Solomon, Benhadad King of Syria [229] had two and thirty Kings in his army against Ahab:  and when Joshuah conquered the land of Canaan, every city of the Canaanites had its own King, like the cities of Europe, before they conquered one another; and one of those Kings, Adonibezek, the King of Bezek had conquered seventy other Kings a little before, Judg. i. 7. and therefore towns began to be built in that land not many ages before the days of Joshuah:  for the Patriarchs wandred there in tents, and fed their flocks where-ever they pleased, the fields of Phoenicia not being yet fully appropriated, for want of people.  The countries first inhabited by mankind, were in those days so thinly peopled, that [230] four Kings from the coasts of Shinar and Elam invaded and spoiled the Rephaims, and the inhabitants of the countries of Moab, Ammon, Edom, and the Kingdoms of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim; and yet were pursued and beaten by Abraham with an armed force of only 318 men, the whole force which Abraham and the princes with him could raise:  and Egypt was so thinly peopled before the birth of Moses, that Pharaoh said of the Israelites; [231] behold the people of the children of Israel_ are more and mightier than we_:  and to prevent their multiplying and growing too strong, he caused their male children to be drowned.

These footsteps there are of the first peopling of the earth by mankind, not long before the days of Abraham; and of the overspreading it with villages, towns and cities, and their growing into Kingdoms, first Smaller and then greater, until the rise of the Monarchies of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Greece, and Rome, the first great Empires on this side India. Abraham was the fifth from Peleg, and all mankind lived together in Chaldea under the Government of Noah and his sons, untill the days of Peleg:  so long they were of one language, one society, and one religion:  and then they divided the earth, being perhaps, disturbed by the rebellion of Nimrod, and forced to leave off building the tower of Babel:  and from thence they spread themselves into the several countries which fell to their shares, carrying along with them the laws, customs and religion, under which they had ’till those days been educated and governed, by Noah, and his sons and grandsons:  and these laws were handed down to Abraham, Melchizedek, and Job, and their contemporaries, and for some time were observed by the judges of the eastern countries:  so Job [232] tells us, that adultery was an heinous crime, yea an iniquity to be punished by the judges:  and of idolatry he [233] saith, If