it is natural to suppose, that when God confounded the speech of the builders of Babel, he made the dialects of those people, who were to live near one another, so far to agree, that they might, with less difficulty, and in a shorter space of time, mutually understand each other, and so more easily maintain an intercourse together. For though their association, considering the ends that engaged them in it, was certainly culpable, yet perhaps it might not deserve so severe a punishment as an entire separation of every tribe among them from their nearest kindred, with whom they had hitherto spent all their time.

a

And, indeed, if we cast but our eye a little forward into the sacred history, it will not be long before we may perceive some instances of this difference between languages. For, when Jacob and Laban made a covenant together, they erected an heap of stones, on which they ate, and Laban called it Jegar-Sahadutha, but Jacob, Gal-ed, which words signify (those in Chaldee, which are Laban's, and the other in Hebrew, which are Jacob's) an heap of witnesses; and, in like manner, Pharaoh calls Joseph, Tsophnath-Paaneahh, which words are neither To sum up the force of this argument in a few words. Hebrew nor Chaldee: so that here we see three distinct | If we consider the time since the building of the tower of dialects formed in Jacob's time; and yet we may observe, Babel, not yet 4000 years, and the great variety of that the world was then thin, commerce narrow, and languages that are at present in the world; if we consider conquests few, so that the people were constrained to how entirely different some are to others, so that no art converse with those of their own tribe, and consequently of etymology can reduce them to the least likeness or could keep their dialect far more entire than it is possi-conformity; and yet, in those early days, when the world ble to do now, when commerce, conquests, and colonies, planted in regions already peopled with nations that speak distinct languages, may be supposed to bring in a deluge of new words, and make innumerable changes. But nations seldom trade much abroad, or make invasions upon their neighbours, or send forth plantations into remote countries, until they are pretty well stocked at home, which could hardly be the case of any one country for several ages after the dispersion.

It is a mistaken notion which some have imbibed, that every little thing, be it but the change of air, or difference of climate (which at most can but affect the pronunciation of some letters or syllables) can make a diversity in languages. Small and insensible alterations, which perhaps will appear in an age or two, will undoubtedly happen, but unless people converse much with strangers, their language will subsist, as to its constituent form, the same for many generations.

The Roman language, for instance, was brought to a considerable perfection before Plautus's time; and though now and then some obsolete words may appear in his writings, yet any man that understands Latin may read the books that were written in it, from Plautus down to Theodoric the Goth, which was near seven hundred years; and had not the barbarous nations broken into Italy, it might have been an intelligible language for

was less peopled, and navigation and commerce not so much minded, there could not be that quick progression of languages; and if we examine the alterations which such languages as we are acquainted with have made in two or three thousand years past, where colonies of different people have not been imported, we shall find the difference between language and language to be so very great, and the alteration of the same language in a considerable tract of time to be so very small, that we shall be at a loss to conceive whence so many and so various languages could have proceeded, unless we take in the account of Moses, which unriddles the whole difficulty, and justly ascribes them to the same Almighty power, which taught our first parents to speak one tongue in the beginning, and, in after ages, inspired the apostles of Jesus Christ with the gift of many. b

a According to Hales, 4363.

b From the most ancient and most authentic of all historical

records, the Sacred Scriptures, we know the fact, that all mankind were originally descended from a single pair, and that our great language. What the particular language was which was then emprogenitor did undoubtedly possess and make use of articulate ployed, we have no means of ascertaining. We are, however, sufficiently warranted to conclude, that this primeval language that it was gradually extended as the new situation of men in must have consisted at first of very few and simple sounds, and society required new modes of expression. The primitive language, in all probability, continued radically the same,

though

A. M. 1757. A. C. 2247; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 2857. A. C. 2554. GEN. CH. xi. TO VER. 10.