Behind the laws regulating sacrifice in the Old Testament there lies the long history of Shemitic ritual and religion.
They had the same traditions in common with the Shemitic and Hamitic families from which they sprung.
Many of these peculiar words are Aramean; that is, they are words current in the Aramean branch of the Shemitic languages.
The words Japhetic and Shemitic are also employed in a sense somewhat different from that which common usage has assigned them.
The Shemitic nobility is purely patriarchal: it owes nothing to conquest; it has its origin in blood.
