1903.] JASTROW — THE HAMITES AND SEMITES. 189 



and Babylonia date back to a very early period,^ and that in fact the 

 history of the one district is so closely entwined with the fortunes of 

 the other that it would be quite as natural to group Elam and 

 Babylonia together as to place Babylonia and Assyria side by side. 

 Linguistic and ethnic differences between Elamites and Babylonians 

 would not obtrude themselves to the mind of an ancient writer in 

 the face of such close political associations as bound Elam and 

 Babylonia together. 



Again, a grouping which begins with Elam as the eastern out- 

 lying province of Babylonia and ending with Aram as the western 

 limit would be intelligible from the standpoint of one living within 

 the district of Babylonia, and this view is confirmed by the intro- 

 duction of Asshur immediately after Elam. Moreover under Aram, 

 subdivisions are recorded — Uz, Hul, Gether, Mash^ — that play 

 no part whatsoever in Hebrew history, and could have been of 

 interest only to Babylonians and Assyrians as representing districts 

 lying beyond the Euphrates, and with which their armies would 

 come into contact in the course of expeditions to the west or by 

 which they might at one time or the other have been menaced. 

 At all events, Aram designates a miscellaneous group of peoples 

 whose settlements form the western boundary of Babylonia and 

 Assyria proper, ard so far we would have as the point of union 

 in the enumeration of the sons of Shem, the settlements in the 

 immediate environment of Babylonia and Assyria — to the east and 

 west respectively. This view is not contradicted by the mention 

 of Arpachshad immediately after Asshur, for however we wish to 

 account for this name, the last element k-sh-d is certainly in some 

 way connected with Kashdim — the designation of the Chaldeans. 

 Of the various explanations offered,' the most plausible is to divide 

 the word into two elements, a-r-p which may be identified with 

 Arrapachitis {=: Arbakha) and k-sh-d which is Chaldosa, so 

 that we would have two distinct districts that have by an error been 



^ See De Morgan, " L'Histoire de I'Elam " (^Revtie ArcheoL, 3em. Serie, Vol. 

 40, pp. 149-171)- 



2 For proposed identifications of Uz, Hul and Mash see Gunkel {Genesis , p. 

 142), Holzinger {^Genesis, p. 105) and Glaser {Skizze, eic.y pp. 411-422). The 

 situation of Gether is entirely unknown. 



•^ See Holzinger, Genesis, p. 105, and Gunkel, I.e., p. 143, who accept 

 Cheyne's view of the division of the word {Zeits. f. AUtest. IFiss., 1S97, p. 

 190), into Arpach and Keshed. 



