THE SONS OF SHEM, OR THE SEMITES (1 Chronicles 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 Assurû, Elamû, Kassû, and Accadû occur together in an old Assyrian list of nations. Êlama, 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-kisâdi “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 Hâsu by Esarhaddon, who reduced them. Perhaps, however, Uz (Heb., Ûç), is the Assyrian Uçça, 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 Hûlî’a, which formed a part of the mountain land of Kasiar or Mash (Inscription of Assurnâçirpal, 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., ἡ πέραν) Peræa. 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 Qahtân (= Joktan). The names in 1 Chronicles 1:20-21, are all explicable from Arabic sources.
(22) Ebal. — Genesis 10:28. Obal, where, however, the LXX. read Εὐάλ (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. — Abhîra, at the mouth of the Indus.
Jobab. — Probably a tribe of Arabia Deserta. (Comp. the Arabic yabâb, a desert.)
All these were the sons of Joktan. — Genesis 10:30 adds a definition of their territory: “Their dwelling was from Mesha” (Maisânu, at the head of the Persian Gulf), “until thou comest to Sephar” (probably Zafâru 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.