combined act of idolatry have any notice, with the Guilty of the same crime

accounts in the most satisfactory manner for the sudden and effectual dispersion of the builders, visibly and strongly marking the first after the flood, of which we displeasure of the true God. which procured the sudden dispersion of the first settlers at Babel, was the restorer of that great city, when he proudly boasted, Is not this great Babylon which I have builded for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?'* and he was instantly visited with a similar punishment, but proportioned to the greater enormity of his transgression; for the place should have reminded him of the sin and punishment of his forefathers, and taught him to guard against the pride and vanity of his heart. Nebuchadnezzar was, for his wickedness, driven from his throne and kingdom, to dwell with the beasts of the field, and eat grass like oxen, 'till seven times passed over him ;' till the sun had seven times passed over his appointed circuit, and he had learned that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.' But his irreligious ancestors were punished with dispersion, by confounding their language. Till this memorable event, the inspired writer assures us, the whole earth was of one language and one speech. When Jehovah came down to see the tower which the Babylonians were building, he said, 'Behold the people is one, and they have all one language.' They formed one great society, and conversed in the tongue which they had learned from those who lived before the flood; and which was the only language spoken on earth from the beginning of the world; for no hint of any confusion of language, or even material diversity of speech, before the build

called,' evidently alluding to fire-worship, Bel-on, or the City of the Sun;' and the centre of this worship seems to have been the Tower of Babel, around which the city was built.-Vol. iii. p. 45. * Daniel iv. 30.

ing of Babel, is given in the sacred volume. It is extremely natural to suppose, that the devout Seth, and his religious descendants, would preserve with care the family tongue in which God conversed with their renowned father; in which the first promise was given to sinners, and many subsequent revelations were made. The language of our fathers is not easily changed, if we are so disposed; but no man is willing to change it; and a religious man will be yet more averse to relinquish a language which contains the only grounds of his hope, and that of the whole human race. We may therefore conclude, that since this language had so many claims on the affectionate care of Seth, he would certainly hand it down, with the gospel it contained, to his children, that they might teach it to succeeding generations, till it was received by his celebrated descendant Noah, the second father of our family. For the same reasons, which were daily receiving additional strength, Shem would preserve with pious care the sacred deposit, till he delivered it into the hands of Abraham, with whom he lived about two hundred years. The line of descent, by which the primitive language might be transmitted from Adam to Abraham, and from this patriarch to Moses, is short and straight; for between Adam and Noah were only eight persons, and the father of Noah was fifty-six years old when Adam died. The only interruption is the confusion of tongues, which happened after the flood. But though God confounded the speech of mankind at Babel, it is not said he extinguished the general language; nor that he confounded the speech of any but the colony at Babel. These only were in the transgression, and, therefore, these only were liable to the punishment. Noah, and the rest of his family, persevering in their dutiful obedience to God, undoubtedly retained their language, together with their ancient habitations.

It may be urged, that, by the testimony of Moses, the Lord confounded at Babel 'the language of all the

earth.' But the plain of Shinar could with no propriety be called the whole earth; nor could the inhabitants of Shinar, by any figure of speech, be entitled to that name. If mankind were in possession of a great part of the globe when the tower was built, by what rule of justice could they be punished for a crime in which they had no share, and of which multitudes of the distant settlers could not even have heard? 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' The truth of this history depends upon two terms, which admit of different senses. In the first verse of the eleventh chapter of Genesis, the sacred historian says, the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. The word col signifies the whole, and also every; by Arets is often meant the earth; it also signifies a land or province, and occurs frequently in this latter acceptation. In this very chapter, the region of Shinar is called Arets Shinar, the land or province of Shinar; and the land of Canaan, Arets Canaan, the country of Canaan. The Psalmist uses both terms in precisely the same sense :- Their sound is gone out into every land,' Col Arets.* The words of Moses, then, ought to be rendered, 'Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of the whole land.' If this view of the text be just, the dispersion was a partial event, and related chiefly to the sons of Cush, whose intention was to found a great, if not an universal, empire; but by this judgment their purpose was defeated. The language of the whole country, Mr Bryant thinks, was confounded, by causing a labial failure, so that the people could not articulate.† It was not an aberration in words or language, but a failure and incapacity in labial utterance; for God said, 'Go to, let us go down and confound, shaphe, their lip, that they may not understand one another's speech.' By this, their speech was confounded, but not altered; for, as soon † Analysis, vol. iii. p. 30-46.

*Psalm xix. 4.

as they separated, they recovered the true tenor of pronunciation; and the language of the earth continued, for some ages, nearly the same. This appears, from many interviews between the Hebrews, and other nations, in which they spoke without an interpreter. Thus, when Abraham left his native country to sojourn in the land of promise, he conversed with the natives in their own language, without difficulty, though they were the descendants of Canaan, who, for his transgression at Babel, was driven, by the Divine judgments, from the chosen residence of his family. The Hebrew language, indeed, seems to have been the vernacular tongue of all the nations in those parts of the world; for the patriarchs, and their descendants, so late as the days of Moses and Joshua, conversed familiarly with the inhabitants of Midian and Canaan, without the help of interpreters.

This argument receives an accession of strength, from the ideal character of the Hebrew language. It is admitted, that all languages participate more or less of the ideal character; but it is one of the most remarkable circumstances by which the Hebrew is distinguished. A number of its words, as in other languages, are mere arbitrary signs of ideas; but, in general, they derive their origin from a very few terms, or roots, that are commonly expressive of some idea borrowed from external objects; from the human constitution; from our senses or our feelings. The names of men, and of the lower animals, and the names of many places, particularly in the remoter ages, allude to some remarkable character in the creature named; or, in reference to place, to some uncommon circumstance or event. Scarcely a proper name can be mentioned, which alludes not to something of this kind. To give a few examples :-Korè, the partridge, received its name from the verb Kara, to call, in imitation of the note which that bird uses in calling its young. The camel is in Hebrew, Gamal, from a verb of the

same form, which signifies to recompense, because that creature is remarkable for remembering and revenging an injury. The Hebrews call the scorpion Akrab, from two words which signify to kill one's father; now both Pliny and Aristotle inform us, that it is the character of that creature to destroy its own parents.*

But these names were imposed by Adam before the fall, for the sacred historian explicitly states, 'Whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.'+ The verb was is not in the original text; and, therefore, the sentence may run in the present, with equal propriety as in the past; and, indeed, according to the genius of the language, with more propriety in the present-that is the name thereof. Hence the names by which the lower animals were known in the days of Moses, were those which Adam gave them in Paradise; and as these are pure Hebrew, the legitimate conclusion is, that Hebrew was the language spoken by Adam before the fall.

The names which men and things received at the beginning of time, are so strikingly similar to those which they bore when Hebrew was certainly a living language, that its claim to the honour of being the primeval speech of the human family, can scarcely be rejected. It is ever reckoned a proof of similar origin, when many words in any two languages have the same form, the same sound, meaning and reason. But the names of the first generations of men, like those of the lower animals, are as pure Hebrew as the names of Peleg, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or those of David and Solomon, or Malachi. They have the Hebrew form, are constructed according to Hebrew rules, are founded on certain reasons, like Hebrew names; and, in fine, are not to be distinguished in any one respect from pure Hebrew.

It deserves also to be remarked, that the reason assigned for these names will not correspond with any *Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. ii. sec. 30. † Genesis ii. 19.