6 Exodus 20 : 18; "the thunderings and the lightnings" of the King James Version is not an exact translation of Kolot and Lapidim.
i Epic of Gilgamish (transl. Thompson). 8 Theogony, 11. 820 ff., 852 ff.
9 This phenomenon of sound between two charged bodies changing with distance is utilized for musical effect by Theremin.
98 WORLDS IN COLLISION
by Pseudo-Philo as "testimony of the trumpets between the stars and their Lord."10 Here we can trace the origin of the Pythagorean notion of the "music of the spheres" and the idea that stars make music. In Babylonia the spheres of the planets were called "voices" and they were supposed to produce music.11 According to Midrashic literature, the trumpet sounding at Mount Sinai had seven different pitches (or notes), and the rabbinical literature speaks of "the heavenly music" heard at the revelation. "At the first sound the sky and the earth moved, the seas and the rivers turned to flight, mountains and hills were loosened in their foundations." 12
Homer depicts a similar occurrence in these words: "The wide earth rang, and round about great heaven pealed as with a trumpet." 13 "The world all burns at the blast of the horn," is said in the Voluspa.14
"'According to the Hebrew tradition, all the nations heard the roaring of the lawgiving. It appears that at Mount Sinai the sound that "sounded long" rose ten times; in this roaring the Hebrews heard the Decalogue.
'"'-'Thou shalt not kill" (Lo tirzah); "Thou shalt not commit adultery" (Lo tin of); "Thou shalt not steal" (Lo tignov). . . . "These words [of the Decalogue] . . . were not heard by Israel alone, but by the inhabitants of all the earth. The Divine voice divided itself into the seventy tongues of men, so that all might understand it. . . . The souls of the heathens almost fled from them when they heard it."15
The din caused by the groaning earth repeated itself again and again, but not so loud, as subterranean strata readjusted themselves after being dislocated; earthquakes incessantly shook the ground for years. The Papyrus Ipuwer calls these years "years of noise." "Years 10 The Biblical Antiquities of Philo, Chap. XXXII.
11 E. F. Weidner, Handbuch der Babylonischen Astronomie (1915), I, 75.
12 Sefer Pirkei Rabbi Elieser.
i» The Iliad, xxi, 385 ff. (transl. A. T. Murray, 1924).
14 Cf. W. Bousset, The Antichrist Legend (transl. A. H. Keane, 1896), p. 113.
robin-bobin
15 Ginzberg, Legends, III, 97; the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat 88b.
WORLDS IN COLLISION 99
of noise. There is no end to noise," and again, "Oh, that the earth would cease from noise, and tumult (uproar) be no more."18
The sound probably had the same pitch all over the world as it came from the deep interior of the earth, all of whose strata were dislocated when it was thrown from its orbit and forced from its axis.
The great king-lawgiver of China, in whose time a dreadful cataclysm took place and the order of nature was disturbed, bore the name Yahou.17 In the Preface to the Shu King, attributed to Confucius, it is written: "Examining into antiquity, we find that the Emperor Yaou was called Fang-heun." 18 Yahou was a surname given to him in the time following the flood, apparently inspired by the sound of the earth's groaning.
The same sound was heard in those years in the Western Hemisphere or wherever the ancestors of the Indians then lived. They relate that once when the heavens were very close to the earth, all mankind lifted the sky little by little at the repeated shouting 'Tahu," which rang all over the world.19
In Indonesia an oath is accompanied by the invocation of the heavenly bodies. An arrow is shot toward the sky, "while all present raise a cry of 'ju ju huwe.'" z0 The same sound is heard in the very name Jo, Jove (Jupiter). The name Yahweh is preserved in shorter
16 Papyrus Ipuwer 4 : 2, 4-5.
17 For the Chinese pronunciation of this name see R. van Bergen, Story of China (1902), p. 112:
"At the time of the flood, the Emperor of China was named Yau (Yah-oo)."
18 Shoo-king, the Canon of Yaou (transl. James Legge), Vol. Ill, Pt. 1 of The Chinese Classics (Hongkong, 1865). In this edition Legge used this spelling of the name of the book and of the name of the king; his later spelling is different.
In Volume LX of the Universal Lexicon (Leipzig and Halle, 1732-1754), s.v. "Yao," it is said tiiat some call Yao by the name Tarn and also Tao. This is curious because in my reconstruction of ancient history I come to the conclusion that the name of the pharaoh of the Exodus was Taui Thom (Greek "Tau Timaeus") of the Thirteenth Dynasty, the last of the Middle Kingdom. He was a contemporary of this Chinese king.
19 F. Shelton, "Mythology of Puget Sound: Origin of the Exclamation Tfahu,'" Journal of American Folk-lore, XXXVII (1924).
20 J. G. Frazer, The Worship of Nature (1926), p. 665. F. Boas, Kwakiutl Culture as Reflected in Mythology (1935), p. 130, tells of Yuwe gendayusens na lax ("die wind edge of our world"), from where also come "death-bringing arrows that set mountains on fire."
100 WORLDS IN COLLISION
forms, as well, Yahou and Yo,21 as the name of the Deity in the Bible.22 Diodorus wrote of Moses that he had received his laws from the God invoked by the name Iao.23
In Mexico, Yao or Yaotl is the god of war; the similarity of sound has already been noted.24
Nihongi, chronicles of Japan from the earliest times, begins with a reference to the time when "of old, heaven and earth were not yet separated, and the In and Yo not yet divided." Yo is the earth.
The time when the sky touched the earth is the time when the heavy dust and vapor-charged clouds of the comet enveloped the globe and lay very close to the ground.
Emperor Yahou
The history of China is commonly supposed to extend back to gray antiquity. But in reality the sources of the ancient period of the Chinese past are very scanty, for they were destroyed by the Emperor Tsin-chi-hoang (246-209 before the present era). He ordered all books on history and astronomy, as well as works of classic literature, to be burned. Search for these books was made throughout the empire for this purpose. The story persists that a few remnants of the old literature were again put into writing from the memory of an old man; some were said to have been found hidden in the sepulcher of Confucius, and are ascribed to his pen.
robin-bobin
Of these few remains of the old lore, the most cherished are those which tell of the Emperor Yahou and his times. His personality and his period are considered as "the most auspicious in the Chinese annals."1 The history of China preceding his reign is ascribed to the 21 Psalms 68 : 4.
22 Cf. R. A. Bowman, "Yahweh the Speaker," lournal of Near Eastern Studies, III (1944). H.
Torczyner, Die Bundeslade und die Anfdnge der Religion Israels (1930), p. iii, sees a connection between the name jhwh and the Arab word wahwa, to roar.
23 Diodorus of Sicily, Library of History, I, 94.
24 Brasseur, Quatre lettres sur le Mexique, p. 374.
1 H. Murray, J. Crawfurd, and others, An Historical and Descriptive Account of China.
WORLDS IN COLLISION 101
mythical period of the Chinese past. In the days of Yahou the event occurred which separates the almost obliterated and very dim past of China from the period that is considered historicaclass="underline" China was overwhelmed by an immense catastrophe.
"At that time the miracle is said to have happened that the sun during a span of ten days did not set, the forests were ignited, and a multitude of abominable vermin was brought forth." a "In the lifetime of Yao [Yahou] the sun did not set for ten full days and the entire land was flooded." 3
An immense wave "that reached the sky" fell down on the land of China. "The water was well up on the high mountains, and the foothills could not be seen at all." 4 (This recalls Psalm 104: "The waters stood above the mountains . . . they go up by the mountains" and Psalm 107: "The waves mount up to the heaven.")