A Class-Book of Biblical History and Geography / with numerous maps

by H. S. Osborn

Further excavations are needed to attest the accuracy of these identifications.

9. (b) Mizraim is mentioned as the second son of Cush, and is supposed to have colonized Egypt. The word is in the dual form and indicates the double land of Egypt, which from the earliest times was divided into Upper and Lower Egypt.

(1.) Mizraim’s descendants are Ludim, probably simply a name for the Egyptians themselves;they held themselves “the best of all men,”[32] and they were the same as Libyans or Lubim, 2 Chron. 12:3; 16:8; Nah. 3:9. The Libyans of the mostancient era inhabited the west of the Nile and parts near the Mediterranean Sea. They appear of bright complexions as represented upon the Egyptian monuments.

(2.) “Anamim and Lehabim and Naphtuhim and Pathrusim” appear to be only names of the people of the different settlements along the Nile and not distinct races. (3.) The Casluhim have been identified with a people settling east of the Delta near the Mediterranean coast towards Palestine, and seemed to have been of Phœnician origin (Ebers). (4.) Caphtorim were the earliest settlers on the coast of the Delta or on its Mediterranean shore, even before the Egyptians occupied that part of Egypt (Ebers). The Philistines of Palestine (southwest coast) were descendants of both Casluhim and Caphtorim. “Kaft” was the Egyptian name of the latter people, who early settled in the island of Crete, but also, as we have stated,on the seacoast of the Nile, and gradually moved through the lands of the Casluhim to their final resting-place in Palestine.[33]

10. Thus the passage in Amos 9:7 is explained by the discovery that the Philistines came from Caphtor (Crete), but they passed through the land of the Casluhim. This explains Deut. 2:23, wherein the inhabitants of Azzah (or Gaza) are called Caphtorim, but more distinctly in Jer. 47:4, “the Philistines, the remnant of the country of Caphtor.” So that the Philistines, who came originally from Crete (Caphtor),settled on the Delta coast,and thence passing through the land of Casluhim, settled in Philistia, as Ebers has shown.[34]

11. A migration of the earliest Phœnicians to the coasts of the Delta is generally accepted as leading to the invention of the alphabet, for these settlers soon learned the new form of hieroglyphics (called the hieratic or priestly form), and afterwards improved these signs, as in the Phœnician alphabet. The most ancient manuscript in hieratic is referred to an age in the third millennium B. C., or perhaps about 2500 B. C. In the trading intercourse between Egypt and Phœnicia this new form was introduced into Phœnicia, where the full alphabetic forms were originated. Wise men of that day must have very generally adopted the improved letters, and in the course of the centuries, but certainly before the time of the Exodus, the alphabet on the Phœnician model was well formed.De Rougé has shown that the Phœnicians adopted these hieratic forms long before the Exodus.[35]

12. This alphabet must have been known to Moses, and perhaps to all the elders of Israel, and became that Hebrew alphabet which furnished the source of the lettering of the law and its accessories.

The similarity between the old Hebrew and thePhœnician letters has been fully shown in the discoveries of tablets near Tyre and in the Moabite stone, so called, which was discovered at some ruins east of the Dead Sea, upon the site of the ancient Dibon. It is probable therefore that the first elements of the alphabetic form of letters were invented about this era of the world’s history, when the Phœnicians began their trading with the races upon the shores of Egypt, which we have last mentioned.

13. The next son of Ham is (c) Phut. The hieroglyphics of Egypt represent the nation east of the Red Sea and along the northern half of the coast as the people of Punt, and this people is supposed to be meant by Phut or Put. They traded in incense and turquoise (a blue mineral not so hard as quartz but as heavy). They were a wandering tribe of a dusky hue, but entirely distinct from the Cushites on whose confines they dwelt.

14. The last mentioned descendant of Ham was (d) Canaan. He begat Sidon, the firstborn of eleven heads of tribes or nations. Sidon became in after centuries the name of the chief city of Phœnicia. The rest of the descendants of Canaan formed the Canaanites.