Excerpt from The Bible History of the Holy Land The History of the Hebrew people, may be most conveniently commenced with the call of Abraham, which, according to Hales, took place in the year of the world 3258, after the deluge 1062 years, and 2153 years before the birth of Christ. The ages which had passed since the deluge, concurring with the still long duration of human life, had again replenished with people the regions around the original seats of the human race. That great event, the confusion of tongues, which occurred 600 years after the deluge, must have greatly accelerated, and even compelled, more energetic movements than had previously taken place. The descendants of Shem appear to have extended themselves gradually over the regions east and north-east of the river Tigris; the children of Japhet spread themselves into Asia Minor, whence it was their ultimate destination to be impelled into Europe, and to fill the length and breadth of that continent. The posterity of Ham remained in chief possession of Mesopotamia; they also formed settlements at the head of the Persian Gulf, in Arabia, and in Canaan; they established empires in Assyria and Egypt; and, as their numbers multiplied, they advanced into Ethiopia, and other remoter parts of the African peninsula. See note at end of the chapter. The history of Japhet srace is a blank in the early accounts of the Scriptures; and that of Shems is little more. The sacred historian confines his notice to one family of Shems descendants; and the intercourse of that family with the races of Ham, is the circumstance which evolves far more information concerning their early history and condition than we possess concerning any of the other descendants of Noah. From all that history tells, they appear to have been the first authors of the arts of civilisation and social life. But, remembering the other races of which authentic history takes no occasion to speak, this need not be positively affirmed. That, however, very important advancements had, even in this remote age, been made by the posterity of Ham, appears very plainly in the early intercourse of the Hebrew patriarchs with Egypt. A division of the posterity of Canaan, the youngest son of Ham, left the Arabian shores of the Red Sea, and settled in the country whose history we have undertaken to write;. and they gave to it the name of their father, from whom also they are, collectively, called Canaanites. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.