Blair Collection > Celtic researches, on the origin, traditions & language, of the ancient Britons

■72
They were the children of Shem and of Arphaxad, and the
genuine ancestors of tlie Jewish nation.
These were the people who possessed that part of Chaldea,
which lay between the rivers, from the time of the general
allotment in the days of Peleg; who afterwards, upon thfe
destrunion of JSimrod's kingdom, began to extend their
dominion over Babylonia, and held it for many ages, till it
\vas incorporated with the growing empire of Ashur. And
these weie the people who raised the fame of Babylon to such
eminence in the annals of ancient lore.
Whether this celebrated city was part of their intended
patrimony or not, they seem to have been put in peaceable
possession of it, in the days of Arphaxad, the restorer of the
The names of the descendants of Shem, in the line down to
Abraham, are evidently descriptive of the successive conditions
■of the Chaldean family. As it is probable that the precise
meaning of these names is not always to be obtained from the
Hebrew dialeél, Í could wish to see it investigated by a good
general orientalist, a charaéler to which I have no pretension.
On the present occasion, I must content myself with setting
them down in their order, together with those derivations and
interpretations which are usually given, and adding a few
conjeétures.
*Tîi>DD"ii< Arphaxad, from ND^l He healed, repaired, restored,
consolidated, Ώ, un adverb of similitude, and T\IJ Devastation.
But as n\Uj thus derived, is not likely to have formed the
name of a great people, may it not imply 3 according to, >^ty
the Almighty, the Disposer: intimating that they were the