We conclude Chapter 10 today and the portion of Scripture known as the table of nations. We are going to be looking at the descendants of Noah's son Shem.
"Sons were also born to Shem, whose older brother was Japheth; Shem was the ancestor of all the sons of Eber." (Genesis 10:21) Eber is Shem's great-grandson. Many Bible scholars and linguists believe that the name "Eber" is the origin of the word "Hebrew". When said out loud we can hear the similarity in these two words. In addition, scholars and linguists suggest that the name of "Shem" is where we get the word "Semites". Shem's descendants were likely referred to as the "Shemites" in the beginning.
"The sons of Shem: Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram. The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether and Meshek. Arphaxad was the father of Shelah, and Shelah the father of Eber." (Genesis 10:22-24) These people populated areas of Mesopotamia and Assyria. Later in the Bible you will recognize them as the Arameans, Elamites, and Assyrians.
"Two sons were born to Eber: One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan." (Genesis 10:25) The word "peleg" actually means "divided", and there are two primary theories regarding what the author of Genesis means by saying "the earth was divided."
The first theory is that at one time all the continents were connected to each other in one giant land mass. This theory is accepted by a number of respectable geologists. When viewing a world map or a globe it's easy for us to see that in the distant past the continents could have fit together like puzzle pieces. So the author of Genesis may be telling us that during the era when Peleg was born, continental drift occurred or at least began to occur. Remember, people lived for centuries back then, so the shifting of tectonic plates and the separating of the continents may have begun to become visible in the lifetime of Peleg's father Eber, causing Eber to give him a name that means "divided". In addition, we don't know how quickly continental drift progressed. In our time it's a very slow process but we don't know the conditions of the earth in the early centuries following the flood. When the flood started we were told that the fountains of the deep broke up. Things may have taken place deep under ground that caused continental drift to begin to happen quite swiftly.
The other theory is that this division has to do with what takes place in Chapter 11 when we will be told that everyone on the earth spoke the same language until people tried to construct the tower of Babel. At that time the Lord decided to "confuse their language" and then He "scattered them over the face of the whole earth". The division the author of Genesis speaks of here in Chapter 10 may refer to the division of languages and peoples. Following the flood, the Lord instructed the survivors to multiply and to fill the whole earth. They multiplied, but they didn't spread out over the entire earth. It wasn't until the Lord confused their languages that they spread out and did what He had instructed them to do. He created different languages on that day, so that each group who spoke the same language would separate from the other groups and make their own nations on the earth. He created this diversity not to foster prejudice but to prevent every person on the face of the earth from banding together to fulfill one common wicked purpose as they attempted to do at Babel. We will discuss the matter of the tower of Babel (and why what the people did there was in rebellion toward God) in detail when we arrive at Chapter 11.
Now we move on to the descendants of Eber's son Joktan. "Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Ophir, Havilah and Jobab. The region where they lived stretched from Mesha toward Sephar, in the eastern hill country." (Genesis 10:26-30) Some scholars suggest that Jobab and Job (of the Book of Job) are one and the same. Other than the similarity of names we can't really speculate much further on this subject.
According to the account of Jesus' genealogy given in the book of Luke, Christ is descended from Shem, through Shem's son Arphaxad, through Arphaxad's son Cainan (who is not mentioned here in Genesis 10 but who is mentioned in the first Greek version of the Bible, called the Septuagint.) In Genesis 10 we are told that Arphaxad's son is Shelah, but in Luke's account Shelah is the son of Cainan which would make Shelah Arphaxad's grandson and not his son. There is no need for us to worry that the Bible is contradicting itself. It's quite common in the Old Testament for a descendant of a great man to refer to himself as that man's son even though one or more generations separates them. There is also a well-known example of this in the New Testament when we see Jesus referred to as the "son of David" even though there were twenty-eight generations between them. There's nothing contradictory about Shelah being referred to in Genesis 10 as the son of Arphaxad even though he was his grandson.
In addition, genealogies occasionally skipped over persons who were particularly unsavory characters. We don't know whether Cainan was an ungodly man, but in Old Testament times a person might skip over a reprobate ancestor when listing his lineage. Was anyone in your family tree a scoundrel? There were a few in mine! My original ancestor who came from Great Britain to North America had to leave everything he owned in a hurry because he backed the wrong candidate for the crown, so he got here by hook and by crook---or more specifically, by piracy. In more recent times, my great-grandfather on my mother's side was a highly respected man in public, but in private he was a pedophile who molested not only several generations of his own family but several of his neighbors' children as well. Would I ever proudly announce that I'm his great-granddaughter? No I would not. I'd prefer to pretend he isn't in my genealogy at all, and this is the same way some of the people in the Bible felt about a few of their ancestors. Because they felt this way, they purposely left certain names out of their genealogical records. But this didn't prevent them from being able to prove their family lines, because as we can see, skipping over Cainan doesn't change the fact that Shelah is a descendant of Arphaxad or that Jesus is descended from this same family.
Another reason for the omission of Cainan's name in Genesis 10 could be due to problems in interpreting the original text and due to missing portions of the original text. In some Bibles you will find words here and there enclosed in parenthesis. This means that the word in parenthesis was missing from the original text and has been inserted by the interpreters because in context it is pretty obvious what the missing word was supposed to be. So when the Septuagint was put together for Greek-speaking people, the interpreters inserted Cainan back into Genesis 10 as the son of Arphaxad because Luke in the New Testament clearly states in Greek that Cainan was the son of Arphaxad and that Shelah was the son of Cainan.
The author concludes Genesis 10 like this: "These are the sons of Shem by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations. These are the clans of Noah's sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood." (Genesis 10:31-32)
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