walked with God: and he was no more, for God had taken him away. --25. And Methuselah lived a hundred and eighty seven years, and begat Lamech: 26. And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred and eighty-two years, and begat sons and daughters: 27. And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixtynine years: and he died. - 28. And Lamech lived a hundred and eighty-two years, and begat a son: 29. And Bishop Lawrence, whose interesting "Preliminary Dissertation" commands especial attention. 25-27. To Enoch, the pious, was allotted the shortest life; to his son, Methuselah, the longest. The latter reached the high age of 969 years; he exceeded even the duration of Adam's life, who died 930 years old; he seems not only to have renewed, but considerably surpassed the primeval strength granted to man;— does he then, indeed, mark a retrogression in the history of the human generations? But Methuselah's longevity seems intended as a compensation for Enoch's short life: even if the pious leaves this world early, his race flourishes; his name lives in his progeny; his example ennobles and guides their conduct,-but although his righteousness spreads blessings over thousands after him, it is, of itself and unaccompanied by the piety of the descendants, unable to avert or to retard their doom. Such is the Biblical doctrine; and this important truth is, in more than one instance, enforced in the history of the earliest patriarchs. 28-31. Noah, the tenth descendant from Adam, was destined to form a very important link in the chain of successive generations, to commence a new era in the history of sin, and to modify essentially the relation between God and man. It is, therefore, natural that his very birth should be introduced with a certain emphasis; that he should receive a significant name; and his name, even, be expressive of his future mission on earth. Lamech begat a son (ver. 28), and he called him Noah exclaiming: "This one shall comfort us from our labour, and from the toil of our hands; from the earth which the Lord hath cursed." The name of Noah, then, implies a prophetic anticipation; it refers to a characteristic crisis in his subsequent life; and its explanation must, therefore, be sought in a later event. And the circumstance to which it alludes cannot be doubtful, although many strange opinions have been advanced. The produce of the earth had been assigned to man as his only food (i. 29). But the earth was laden with the curse of the Divine anger (iii. 17-19). Man was doomed to force, with "labour and with toil," a scanty sustenance from the barren and stubborn soil. His life was one of perpetual struggle, of incessant anxiety. In the time of Noah he was, in a great measure, relieved from this curse of the earth, for God permitted him to eat the flesh of animals also (ix. 3). He was no more entirely dependent on the uncertainty of the skies, or the "strength" of the earth; he found rest from the uninterrupted fatigues of agriculture, and was partially consoled for the Divine curse which was inflicted on the earth. We find, therefore, in the very name of Noah an indication of a grand and fundamental change which concerned the whole human race, and which we shall more fully develop in the ensuing chapters. And thus only we can understand why the father said, "this one will comfort us from OUR labour." Not Lamech, but all the future generations, enjoyed the relief granted to his son Noah. 32. When Noah was five hundred years old, he had three sons, Shem, Ham. he called his name Noah, saying, This one will relieve us from our work and the toil of our hands, from the ground which the Lord hath cursed. 30. And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred and ninety-five years, and begat sons and daughters: 31. And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years: and he died. 32. And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth. and Japheth; they are all mentioned, not the eldest son alone, as in the other generations, because they became individually the ancestors of many important nations; they are the regenerators of the human race, when its destruction had become indispensable; their names alone are sufficient to prepare us for the extraordinary incidents that follow; and to indicate that the calm genealogical narrative is interrupted, and that events of universal interest and importance will be disclosed. IV. THE DELUGE. CHAPTERS VI. TO IX. SUMMARY.-When the human families had vastly increased upon the earth, they sank into wickedness and crime, still more enhanced by the "sons of God," who associated themselves with the daughters of man (vi. 1-4). God resolved, therefore, to exterminate every living being from the earth, and to save Noah alone, who had remained in the path of piety (vi. 5-8). Once more is the fearful depravity of man described; and God announces to Noah the approach of an all-destroying deluge. He ordered him to build an ark of huge dimensions, for himself, his wife, his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives, and for one pair of every living creature (except the fishes), which were to be preserved alive, and to gather food for all this immense number of animals. Noah executed the Divine commands (vi. 9-22); he was then ordered to enter the ark; but his former instructions were so modified, that he was to take with him seven pairs of every clean species of animals, and one pair of every unclean species (vii. 1—5). In the six hundredth year of Noah's life the flood began; the fountains of the deep and the flood-gates of heaven were opened; forty days and forty nights the waters continued to break forth upon the earth; the waves rose fifteen cubits above the peaks of the highest mountains; every living soul expired on the earth; the ark and its inmates alone were safely carried along the flood; and after the end of one hundred and fifty days, the waters decreased, and the ark rested over the mountains of Ararat (vii. 6-viii. 5). The floods gradually retired; the tops of the mountains became visible; Noah sent out first a raven, then a dove, to learn the state of the earth; the second time the dove returned with a fresh olive-leaf in her mouth, and the third time she returned no more. After a complete year and ten days, the earth was again perfectly dry (viii. 6-14). By the command of God, Noah left the ark, with all living beings that were with him. God blessed the animals; and Noah, to show his gratitude, built an altar, and offered a grand sacrifice to God, who graciously promised to send no other deluge to destroy the earth, and to look with mercy upon the weakness of the human mind (viii. 15—22). God renewed the dominion of man over the brute creation; permitted him, also, the flesh of the animals, but interdicted their blood, which is their soul. Murder committed against a fellow-man was to be punished with death (ix. 1-7). He concluded a perpetual covenant with man and all living creatures; and appointed the rainbow as the sign of this covenant of peace and reconciliation (ix. 8—18).— Noah began now again to cultivate the ground; he planted a vineyard; and when he once was in a state of intoxication, his youngest son, Ham, committed an act of disrespect and indecency, for which he and his son Canaan were laden with the curse of servitude; whilst his two elder brothers, Shem and Japheth, who had shown due filial reverence, received the richest blessings as the future masters of Ham (ix. 19-27).—Three hundred and fifty years after the deluge, in the nine hundred and fiftieth year of his life, Noah died (ix. 28, 29). CHAPTER VI. 1. And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 1-8. Universal history describes the progress of polities, and the relation between nation and nation; Biblical history teaches chiefly the internal progress of the individual, and the relation between God and the nations of the earth; the former deduces all events from human agencies; the latter traces them to Divine interposition; the former is pragmatical if it demonstrates cause and effect, or means and end, in the external events; the latter, if it deduces the events from causes connected with the internal life; the end of the former is instruction by experience; the aim of the latter, reformation by truth; in the former, the facts are individual; in the latter, they conceal a general idea. Results not produced by human efforts find no place in the former; and all that has no reference to the Divine sovereignty has no place in the latter. The powers and terrors of nature, therefore, are of very subordinate moment in universal history; but they are regarded as most significant Divine instruments in the Biblical narrative; the former records them only in so far as they affect or change the material condition of countries or nations; the latter uses them to illustrate the supreme doctrine of the just providence of God. Now, there exist numerous traditions of a deluge among most of the ancient nations, as we shall specify in its due place; but they are but imperfectly alluded to in the earlier histo rical works; whilst the Pentateuch treats them with evident care; it dwells upon the history of the deluge with a minuteness which indicates its importance; and it unfolds a picture at once interesting and instructive, elaborate and powerful. In reading, therefore, the eventful life of Noah, our principal attention must be directed to the spiritual lessons it contains; to the progress which it delineates with regard to the relation between God and mankind, and with regard to the religious aspirations of the human mind. We shall find our narrative of the utmost interest with reference to these momentous points; it will allow us a deeper insight into the history of salvation than was opened to us even by the preceding remarkable portions; and these sublime and exclusively Biblical ideas will, we hope, relieve us from all pusillanimous apprehensions if we find, that the Mosaic deluge resembles, in the form, many similar Eastern narratives; that it shares with them even many prominent details; and that, indeed, the material of this portion also was the common property of all Eastern lite 2. That the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took for themselves wives of all whom they chose. 3. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always preside in man, while he is also flesh: nature, and abandoned themselves to despicable depravities; they left the heaven, in order to corrupt the earth and themselves; and it is but natural, that their wicked sons, excluded from the abodes in heaven which their fathers had enjoyed, should attempt to force access to it by a desperate and flagitious assault. This is the story of the Titans storming the heavens; it is a tradition which recurs, in many modified forms, among most of the ancient nations; the giants are, in the mythology of the Hindoos, the enemies of the gods who pollute the holiest sacrifices; some are a sort of wild beasts, or of vampires, eager for blood and human flesh, haunting the forests and the cemeteries; pious hermits are incessantly compelled to invoke against them the assistance of intrepid heroes; they belong to the highest order of the beings of darkness; their) number is incalculable; and, as the soul of a criminal is frequently condemned to enter the body of a giant, they will always exist in undiminished numbers. In the mythology of the Chinese, the giants are the originators of crime and rebellion, who long waged a successful war against the virtuous kings; and in the northern and western legends, they are enormous beings, with the power, and sometimes the disposition, of doing mischief. We need not say, that all these traditions concerning the giants are fabulous; Strabo already ridiculed the fictions of strange creatures mentioned by older writers, of persons with long heads, with one eye, or with their eyes in their breasts; or of beings half men, half dogs; men of such extraordinary size seem never to have lived; the human race has remained essentially the same in its physical proportions ever since the historical time; the large bones which have occasionally been found, as, for instance, the skeleton of a head twelve palms in circumference (dis covered in Africa in 1559), or the tooth as big as a fist" (found in Mexico in 1586), are the remains of huge antediluvian animals, not of human beings; and the men who have been mentioned in history for their size, as being eight or nine feet high, as Gabbaras, in the reign of Claudius, or the emperor Maximinus, and the cases which Pliny adduces (vii. 16), are as rare exceptions as the men "with six fingers on every hand, and with six toes on every foot" (2 Sam. xxi.20), and are no proof of a time when whole races of such men existed. How, then, are we to understand the Biblical narrative under consideration? Who are the "sons of God"? When were they called into existence, and for what purpose? We have seen, that they are nowhere introduced in the history of the creation; were they, then, a later thought of the Divine Framer, after "the heaven and the earth and all their hosts were finished"? And, if they are 66 sons of God," have they carnal desires? Are the angels subject to all the deplorable aberrations of human nature? Although God finds offence even in His angels (Job iv. 18), they are always, in purity, infinitely superior to man. The sons of God" cannot, therefore, here be identical with the angels, or the sons of God mentioned in other parts of the Scriptures; they are not of Hebrew, but of general Eastern origin. And these notions were gradually more and more amplified; they were enlarged from other heathen sources, or from the fictions of imagination; and the Book of Enoch already shows, that the chief of these sons of heaven, Semjaza, at first opposed their wicked design; but they pledged themselves by awful oaths and imprecations to execute it; they descended, two hundred in number, to mount Hermon ; they chose wives; taught them sorcery and conjuration; introduced ornaments of vanity and luxury, bracelets and trinkets, 66 but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. 4. The giants were on the earth in those days; and also afterwards, when the sons of God came to the daughters of men, they bore children to them: these are the heroes who were of old men of renown.-5. And God saw that paints and costly stuffs; giants, three thousand cubits high, were the offspring of these alliances; they first consumed all the produce of the earth; then they devoured all the animals, and afterwards began to turn against the men; the cries of the earth rose up to heaven; the angels Michael and Gabriel, Surjan and Urgan brought the complaint before the throne of God; He precipitated Azazel, the most wicked of the "sons of God," into a dark cavern, where he lies in fetters, and covered with rough pointed stones, in order to be thrown into the burning pool on the great day of judgment. He inspired the progeny of these unnatural unions with fierce rage; and the consequence was, that they destroyed each other in mutual murder, after which they were tied to subterranean hills to remain there for seventy generations, and then to be for ever hurled into the fiery abyss: but He assured the son of Lamech, that an approaching deluge would spare him and his children to become the ancestors of better generations. Who recognizes in these fables the spirit of the Old Testament? And yet, they develop only the statement concerning the sons of God, who took the beautiful daughters of men to wives, and begat the giants (ver. 4). Do they not rather remind us of the Persian myths, which relate, that Ahriman and his evil spirits entered the creation, mixed with it, and corrupted its purity; that they defiled nature, deformed its beauty, and debased its morality, till the whole earth was filled with black crime, and venomous reptiles? Greek mythology, also, sings of the loves between the gods and the beautiful daughters of the earth; and the Hindoos mention marriages between nymphs and Divine heroes. But why has this heathen element been retained in the Mosaic narrative? We are accustomed, not to find a blind or heedless imitation, but a bold modification, not so much in the form as in the ideas with which the materials are ennobled. The wickedness which caused universal destruction was not commenced by man; the sons of God came down to the earth, and gave the pernicious example; man unfortunately imitated it; for, "every cogitation of the thoughts of his heart was evil continually" (ver. 5); he was powerless to resist the allurement of temptation. Noah was saved from the first generations of mankind; but his descendants are not endowed with a more perfect nature; their hearts, also, are filled with evil imaginations from their youth (viii. 21); the only difference is, that the extent of their lives is limited to a hundred and twenty years; they cannot sin as long as their ancestors, but they may sin as much; their crimes may be more frequent, and more atrocious; but the depraved "sons of God" are destroyed; their iniquitous progeny is removed; the earth is delivered from all impiety which is daringly ascribed to heaven; henceforth, man can no more plead the seduction of superior beings to palliate his own misdeeds; there is no other evil demon but man's own passion; his heart is weak, but the temptation proceeds entirely from himself; "wickedness doth not come from heaven"; for, the whole race of heavenly seducers is annihilated; those "sons of God," who were celebrated in ancient songs and traditions, |