(10) Of Josephus's mistake here, when he took Seth the son of Adam, for Seth or Sesostris, king of Egypt, the erector of this pillar in the land of Siriad, see Essay on the Old Testament, Appendix, p.159, 160.Although the main of this relation might be true, and Adam might foretell a conflagration and a deluge, which all antiquity witnesses to be an ancient tradition; nay, Seth's posterity might engrave their inventions in astronomy on two such pillars; yet it is no way credible that they could survive the deluge, which has buried all such pillars and edifices far under ground in the sediment of its waters, especially since the like pillars of the Egyptian Seth or Sesostris were extant after the flood, in the land of Siriad, and perhaps in the days of Josephus also, as is shown in the place here referred to.
(11) This notion, that the fallen angels were, in some sense, the fathers of the old giants, was the constant opinion of antiquity.
(12) Josephus here supposes that the life of these giants, for of them only do I understand him, was now reduced to 120 years;which is confirmed by the fragment of Enoch, sect.10, in Authent.Rec.Part I.p.268.For as to the rest of mankind, Josephus himself confesses their lives were much longer than 120years, for many generations after the flood, as we shall see presently; and he says they were gradually shortened till the days of Moses, and then fixed [for some time] at 120, ch.6.
sect.5.Nor indeed need we suppose that either Enoch or Josephus meant to interpret these 120 years for the life of men before the flood, to be different from the 120 years of God's patience [perhaps while the ark was preparing] till the deluge; which Itake to be the meaning of God when he threatened this wicked world, that if they so long continued impenitent, their days should be no more than 120 years.
(13) A cubit is about 21 English inches.
(14) Josephus here truly determines, that the year at the Flood began about the autumnal equinox.As to what day of the month the Flood began, our Hebrew and Samaritan, and perhaps Josephus's own copy, more rightly placed it on the 17th day, instead of the 27th, as here; for Josephus agrees with them, as to the distance of 150 days to the 17th day of the 7th month, as Genesis 7.ult.
with 8:3.
(15) Josephus here takes notice, that these ancient genealogies were first set down by those that then lived, and from them were transmitted down to posterity; which I suppose to be the true account of that matter.For there is no reason to imagine that men were not taught to read and write soon after they were taught to speak; and perhaps all by the Messiah himself, who, under the Father, was the Creator or Governor of mankind, and who frequently in those early days appeared to them.
(16) This (GREEK), or Place of Descent, is the proper rendering of the Armenian name of this very city.It is called in Ptolemy Naxuana, and by Moses Chorenensis, the Armenian historian, Idsheuan; but at the place itself Nachidsheuan, which signifies The first place of descent, and is a lasting monument of the preservation of Noah in the ark, upon the top of that mountain, at whose foot it was built, as the first city or town after the flood.See Antiq.B.XX.ch.2.sect.3; and Moses Chorenensis, who also says elsewhere, that another town was related by tradition to have been called Seron, or, The Place of Dispersion, on account of the dispersion of Xisuthrus's or Noah's sons, from thence first made.Whether any remains of this ark be still preserved, as the people of the country suppose, I cannot certainly tell.Mons.Tournefort had, not very long since, a mind to see the place himself, but met with too great dangers and difficulties to venture through them.
(17) One observation ought not here to be neglected, with regard to that Ethiopic war which Moses, as general of the Egyptians, put an end to, Antiq.B.II.ch.10., and about which our late writers seem very much unconcerned; viz.that it was a war of that consequence, as to occasion the removal or destruction of six or seven nations of the posterity of Mitzraim, with their cities; which Josephus would not have said, if he had not had ancient records to justify those his assertions, though those records be now all lost.
(18) That the Jews were called Hebrews from this their progenitor Heber, our author Josephus here rightly affirms; and not from Abram the Hebrew, or passenger over Euphrates, as many of the moderns suppose.Shem is also called the father of all the children of Heber, or of all the Hebrews, in a history long before Abram passed over Euphrates, Genesis 10:21, though it must be confessed that, Genesis 14:13, where the original says they told Abram the Hebrew, the Septuagint renders it the passenger, (GREEK): but this is spoken only of Abram himself, who had then lately passed over Euphrates, and is another signification of the Hebrew word, taken as an appellative, and not as a proper name.
(19) It is worth noting here, that God required no other sacrifices under the law of Moses, than what were taken from these five kinds of animals which he here required of Abram.Nor did the Jews feed upon any other domestic animals than the three here named, as Reland observes on Antiq.B.IV.ch.4.sect.4.
(20) As to this affliction of Abram's posterity for 400 years, see Antiq.B.II.ch.9.sect.1.
(21) These sons-in-law to Lot, as they are called, Genesis 19:12-14, might be so styled, because they were betrothed to Lot's daughters, though not yet married to them.See the note on Antiq.B.XIV.ch.13.sect.1.
(22) Of the War, B.IV.ch.8.sect.4.
