CH. V.—The Tower of Bahel—Thc Descendants of Shem, down to Thare or Terah. SHEM was a hundred years old when he begat Arphaxad, which happened two years after the flood. Arphaxad begat Sale, or Cainan. Sale founded a city, which he called after his own name, Salem, and he was the father of Heber, from whom the Hebrews (Hebrei) derive their name, or else they are called so from Abraham, as if they were Abrahai. Heber begat Phaleg, in whose time the sons of the sons of Noah, not having faith in the covenant of God which he had made with Noah, to the effect that there should not again be a flood, put together bricks for stones, and bitumen for cement, in order to build a tower, the height of which should reach to heaven ; in order that if a flood should inundate the earth, they might remain safe on its summit. And since they thought that they might be able by their own skill to escape all danger, from either flood or fire, there was caused in that very place, to wit, in the land of Shinar, a division or confusion of tongues, so that no one of them could understand the language of his neighbour ; therefore the Lord scattered them over divers countries, and they left off building the tower. And the name of that place was called Babel, that is to say, confusion, because there the language of the whole earth was confused. And Phaleg, in whose family the Hebrew language remained, which is the most ancient of all languages, was on that account called Phaleg, that is to say, divided from the others. Phaleg begat Ragau, Kagau begat Saruch, who begat Nachor ; that Nachor, when he had departed from Chaldaea, married a wife named Melcha, the daughter of his brother who was dead* and dwelt in Charran of Mesopotamia. His father having died there, and Abraham having taken up his abode as a sojourner in Canaan, Nachor begat these three brothers : Huz, Buz, and Bathuel, with five others, from one of whom, namely, Buz, was descended Balaam, who, according to the Hebrews, is the same person spoken of in Job as Ehhu the Buzite.6 That Nachor begat Thare, who, not being able to bear the injuries that were inflicted on him in the matter of adoring 5 Job xxxii. 6.