When it became known to Ham that his father had cursed him, he fled
ashamed, and with his family he settled in the city built by him, and
named Neelatamauk for his wife. Jealous of his brother, Japheth
followed his example. He likewise built a city which he named for his
wife, Adataneses. Shem was the only one of the sons of Noah who did not
abandon him. In the vicinity of his father's home, by the mountain, he
built his city, to which he also gave his wife's name, Zedeketelbab.
The three cities are all near Mount Lubar, the eminence upon which the
ark rested. The first lies to the south of it, the second to the west,
and the third to the east.
Noah endeavored to inculcate the ordinances and the commands known to
him upon his children and his children's children. In particular he
admonished them against the fornication, the uncleanness, and all the
iniquity which had brought the flood down upon the earth. He reproached
them with living apart from one another, and with their jealousies, for
he feared that, after his death, they might go so far as to shed human
blood. Against this he warned them impressively, that they be not
annihilated from the earth like those that went before. Another law
which he enjoined upon them, to observe it, was the law ordaining that
the fruit of a tree shall not be used the first three years it bears,
and even in the fourth year it shall be the portion of the priests
alone, after a part thereof has been offered upon the altar of God. And
having made an end of giving his teachings and injunctions, Noah said:
"For thus did Enoch, your ancestor, exhort his son Methuselah, and
Methuselah his son Lamech, and Lamech delivered all unto me as his
father had bidden him, and now I do exhort you, my children, as Enoch
exhorted his son. When he lived, in his generation, which was the
seventh generation of man, he commanded it and testified it unto his
children and his children's children, until the day of his death."[67]
In the year 1569 after the creation of the world, Noah divided the
earth by lot among his three sons, in the presence of an angel. Each
one stretched forth his hand and took a slip from the bosom of Noah.
Shem's slip was inscribed with the middle of the earth, and this
portion became the inheritance of his descendants unto all eternity.
Noah rejoiced that the lot had assigned it to Shem. Thus was fulfilled
his blessing upon him, "And God in the habitation of Shem," for three
holy places fell within his precincts—the Holy of Holies in the Temple,
Mount Sinai, the middle point of the desert, and Mount Zion, the middle
point of the navel of the earth.
The south fell to the lot of Ham, and the north became the inheritance
of Japheth. The land of Ham is hot, Japheth's cold, but Shem's is
neither hot nor cold, its temperature is hot and cold mixed.[68]
This division of the earth took place toward the end of the life of
Peleg, the name given to him by his father Eber, who, being a prophet,
knew that the division of the earth would take place in the time of his
son.[69] The brother of Peleg was called Joktan, because the duration
of the life of man was shortened in his time.[70]
In turn, the three sons of Noah, while they were still standing in the
presence of their father, divided each his portion among his children,
Noah threatening with his curse any who should stretch out his hand to
take a portion not assigned to him by lot. And they all cried, "So be
it! So be it!"[71]
Thus were divided one hundred and four lands and ninety-nine islands
among seventy-two nations, each with a language of its own, using
sixteen different sets of characters for writing. To Japheth were
allotted forty-four lands, thirty-three islands, twenty-two languages,
and five kinds of writing; Ham received thirty-four lands, thirty-three
islands, twenty-four languages, and five kinds of writing; and Shem
twenty-six lands, thirty-three islands, twenty-six languages, and six
kinds of writing—one set of written characters more to Shem than to
either of his brothers, the extra set being the Hebrew.[72]
The land appointed as the inheritance of the twelve sons of Jacob was
provisionally granted to Canaan, Zidon, Heth, the Jebusites, the
Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the
Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. It was the duty of these
nations to take care of the land until the rightful owners should
come.[73]
No sooner had the children of Noah and their children's children taken
possession of the habitations apportioned to them, than the unclean
spirits began to seduce men and torment them with pain and all sorts of
suffering leading to spiritual and physical death. Upon the entreaties
of Noah God sent down the angel Raphael, who banished nine-tenths of
the unclean spirits from the earth, leaving but one-tenth for Mastema,
to punish sinners through them. Raphael, supported by the chief of the
unclean spirits, at that time revealed to Noah all the remedies
residing in plants, that he might resort to them at need. Noah recorded
them in a book, which he transmitted to his son Shem.[74] This is the
source to which go back all the medical books whence the wise men of
India, Aram, Macedonia, and Egypt draw their knowledge. The sages of
India devoted themselves particularly to the study of curative trees
and spices; the Arameans were well versed in the knowledge of the
properties of grains and seeds, and they translated the old medical
books into their language. The wise men of Macedonia were the first to
apply medical knowledge practically, while the Egyptians sought to
effect cures by means of magic arts and by means of astrology, and they
taught the Midrash of the Chaldees, composed by Kangar, the son of Ur,
the son of Kesed. Medical skill spread further and further until the
time of aesculapius. This Macedonian sage, accompanied by forty learned
magicians, journeyed from country to country, until they came to the
land beyond India, in the direction of Paradise. They hoped there to
find some wood of the tree of life, and thus spread their fame abroad
over the whole world. Their hope was frustrated. When they arrived at
the spot, they found healing trees and wood of the tree of life, but
when they were in the act of stretching forth their hands to gather
what they desired, lightning darted out of the ever-turning sword,
smote them to the ground, and they were all burnt. With them
disappeared all knowledge of medicine, and it did not revive until the
time of the first Artaxerxes, under the Macedonian sage Hippocrates,
Dioscorides of Baala, Galen of Caphtor, and the Hebrew Asaph.[75]