194 JASTROW — THE HAMITES AND SEMITES. [April 4, 



these two peoples among those whom Jahweh himself has cursed — 

 much in the same spirit that leads to the retention (Genesis 19, 30- 

 38) of the scandalous story of the origin of Moab and Ammon — 

 two other bitter enemies of Israel — from an incestuous union of 

 Lot with his daughters, as a bit of tribal satire, calculated to expose 

 these peoples to the humiliation and contempt of their rivals.^ 



After Nimrod, we find Egypt introduced in J. Among the 

 Hamites we have seen that the grouping of Egypt with Cush 

 and Put in P fits in with the latter' s general view that the 

 Hamites represent the nations of the remote south, but J for whom 

 Cush is neither southern Arabia nor Nubia does not appear to have 

 had such a scheme in mind, and it is in keeping with the spirit of 

 the narrative at the close of the 9th chapter that J's motive in add- 

 ing Egypt to ]3abylonia and Assyria among the Hamites was again 

 the desire to illustrate the truth and the justification of the view 

 that the sons of Ham are the *' accursed" nations. It is only 

 necessary to mention the name of Egypt in order to conjure up the 

 picture of the hostility towards it that crops out in every section of 

 the Old Testament. The recollection of Egyptian oppression is so 

 strong in the Old Testament as to become almost a part of the 

 Hebrew religion. An old nomadic sheep-offering festival com- 

 bined with an agricultural spring festival, the latter adopted by 

 the Hebrews from the Canaanites, becomes associated in the Pen- 

 teteuchal codes ^ with the deliverance from the hated yoke of 

 Egypt. The Decalogue begins in both versions that we possess 

 with the description of Jahweh as the god who brought his people 

 out of Egypt (Ex. 20, 2 ; Deut. 5, 6), and according to the 

 Deuteronomistic version or recension of the Decalogue, the most 

 characteristic institution of Judaism — the Sabbath as a day of rest 



^So iccording to the best of the modern comnaentators (see Holzinger, Genesis, 

 p. 158). Somewhat different is Gunkel's view {Genesis, pp. 197-198), who 

 believes that the story was originally told as an illustration of the favor and grace 

 of the Deity in saving Lot as the ancestor of Moab and Ammon from the general 

 destruction and in providing for this unusual method of securing offspring. 

 Granting this, it is still evident that in the mind of the Hebrew writers, the 

 story assumes a lowering and contemptuous aspect — to be compared with the 

 bitter taunts and satires to be found in ancient Arabic poems when they deal 

 with tribal hostilities. See e.g., Goldziher, Miihamtnedauische Studien (Halle, 



i888),I,pp. 43-50- 



2 See Baentsch, Com. to Exodus, pp. 88-91 ; Robertson Smith, Religion of 

 the Semites, pp. 445 seq. 



