China in Scripture

Isa_49:11-12
Was China known to the ancientsespecially was it known to the
Jews, and is there any mention of it in Scripture? To the last
question most of our readers will, from their own impression or
recollection, at once say, No. This is, however, less certain than
appears; and the question is, in fact, raised by the text before us,
in which, speaking of the ultimate gathering of the nations to
Christ, it is said: I will make all my mountains a way, and my
highways shall be exalted. Behold, these shall come from far;
and, lo, these from the north and the west; and these from the
land of Sinim.
It has been suggested that the land of Sinim means the land of
China or of the Chinese; and this notion, which was formerly
regarded with little favor by interpreters, has been of late years
taken up and warmly advocated on the Continent, not only by
Biblical scholars, but by comparative philologists, whose
conclusions must be allowed much weight in such a question. We
must confess that we were once opposed to this view, or rather,
did not acquiesce in it; but on a review of the whole subject, with
the advantage of later researches, we now incline to entertain it
with very little hesitation.
It is clearly intended in this text, to indicate the universal extent of
this ingathering of nations, by pointing to the remotest quarters in
different directions. Still it must be allowed that there is some
obscurity and difficulty in the mode of indication. At the first view it
seems doubtful whether more than three directions in all are
designated; and then, whether more than two, or even one of
these, is distinctly intimated. The north is clear enough. The word
translated the west is the sea; and is, therefore, not free from
uncertainty: but as the sea does usually denote the west in all
such distributive intimations, with reference to the Mediterranean,
which lay to the west of Palestine, it is needless to suppose that it
means anything else here.
Having thus two directions, north and west, expressly stated, it
remains to look for the south and the east.
It is very clear, that if four quarters of the world, or rather the four
cardinal points, are at all stated, one of them is comprised in
those that come from far, because this is one of the only four
terms of indication which the verse contains. It has been thought
by some, indeed, that this clause is not a single item in an
enumeration of particulars, but a generic statement
comprehending the specific statements that follow. This
interpretation appears to have originated in a wish to give the
widest meaning that can be afforded to the terms of the
prediction, as against the restricted local application for which
some have contended. But the interpretation is not required to
establish this larger meaning, seeing that if one of the four
quarters is denoted by the phrase from afar, the idea necessarily
suggested is, that all the other points enumerated are likewise
remote. That from afar, really does stand for one of the points of
the compass, seems to be clear from the necessity and the
probability of the case. When four local designations are given,
one of which certainly, another almost certainly, and a third (the
land of Sinim, in this case) most probably, denote particular
directions, it is most natural to conclude that the fourth is so used
likewise, however vague it may be in itself as an indication. The
presumption thus created is confirmed by the fact, that the
hypothesis of only three divisions admits that the whole earth was
meant to be included; and it thus becomes a question whether it
is most agreeable to general usage, and that of Scripture in
particular, to understand a threefold or fourfold division of the
earth in such connections. If the latter, as is certainly the case,
then analogy is strongly in favor of the supposition, that the first
clause, from afar, is not co-extensive with the other, but contains
the first of four particulars enumerated. Over and above this
argument, derived from the usual distinction of four points or
quarters, there is another furnished by the use of the pronoun
these, when repeated so as to express a distributive idea. In all
such cases, these and these mean some and others; nor is there,
perhaps, a single instance where the first these comprehends the
whole, while the others divide it into parts. This would be just as
foreign from the Hebrew idiom, as it would be from ours to say,
Some live in Europe, some in France, some in Holland; when
we mean that some live in Holland, some in France, and all in
Europe.
From all this it seems to follow, that the verse most probably
contains the customary distribution of the earth or heavens into
four great quarters, and that one of them is designated by the
phrase from afar.
Assuming, therefore, that from afar designates one of the points
of the compass, it remains to inquire what point this is. And that
we have already the north and the west, this must be either the
south or the east. Some have contended for the east, and this has
been met by the just remark, that afar never does mean the
east, and is not elsewhere used to denote it. But it seems to have
escaped the notice of those who have written on the subject, that
from afar, or at least the equivalent expression, is used to
denote the south in Scripture; as in our Saviors declaration the
queen of the south came from the uttermost parts of the earth to
hear the wisdom of Solomon. We cannot go any further in
showing that afar denotes the south; but if we can showand to
this we have now narrowed the question, that the land of Sinim is
in the east, the other question is settled by the absence of the
alternatives, and afar must stand for the south.
A Canaanitish tribe called the Sinites is named in Gen_10:17, and
1Ch_1:15; we have also the wilderness of Sin, and the mountains
of Sinai; Egypt also might possibly be called the land of Sinim
from Syene, or from the city of Sin, otherwise Pelusius;
accordingly, all these have found advocates, but to all of them the
objection is open, that they are all too near at hand to suit the
context, whether from afar be taken as a general description or
a distinct specification.
It is to be noted that in the name Sinim the im is merely the sign of
the Hebrew plural, and the proper name is to be sought in Sin as
the radical portion of the word. Looking to the remote south, there
is no nation known to the ancients, nor indeed any nation, that
bore this name. A place or nation giving a name in its remoteness
to any point of extreme distance, must have been a place or
people of importance, for it is only such whose name and
reputation reach to distant regions. There is none such in the
south; and eastward, the only country important and remote that
comes to us with this name is China, which is well ascertained to
have been first known to the ancients by the name of Sina; Sin,
Chin, or Jin (with the usual termination, a, added in the case of a
country), being merely different modes of representing the same
word. This is certainly a very important fact; to many it will seem
sufficient and conclusive, being, indeed, as strong a piece of
evidence as exists for the identification of many important ancient
names. If this be correct, it is encouraging to find China set down
by name as standing for the extreme east of the old world, and
prophetically destined to be brought into the blessedness of
Christs kingdom. The remoteness of the country is not against
this interpretation, but in favor of it, under the explanation of the
first term, from afar, which has been already given.
The statement already made indirectly disposes of many of the
old objections to this interpretation. The only plausible ones that
can still be urged against it may be reduced to two. The first is,
that China was unknown to the Jews at the date of this prophecy.
To this it may be answered, first, that no one who believes in the
inspiration or the prophets; can refuse to admit the possibility of
such a prediction, for the encouragement of future ages (as in the
case of Cyrus), even if the fact were so; and, indeed, it might be
that the peculiar circumstances and seemingly inaccessible
character of that great empire, might create a peculiar need for so
distinct an intimation by a name which, in our day, the most
renowned scholars and critics, holding different views of Divine
inspiration, have with rare exceptions agreed, must denote China.
But, secondly, it is not impossible that China was known to the
Hebrews even at a very early period. If the fleets of Solomon
penetrated to the shores of India, or to Ceylon, nothing is more
probable than that the intelligent and inquiring supercargoes
whom such a king as Solomon would be sure to send therewith,
may have heard something of the great country which lay in the
still remoter east. It is hardly possible but that they must have
made some inquiries on the subject, if only to bear back to their
master some report respecting what might seem the utmost
eastward bounds of the habitable earth. The answer would be,
that beyond India lay the great country of Sin, or Sina, beyond
which lay the great ocean, and that in this direction there was no
further land. Again, some knowledge of this country and people
may have existed in Egypt, and have been thence acquired by the
Israelite. In the ancient Egypt which the monuments disclose,
there is much to remind one of China. The type of their civilization
was essentially the same; and there was great similarity in their
habits of life, their arts, implements, and utensils. In fact, China is
a living Egypt. This powerfully suggests that there was some
connection between these countries, of which nothing is at
present known distinctly, but which further researches in the
ancient lore of China and of Egypt may disclose. We do not rely
upon the proof for a commercial intercourse with Egypt which
some have found in the fact, that porcelain vessels with Chinese
inscriptions upon them have been found in the tombs of ancient
Thebesbecause another mode has been suggested in which
these articles may have found their way into the tombs. But what
we can say is, that in the face of what has within the present
century been brought to light respecting the knowledge and
intercourse of ancient nations, it is rash and hazardous to affirm
that in the time of Isaiah the Israelites could have had no
knowledge of China, even by name. And this brings us to the
apparently formidable objection, that the name Sinim is not that
used by the Chinese themselves, nor by any other nation, until
long after the date of this prophecy, it having been derived from a
family that did not ascend the throne until 246 years before the
birth of Christ. Too much stress has, however, been laid upon this
dark and dubious tradition of a distant and unknown country. The
very text before us makes it doubtful; the universal prevalence of
the word Sin, Chin, or Jin, throughout eastern or southern Asia,
from time immemorial, presupposes an antiquity still more remote;
and the Chinese historians themselves record that the family from
which the name derives its origin, for ages before it ruled the
empire, ruled a province or kingdom on the western frontier,
whence the name might easily have been extended to the
western nations. There are, in fact, few cases of a name being
more extensively or longer prevalent than that of China, the very
form in which it exists in Sanskrit, the mother tongue in south-
eastern Asia. That the Chinese themselves have never used it,
though acquainted with it, is nothing to the purpose. A Hebrew
writer would, of course, use the name familiar in western Asia
even as we have always called, and so now call Persia, as did
also the Hebrew writers, by a name which was never in use by
the inhabitants of the land.
Upon the whole, then, if any other interpretation be given to
Sinim, we cannot account for its being placed here as
representing one of the quarters or divisions of the world. But if it
mean China, that extreme limit of the eastern world, that hive of
nations, supposed to comprehend a third part of the human race,
a natural and consonant interpretation is reached. Even to us
there would be nothing unintelligible or absurd, however strange
or novel, in the combination, north, west, south, and China. On
the whole, then, a hypothesis which solves all difficulties, satisfies
the claims of philology and history, unites the suffrages of the
most independent schools and parties, fully meets the requisitions
of the text and context, and opens a glorious field of expectation
and effort to the church, may be safely regarded as the true one.
Note: The principal authorities in support of this view, that Sinim
denotes China, are Manasseh-ben-Israel, Montanus, Calmet,
Gesenius, Winer, Maurer, Hitzig, Henderson, Umbreit,
Hendewerk, Knobel, Beck, and Alexander. The last-named
authority, in his Later Prophecies of Isaiah (New York, 1847; since
reprinted in Glasgow, together with the Earlier Prophecies, under
the editorial care of the Rev. Dr. Eadie), has given a large note on
this question (pp. 178-185), on which this days Reading is mainly
founded, with some additional illustrations and suggestions.
Professor Alexander largely examines an article on this question
which appeared in the Chinese Repository from the pen of one of
the missionaries, to which we have also referred, and have drawn
from it further particulars. Besides these, the question has been
examined as one of historical and literary interest by the most
eminent comparative philologists, such as Langles, Lassen, and
others, and whose conclusions are in support of the view that
China is really denoted by this name.