These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:
These are the generations of Shem. The sacred historian here passes from the general to the particular, and, as introductory to the biography of Abraham, traces his lineal descent from that son of Noah in whose line the promise was to be transmitted. This genealogy is therefore of a totally different character from that which is contained in the preceding chapter. It is exclusively a family register. On comparing it with the similar record in Genesis 5:1-32, there will be perceived a progressive decrease in the ages of the patriarchs; and, besides, it proceeds according to a different method; because, instead of giving the total duration of their lives, it states merely the age of each individual at the birth of the son by whom the Messianic line was to be conveyed, and the number of years the father lived afterward, leaving the reader to make the summation. The consequence has been the commission of clerical errors of a serious description. The following table will show how many and great discrepancies exist in the Hebrew, Samaritan, and Septuagint versions, and in Josephus, in regard to the numbers in this genealogy:
Whatever was the cause of these extraordinary discrepancies-whether they originated in the errors of transcribers mistaking one letter for another, which might occasion a difference of a century or more, or whether they proceeded from a deliberate tampering with the genealogies on the part of the Jews in the beginning of the Christian era (see the note at Genesis 5:1-32), as seems to have been the case, from the systematic nature of the alterations, the result has been to introduce irreconcilable confusion into the chronology.
'There is nothing,' says Professor Rawlinson, 'either in the facts of history or in those of language, against the chronological scheme of Scripture, if we regard the Septuagint and Samaritan versions as the best exponents of the original text in respect of the genealogy of the patriarchs from Shem to Abraham. Whether the chronology of these versions admits of further expansion; whether, since the chronologies of the Hebrew Bible, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint differ, we can depend on any one of them; or whether we must consider that this portion of revelation has been lost to us by the mistakes of copyists, or the intentional alterations of systematizers, it is not necessary to determine.
"Our treasure is in earthen vessels. The revealed Word of God has been continued in the world in the same way as other written compositions-by the multiplication of copies. No miraculous aid is vouchsafed to transcribers, who are liable to make mistakes, and may not always have been free from the design of bending Scripture to their own views. That we have a wonderfully pure and perfect text of the Pentateuch, considering its antiquity, is admitted; but doubts must ever attach to the chronology, not only because in all ancient MSS. numbers are especially liable to accidental corruption, but also, and more especially, from the fact that there is so wide a difference in this respect between the Hebrew, Samaritan, and Greek copies."
There is one special difficulty connected with this genealogy, arising from the occurrence of the name of Cainan in the Septuagint, and in the Gospel of Luke, who follows the Septuagint. The Septuagint, instead of Salah, has Cainan-`Arphaxad begat Cainan, and Cainan begat Salah.' Cf. Luke 3:36. 'All existing MSS. and editions of the Septuagint version-the Complutensian, the Aldine, the Alexandrian, and the Vatican edition-do contain the name of Cainan in this passage; as also the Septuagint version, as given in Origen's 'Hexapla,' did, on the testimony of Procopius, who wrote soon after A.D. 500 AD; the canonical Latin version of the Septuagint, used by Augustine and the African Church; Demetrius, the historian, who lived under the Ptolemies, about B.C. 170, and within one hundred years of the Septuagint translation being made; and many of the Fathers quote from the copies of the Septuagint used by them as containing the name of Cainan.
Such are the most important facts and statements, as given by Walton, Yardley, Jackson, Mill, and others, from which the authenticity of the name Cainan has been argued. But, on the other hand, the Hebrew MSS. and editions, which form the authoritative text of Scripture, do not contain, nor ever did contain, Cainan, either in this chapter or the preceding, or in 1 Chronicles 1:18; besides the Samaritan Pentateuch Onkelos, in his Chaldee Targum, compiled about the time of our Saviour; the Syriac version, made from the Hebrew very early in the Christian era; the Arabic, the Vulgate, the versions made from the Hebrew-none of them acknowledge the name. But further, there are very strong grounds for asserting that the intrusion of Cainan into the Septuagint version is comparatively of modern date: for in the Vatican manuscript of the Septuagint Cainan is omitted, as it is also in the Armenian version of the Old Testament, made from the Septuagint in the fourth century. Josephus and Philo, who both quote from the Septuagint, knew nothing of it. Various testimonies of Christian Fathers, at a later date, all form a mass of external evidence which, together with several circumstances of internal probability, make the insertion of the name Cainan in this passage very suspicious, or rather prove, that for the first three or nearly four centuries after Christ the Septuagint version agreed with the Hebrew text in omitting Cainan. This much must suffice on so complicated a question. We conclude that, at all events, Cainan has no right to a place among the ancestors of Jesus Christ' (Hervey's 'Genealogies').
There is one other observation which remains to be made on this genealogy-namely, that it comprises ten names. This has been objected to as an artificial arrangement; because it is precisely the same as in Genesis 5:1-32, and in the genealogies of several ancient profane writers. Kalisch is of opinion that the number "ten" had a sacred or symbolical meaning which is now lost; but this is a pure conjecture.