This is Chapter 20, Serug of Legends of Old Testament Characters, from the Talmud and Other Sources by Sabine Baring-Gould (Macmillan, 1871). The text is public domain. It comes from Wikisource.
XX.
SERUG.
"And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg.
"And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu. And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug. And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor."1
Serug is said to have discovered the art of coining gold and silver money. In his days men erected many idols, into which demons entered and wrought great signs by them. Samiri was king of the Chaldees, and he discovered weights and measures and how to weave silk, and also how to dye fabrics. He is related to have had three eyes and two horns.
At the same time Apiphanus was king of Egypt. He built a ship, and in it made piratical descents upon the neighbouring people living on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. He was succeeded by Pharaoh, son of Saner, and the kings after him assumed his name as their title.2
Nahor was the son of Serug. In the twenty-fifth year of his life, Job the Just underwent his trial, according to the opinion of Arudha the Canaanite. At that time Armun, king of Canaan, built the two cities Sodom and Gomorrah, and called them after the names of his two sons; but Zoar he named after his mother. At the same time, Murk or Murph, king of Palestine, built Damascus.3
Notes
- Gen. xi. 16, 18, 20, 22. ↑
- Abulfaraj, Hist. Dynastiarum, p. 12, ↑
- Abulfaraj, Hist. Dynastiarum, p. 13. ↑
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