206 JASTROW — THE HAMITES AND SEMITES, [ApriU, 



portance of Shem lies for him in the fact that Shem is ''the father 

 of all the children of Eber." For him the ''remote " nations of 

 the south, with whom Hebrew history is as little concerned — barring 

 the relationship between Judaea and southern Arabia reflected in 

 the legends of King Solomon's dealings with the Queen of Sheba^ — 

 as the "remote" nations of the north and east represented by 

 the Japhethites, are not as in P the Hamites, but the groups which 

 represent the subdivisions of southern Arabia. J, therefore, like P 

 has two " remote '' groups, but the entire character of the former's 

 Volkertafel is changed by his definition of the Hamites as those 

 representing the enemies of Israel. 



To sum up, therefore, J's list includes three general groups: {a) 

 peoples towards whom J was indifferent because of little or of no 

 moment to Hebrew history, {J?) peoples towards whom he harbored 

 bitter feelings of hostility, and {c) his own people towards whom 

 he was partial and whose descent he traced from the favorite son of 

 Noah. The first group includes again (i) the Japhethites in the 

 west, north and northeast and (2) the Eber-Joktan branch or 

 southern Arabs. His nationalistic spirit manifests itself in those 

 whom he places in the second group, while on the other hand the 

 limits to this spirit are represented by his willingness to place the 

 southern Arabs among the favored Shemites, being prompted to this 

 display of generosity by the absence of any motive for excluding 

 them and the self-evident consideration that the Shemites must 

 include other subdivisions besides his favorites — the Hebrews. The 

 scholastic spirit which J also possesses when it does not interfere 

 with his natural dislikes, though not to the same degree as P, leads 

 him likewise to recognize the close relationship between Hebrews 

 and Aramaeans, so that his Shemites as seems likely also included 

 Aram. 



P, on the other hand, free from the nationalistic spirit, except pos- 

 sibly when the Canaan ites are involved, sets up two very well-defined 

 groups : {a) the remote nations of the west, north and northeast — 

 the Japhethites, and {b) the remote nations of the south — Nubia, 

 Egypt and southern Arabia — the Hamites, to which he adds {c) as 

 a third group the Hebrews and those adjacent or "near" to them, 

 though his definition of "near" again displays a larger historical 



1 I Kings, chap, x — amplified by further details in the " Midrashic " litera- 

 ture. See e. g. Weil's Bib Use he Legenden der Museliiiamier^ pp. 247-271. 



