TEN GENERATIONS FROM SHEM TO ABRAHAM; AN ABSTRACT OF Genesis 11:10-26, OMITTING ALL HISTORIC NOTICES (1 Chronicles 1:24-27).
Between Arphaxad aud Shelah the LXX., at Genesis 11:12, insert Καίναν = Heb. Kênan (1 Chronicles 1:2, above). The name is not contained in our present Hebrew text of Genesis. Kenan may have been dropped originally, in order to make Abraham the tenth from Shem, as Noah is tenth from Adam. The artificial symmetry of these ancient lists is evidently designed. Comp. the thrice fourteen generations in the genealogy of our Lord (Matthew 1).
1 Chronicles 1:28-42 enumerate a second series of seventy tribes or peoples, derived from Abraham through the three representative names of Ishmael, Keturah, and Isaac; just as the seventy peoples of the former series are derived from Noah through Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And as, in the former list, the sons of Japheth and Ham were treated of before the Semitic stocks, so, in the present instance, the sons of Ishmael and Keturah precede Isaac, and of Isaac’s sons Esau precedes Israel (35, seq.); because the writer wishes to lead up to Israel as the climax of his presentation.