Chaldea: From the Earliest Times to the Rise of AssyriaRagozin, Zénaïde A. (Zénaïde Alexeïevna)
History
Chaldea: From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria
Ragozin, Zénaïde A. (Zénaïde Alexeïevna)
Babylonia -- History
5. When Cain had killed his brother Abel, God banished him from the
_earth_ which had received his brother's blood and laid a curse on him:
"a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the _earth_"--using another
word than the first time, one which means earth in general (_erec_), in
opposition to _the_ earth (_adamah_), or fruitful land to the east of
Eden, in which Adam and Eve dwelt after their expulsion. Then Cain went
forth, still further East, and dwelt in a land which was called "the
land of Nod," _i.e._, "of wandering" or "exile." He had a son, Enoch,
after whom he named the city which he built,--the first city,--and
descendants. Of these the fifth, Lamech, a fierce and lawless man, had
three sons, two of whom, Jabal and Jubal, led a pastoral and nomadic
life; but the third, Tubalcain, invented the use of metals: he was "the
forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron." This is what the
Chap. IV. of Genesis tells of Cain, his crime, his exile and immediate
posterity. After that they are heard of no more. Adam, meanwhile, has a
third son, born after he had lost the first two and whom he calls Seth
(more correctly _Sheth_). The descendants of this son are enumerated in
Chap. V.; the list ends with Noah. These are the parallel races: the
accursed and the blest, the proscribed of God and the loved of God, the
one that "goes out of the presence of the Lord" and the one that "calls
on the name of the Lord," and "walks with God." Of the latter race the
last-named, Noah, is "a just man, perfect in his generation," and "finds
grace in the eyes of the Lord."
6. Then comes the narrative of the Flood (Chap. VI.-VIII.), the covenant
of God with Noah and re-peopling of the earth by his posterity (Chap.
IX.). Lastly Chap. X. gives us the list of the generations of Noah's
three sons, Shem, Ham and Japhet;--"of these were the nations divided in
the earth after the flood."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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