THE SONS OF SHEM, OR THE SEMITES (1Chronicles 1:17-23).

(17) Blam.--The Elamtum of the Assyrian inscription, the classic Susiana, a mountainous land eastward of Babylonia, to which it was subject in the days of Abraham (Genesis 14). The names Assur-, Elam-, Kass-, and Accad- occur together in an old Assyrian list of nations. ?lama, from which the Assyrian and Hebrew names are derived, is Accadian. The native designation was Ansan. The Sargonide kings of Assyria had frequent wars with Elam.

Asshur.--Assyria proper, i.e., a district on the Tigris, about twenty-five miles long, between the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh parallels of latitude. Asshur was the name of its older capital and tutelar god. The Semitic Assyrians appear to have been settled at Asshur as early as the nineteenth century B.C. They were emigrants from Babylonia (Genesis 10:11). The original name was A-usar, "water-meadow."

Arphaxad apparently means Babylonia, or, at least, includes it. Babylonian monarchs styled themselves "King of the Four Quarters" (of heaven); and Arphaxaa may perhaps mean land of the four quarters or sides, and be derived from the Assyrian arba-kisadi "four sides" (Friedrich Delitzsch). More probably it is Arph-chesed, "boundary of Chaldea."

Lud, usually identified with the Lydians (Assyrian Luddi), perhaps their original home in Armenia. The name has also been compared with Rutennu, the Egyptian name of the Syrians (I and r being confused in Egyptian). But comp. Ezekiel 27:10; Ezekiel 30:5.

Aram.--The high land--that is, eastern and western Syria, extending from the Tigris to the Great Sea. The name is constantly used for the Arameans, or Syrians.

Uz.--An Arab tribe, called Hasu by Esarhaddon, who reduced them. Perhaps, however, Uz (Heb., ?c), is the Assyrian Ucca, a district on the Orontes, mentioned by Shalmaneser II. (B.C. 860-825). Job lived in the "land of Uz." The remaining names appear to be also those of Arab tribes, who must have lived northward in the direction of Aram; these are called sons of Aram in Genesis 10

Hul is the Assyrian H-li'a, which formed a part of the mountain land of Kasiar or Mash (Inscription of Assurnacirpal, B.C. 885-860). For Meshech Genesis 10 has Mash, which is compared with Mount Masius, near Nisibin. (So the Syriac and some Heb. MSS.)

(18) Eber.--The land on the other side (Gr., ? ?????) Peraea. Here the land beyond the Euphrates is meant, from which "Abraham, the Hebrew" (i.e., Eberite), migrated.

(19) Two sons.--This indicates the ancient consciousness that the Hebrew and Arabian peoples were akin.

The earth was divided.--Or, divided itself. (Comp. Deuteronomy 32:7-9.) The words probably refer to a split in the population of Mesopotamia.

(20) Joktan begat Almodad.--The Joktanite tribes lived along the coast of Hadhramaut (Hazarmaveth) and Yemen, in southern Arabia. The tribes of Yemen call their ancestor Qahtan (= Joktan). The names in 1Chronicles 1:20-21, are all explicable from Arabic sources.

(22) Ebal.--Genesis 10:28. Obal, where, however, the LXX. read ???? (Ebal). The different spelling is due to the common confusion in MSS. of the Hebrew letters w and y. Both Ebal and Abimael are unknown.

(23) Ophir.--Abhira, at the mouth of the Indus.

Jobab.--Probably a tribe of Arabia Deserta. (Comp. the Arabic yabab, a desert.)

All these were the sons of Joktan.--Genesis 10:30 adds a definition of their territory: "Their dwelling was from Mesha" (Maisanu, at the head of the Persian Gulf), "until thou comest to Sephar" (probably Zafaru or Isfor, in South Arabia) "and the mountains of the east" (i.e., Nejd, a range parallel to the Red Sea).

From the whole section we learn that the Elamites, Assyrians, Chaldees, Arameans, Hebrews, and Arabs, were regarded as belonging to the great Semitic family. In regard to Elam, modern philologers have questioned the correctness of this view. It is, however, quite possible that at the time when the original of this table of nations was composed, some Semitic tribes were known to have effected a settlement in Elam, just as kindred tribes occupied Babylonia and Assyria.

The fourteen sons of Japheth and the thirty sons of Ham, and the twenty-six sons of Shem, make a total of seventy eponyms of nations. The number seventy is probably not accidental. Comp. the seventy elders (Numbers 11:16); the seventy members of the Sanhedrin; and even the seventy disciples of Christ (Luke 10:1). The seventy nations of the world are often mentioned in the Talmud. Ezekiel's prophecy concerning Tyre, and the peoples that had commerce with her (Ezekiel 27), is a valuable illustration of the table.

Verses 17-27. - D. THE LIST OF SHEM'S DESCENDANTS TO ABRAM. This list is broken in two; it pauses a moment exactly halfway to Abram, at the name Peleg, to mention Peleg's brother Joktan and Joktan's thirteen sons. Then, repeating the first five names of lineal descent, and picking up the thread at Peleg, the list gives the remaining five to Abram. In the first half of this list, we have apparently the names of nine sons of Shem, but, as Genesis explains, really the names of five sons, and through Aram, the last of them, the names of four grandsons. Another grandson, through Arphaxad the third son, follows, and through this grandson two consecutive lineal descents bring us, in the name Peleg, half-way to Abram. It is here the lineal table pauses to give Joktan and his thirteen sons. The names then in this portion of the list are twenty-six in number. In the Authorized Version they correspond with those in Genesis, except that Meschech (וָמֶשֶׁך) here is called Mash (וָמַשׁ) there; Shelah here is spelled Salah there; and Ebal (עֵיבָל) here is written Obal (עובָל) there. The difference between the Hebrew texts justifies the first and last of these variations in the Authorized Version, but in all other respects those texts are in entire accord with one another, for this paragraph. The Septuagint gives very little of this portion of the list. It corresponds, whether with the Hebrew or the Authorized Version, only as far as to the name Arphaxad, after which it carries down the line at once to Abram by the remaining eight names as given in our twenty-fourth to twenty-seventh verses. Nor is it in agreement with its own version in Genesis, which has points of important variation with the Hebrew text also. It is then at this break of the list that, after the names of Joktan's sons, we have in Genesis these words, "And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar a mount of the east. These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lauds, after their nations. These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations; and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the Flood." Upon this follows the account of Babel, in nine long verses, and then a chronological summary is furnished in lineal descent only from Shem to Abram. It is with the names in this chronological summary that those in this second part of our list (vers. 24-27) are found to agree. But any attempt at reproduction of the chronology found in Genesis is again absent here. At this point a significant stage of these genealogies is reached. The ever-broadening stream of population now narrows again. Two thousand years have flown by, then Abraham appears on the stream and tide of human life. Of that long period the life of Adam himself spanned nearly the half. So far we learn without partiality of all his descendants in common. But henceforth, the real, the distinct purpose of the genealogy becomes apparent, in that the line of the descendants of Abraham, and that by one family, alone is maintained, and proves to be a purpose leading by one long straight line to Christ himself. With Abraham "the covenant of innoceney," long forfeited in Adam, is superseded by the everlasting "covenant of grace," and we lose sight in some measure of Adam, the "common father of our flesh," to think of a happier parentage found in Abraham, the "common father of the faithful."

1:1-27 This chapter, and many that follow, repeat the genealogies, or lists of fathers and children in the Bible history, and put them together, with many added. When compared with other places, there are some differences found; yet we must not therefore stumble at the word, but bless God that the things necessary to salvation are plain enough. The original of the Jewish nation is here traced from the first man that God created, and is thereby distinguished from the obscure, fabulous, and absurd origins assigned to other nations. But the nations now are all so mingled with one another, that no one nation, nor the greatest part of any, is descended entirely from any of one nation, nor the greatest part of any, is descended entirely from any of these fountains. Only this we are sure of, that God has created of one blood all nations of men; they are all descended from one Adam, one Noah. Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Mal 2:10.The sons of Japheth, Gomer,.... Here begins the genealogy of the sons of Noah after the flood; of the sons of Japheth the elder, in this and the two following verses; next of the sons of Ham, the younger brother, 1 Chronicles 1:8, then of Shem, whose posterity are mentioned last, because from him, in the line of Heber, sprang Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish nation, of whom the Messiah was to come, for whose sake this genealogy is given, 1 Chronicles 1:17. The whole is the same with the account in