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(^24) As a German writer expresses it: "What are we all but descendants of Japheth, who
dwell in the tents of Shem; and what is the language of the New Testament, but that
of Javan spoken in the dwellings of Shem?"
(^25) See Mr. Bevan's article in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 2, pp. 544, etc.
(^26) Mr. Smith, however, regards these accounts as exaggerated.
(^27) Professor Rawlingson in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 1.
(^28) Canon Cook, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 1, p. 1097.
(^29) The modern Jews count the year of the Creation from 3761 B.C., so that, in order
to calculate the Jewish era, we have to add to our Christian era the number 3761.
(^30) See the article Ur, in Smith's Bible Dictionary. The view previously adopted, which
finds Ur in quite a different district, is evidently erroneous.
(^31) Van de Velde.
(^32) There is in the British Museum an ancient Egyptian "papyrus," which, although of
somewhat later date than that of Abram, proves that his fears, on entering Egypt,
were at least not groundless. It relates how a Pharaoh, on the advice of his counselors,
sent armies to take away a man's wife by force, and then to murder her husband.
(^33) Another curious coincidence is, that the name of this "chief" is abshah, "father of
land" which reminds us of Abraham, the "father of a multitude." The whole bearing
of the Egyptian monuments on the narratives of the Bible will be fully discussed in
the next volume.
(^34) Genesis 10:10. There is frequent reference to the kingdom of Elam on the Assyrian
monuments, confirmatory of Scripture, and Mr. Smith inserts the names of
Chedorlaomer and his three confederates in his "list of Babylonian monarchs" (see
Assyrian Discoveries, pp. 441, 442).
(^35) The expression "I will make My covenant" (Genesis 17:2) is quite different from
that rendered by the same words in Genesis 15:18. In the latter case it is "to make" -
literally, to "cut a covenant;" while the terms in Genesis 17:2 are, "I will give My
covenant," i.e., establish, fulfill it.
(^36) Others have derived the name Sarah from a root, meaning "to be fruitful."
(^)