17 The sons of Shem: Elam and Asshur and Arpachshad and Lud and Aram and Uz and Hul and Gether and Meshech.
And Elam was armed with arrows, and Aram came on horseback; and the breastplate of Kir was uncovered.
Take with you words, and come back to the Lord; say to him, Let there be forgiveness for all wrongdoing, so that we may take what is good, and give in payment the fruit of our lips.
There is Elam and all her people, round about her last resting-place: all of them put to death by the sword, who have gone down without circumcision into the lowest parts of the earth, who were a cause of fear in the land of the living, and are put to shame with those who go down to the underworld:
There is Asshur and all her army, round about her last resting-place: all of them put to death by the sword:
Cush and Lud and Put were in your army, your men of war, hanging up their body-covers and head-dresses of war in you: they gave you your glory.
And all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes;
And I will put a sign among them, and I will send those who are still living to the nations, to Tarshish, Put, and Lud, Meshech and Rosh, Tubal and Javan, to the sea-lands far away, who have not had word of me, or seen my glory; and they will give the knowledge of my glory to the nations.
These are the sons of Shem: Elam and Asshur and Arpachshad and Lud and Aram. And the sons of Aram: Uz and Hul and Gether and Mash. And Arpachshad became the father of Shelah; and Shelah became the father of Eber. And Eber had two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, because in his time the peoples of the earth became separate; and his brother's name was Joktan. And Joktan was the father of Almodad and Sheleph and Hazarmaveth and Jerah And Hadoram and Uzal and Diklah And Obal and Abimael and Sheba And Ophir and Havilah and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. And their country was from Mesha, in the direction of Sephar, the mountain of the east. These, with their families and their languages and their lands and their nations, are the offspring of Shem. These are the families of the sons of Noah, in the order of their generations and their nations: from these came all the nations of the earth after the great flow of waters.
A vision of fear comes before my eyes; the worker of deceit goes on in his false way, and the waster goes on making waste. Up! Elam; to the attack! Media; I have put an end to her sorrow.
Assur is joined with them; they have become the support of the children of Lot. (Selah.)
Then they came to Zerubbabel and to the heads of families, and said to them, Let us take part in the building with you; for we are servants of your God, even as you are; and we have been making offerings to him from the days of Esar-haddon, king of Assyria, who put us here.
But still the Kenites will be wasted, till Asshur takes you away prisoner. Then he went on with his story and said, But who may keep his life when God does this? But ships will come from the direction of Kittim, troubling Asshur and troubling Eber, and like the others their fate will be destruction.
And in the words which the Lord had given him he said, From Aram Balak has sent for me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the East: come, put curses on Jacob for me and be angry with Israel.
Now in the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar, Arioch, king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of Goiim,
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on 1 Chronicles 1
Commentary on 1 Chronicles 1 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 1
1Ch 1:1-23. Adam's Line to Noah.
1. Adam, &c.—"Begat" must be understood. Only that one member of the family is mentioned, who came in the direct order of succession.
4-23. Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth—The three sons of this patriarch are enumerated, partly because they were the founders of the new world, and partly because the fulfilment of Noah's prophecy (Ge 9:25-27) could not otherwise appear to have been verified.
12. Casluhim (of whom came the Philistines), and Caphtorim—a better rendering is, "and Casluhim, of whom came the Philistim and Caphtorim." They were brethren, the sons of Casluhim, and at first dwelt together, whence their names are used interchangeably. The Caphtorim are described as inhabiting Azzah, or Gaza, the seat of the Philistines.
14-17. the Jebusite, &c.—At 1Ch 1:14-17 the names are not those of individuals, but of people who all sprang from Canaan; and as several of them became extinct or were amalgamated with their brethren, their national appellations are given instead of the personal names of their ancestors.
17. Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Meshech—or, "Mash"; these were the children of Aram, and grandsons of Shem (Ge 10:23).
18. Arphaxad begat Shelah—Cainan, the father's name, is omitted here. (See Lu 3:36).
19. Peleg—(See on Ge 10:25).
22. Ebal—or, "Obal" (Ge 10:28).
1Ch 1:24-28. Shem's Line to Abraham.
24-27. Shem, &c.—This comprises a list of ten, inclusive of Abraham.
1Ch 1:29-31. Sons of Ishmael.
29. These are their generations—the heads of his twelve tribes. The great northern desert of Arabia, including the entire neck, was colonized by these tribes; and if we can recover, in the modern geography of this part of the country, Arab tribes bearing the names of those patriarchs, that is, names corresponding with those preserved in the original catalogue of Scripture, we obtain at once so many evidences, not of mere similarity, but of absolute identification [Forster].
Nebaioth—gave rise to the Nabathæans of the classic, and the Beni Nabat of Oriental writers.
Kedar—the Arab tribe, El Khedeyre, on the coast of Hedgar.
Abdeel—Abdilla, the name of a tribe in Yemen.
30. Dumah—Dumah and Tema, the great Arab tribes of Beni Teman. Thus this writer [Historical Geography of Arabia] traces the names of all the heads of the twelve tribes of Ishmael as perpetuated in the clans or tribes of the Arabs in the present day.
1Ch 1:32, 33. Sons of Keturah.
32. sons of Keturah—These became founders of nomadic tribes in the north of Arabia and Syria, as Midian of the Midianites (Ge 36:35; Jud 6:2).
and Shuah—from whom Bildad sprang (Job 2:11).
1Ch 1:34-42. Posterity of Abraham by Esau.
36. sons of Eliphaz—the tribe Adites, in the center country of the Saracens, so called from his mother, Adah (Ge 36:10).
Teman—gave rise to the land of Teman, near the head of the Red Sea.
Omar—the tribe Beni-Amma, settled at the northern point of Djebel Shera (Mount Seir).
Zephi—the tribe Dzaf.
Gatam—Katam, inhabited by the tribe Al Saruat, or "people of Sarah."
Kenaz—the tribe Aenezes, a tribe whose settlement lies in the neighborhood of Syria.
Amalek—the Beni Malak of Zohran, and the Beni Maledj of the Shat el Arab.
37. Reuel—a powerful branch of the great Aeneze tribe, the Rowalla Arabs.
Shammah—the great tribe Beni Shammar. In the same way, the names of the other kings and dukes are traced in the modern tribes of Arabia. But it is unnecessary to mention any more of these obscure nomads, except to notice that Jobab (1Ch 1:44), one of the kings of Edom, is considered to be Job, and that his seat was in the royal city of Dinahab (Ge 36:32; 1Ch 1:43), identified with O'Daeb, a well-known town in the center of Al Dahna, a great northern desert in the direction of Chaldea and the Euphrates [Forster].