ON THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 119 
he was fetched by Balak “from Aram out of the mountains 
of the east” in Mesopotamia, which was to the north of 
Padan-Aram and about 400 miles to the north-east of Moab. 
I believe Balaam was an Aramean of the same country and 
nationality as those of Terah and Job, as we see it recorded 
in Genesis (xxix, 1) that “Jacob went on his journey and 
came into the land of the east;” but as, most probably, 
hundreds of years intervened between their respective times, 
their language and tribal distinctions underwent a material 
change, like the Assyrians and Chaldeans whose language 
was Aramaic (see Isa. xxxvi, 11, and Dan. ii, 4).* 
The word 197), Kkdam, east, mentioned throughout the 
Old Testament, has also caused perpetual etymological 
discussion, but in reality there is nothing mysterious about 
the meaning of the term if we take it in the sense it is 
understood in Europe, as the Orient, whether it is rendered 
in Hebrew as 7), mazrabh (sun-rising), or O77, Kkdam 
(front). 
When a person talks in England of going to travel in the 
East, no one would, I presume, think that he meant to visit 
the eastern counties, or France, or Germany; nor by saying 
that a man was an Oriental, would the term be considered 
applied to a native of Margate or Ramsgate. So if a man 
comes from Armenia, Mesopotamia, India, China, or Egypt, 
he would be called an Oriental, though those countries are 
not situated exactly to the east of Greenwich. In like 
manner the Hebrews applied the term East to all the 
nationalities and countries situated on the eastern side of the 
Euphrates, whether Armenia or Babylonia, 
In Syria, Mesopotamia, and Assyria, they only apply the 
term 35 Sharkkee (Oriental or Eastern) to the inhabitants 
of those lands, but not to any nationality eastward of them. 
They would call those Persians, Indians, or Chinese. 
t As for the meaning of the name of Balaam and that of his 
father \"y Baaor, about which some comments have been 
made by different scholars, it had nothing to do with the 
* It is interesting to relate that the present Chaldean Christians of 
Assyria, and the only remaining Gentile nation inhabiting Southern 
Babylonia, called Sabeans, speak, with some exceptions, the same Aramaic 
or Chaldee as is found in the Oldand New Testament. 
+t Note.— Biblical Criticism being outside the Institute’s objects any 
references thereto in pp. 120-1 are necessarily excluded from discussion. 
K 
