Chapter IV.

Then Noah first of all erected an altar to God, and offered sacrifices from among the birds.⁶ Immediately afterwards he was blessed by God along with his sons, and received a command that he should not eat blood, or shed the blood of any human being, because Cain, having no such precept, had stained the first age of the world. Accordingly, the sons ofNoah were alone left in the then vacant world; for he had three, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. But Ham, because he had mocked his father when senseless with wine, incurred his father's curse. His son, Chas by name, begat the giant Nebroth,⁷ by whom the city of Babylon is said to have been built. Many other towns are relatedto have been founded at that time, which I do not here intend to name one by one. Butalthough the human race was now multiplied, and men occupied different places and islands, nevertheless all made use of one tongue, as long as the multitude, afterwards to be scattered through the whole world, kept itself in one body. These, after the manner of human nature, formed the design of obtaining a great name by constructing some great work before they should be separated from one another. They therefore attempted to build a tower which should reach up to heaven. But by the ordination of God, in order that the labors of those engaged in the work might be hindered, they began to speak in a kind of languages very different from their accustomed form of speech, while no one understood the others. This led to their being all the more readily dispersed, because, regarding each other as foreigners, they were easily induced to separate. And the world was so divided to the sons of Noah, that Shem occupied the East, Japhet the West, and Ham the intermediate parts. After this, till the time of Abraham,⁸ their genealogy presented nothing very remarkable or worthy of record.