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Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/303

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'sons' of Kush include Arabian peoples is quite naturally explained by the assumption that the writer believed these Arabs to be of African descent. As a matter of fact, intercourse, involving intermixture of blood, has at all times been common between the two shores of the Red Sea; and indeed the opinion that Africa was the original cradle of the Semites has still a measure of scientific support (see Barton, OS1, 6 ff., 24).—See, further, on v.8 (p. 207 f.).

(2) (Symbol missingHebrew characters) ((Symbol missingGreek characters))] the Heb. form of the common Semitic name of Egypt (TA, Miṣṣari, Miṣri, Mašri, Mizirri; Ass. [from 8th and 7th cent.] Muṣur; Bab. Miṣir; Syr. (Symbol missingSyriac characters); Ar. Miṣr). Etymology and meaning are uncertain: Hommel's suggestion (Gesch. 530; cf. Wi. AOF, i. 25) that it is an Ass. appellative = 'frontier,' is little probable. The dual form of Heb. is usually explained by the constant distinction in the native inscrs. between Upper and Lower Egypt, though (Symbol missingHebrew characters) is found in connexions (Is. 1111, Jer. 4415) which limit it to Lower Eg.; and many scholars now deny that the termination is a real dual (Mey. GA, i. § 42, An.; Jen. ZDMG, xlviii. 439).—On the vexed question of a N Arabian Muṣri, it is unnecessary to enter here. There may be passages of OT where that view is plausible, but this is not one of them; and the idea of a wholesale confusion between Eg. and Arabia on the part of OT writers is a nightmare which it is high time to be quit of.

(3) (Symbol missingHebrew characters) ((Symbol missingGreek characters), but elsewhere (Symbol missingGreek characters))] mentioned 6 times (incl. G of Is. 6619) in OT, as a warlike people furnishing auxiliaries to Egypt (Nah. 39, Jer. 469, Ezk. 305) or Tyre (Ezk. 2710) or the host of Gog (385), and frequently associated with (Symbol missingHebrew characters) and (Symbol missingHebrew characters). The prevalent view has been that the Lybians, on the N coast of Africa W of Egypt, are meant (G, Jos. al.), although Nah. 39 and probably Ezk. 305 (G) show that the two peoples were distinguished. Another identification, first proposed by Ebers, has recently been strongly advocated: viz. with the Pwnt of Eg. monuments, comprising 'the whole African coast of the Red Sea' (W. M. Müller, AE, 114 ff., and DB, iv. 176 f.; Je. 263 f.). The only serious objection to this theory is the order in which the name occurs, which suggests a place further north than Egypt (Jen. ZA, x. 325 ff.).

(4) (Symbol missingHebrew characters) ((Symbol missingGreek characters))] the eponym of the pre-Israelitish inhabitants of Palestine, is primarily a geographical designation. The etymology is doubtful; but the sense 'lowland' has still the best claim to acceptance (see, however, Moore, PAOS, 1890, lxvii ff.). In Eg. monuments the name, in the form pa-Ka-n-'-na (pa is the art.), is applied to the strip of coast from Phœnicia to the neighbourhood of Gaza; but the ethnographic derivative extends to the inhabitants of all Western Syria (Müller, AE, 205 ff.). Similarly in TA Tablets Kinaḫḫi, Kinaḫna, etc., stand for Palestine proper (KAT3, 181), or (according to Jast. EB, 641) the northern part of the seacoast.—The fact that Canaan, in spite of its geographical situation and the close affinity of its language with Heb., is reckoned to the Hamites is not to be explained by the tradition (Her. i. 1, vii. 89, etc.) that the Phœnicians came originally from the Red Sea; for that probably implies no more than that they were connected with