The sons of Shem Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram, and Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Meshech.
This verse packs two generations into one line: Shem's five sons, then four names belonging to Aram. Why does Shem's family — the line that leads to Abraham — come last in the chapter rather than first?
Shem's sons come after the lines of Japheth and Ham. One writer sees a pattern here that repeats through the genealogies before Abraham.
Verse 4 mentions Shem first, although he is not the firstborn. The genealogies of Genesis before Abraham do this often. Yet the lists of Japheth's family and Ham's family come before his (vv. 5-16), just as we see in Genesis 10. In God's eyes Shem, chosen by grace, holds first place. But in the natural order, what is spiritual does not come first.
Of Shem's five sons, one carries the chosen line forward: Arphaxad, whom the ESV spells Arpachshad. Nothing in the list marks him out.
Shem's own sons come next, listed, it seems, in the order of their birth. Arpachshad, the ancestor of the chosen line, stands third — neither first nor last. A name might be placed first or last for special reasons, as happens elsewhere.
A reference work sums up why that third name matters:
Son of Shem, born two years after the flood, from whom Abraham descended.
Uz, Hul, Gether and Meshech are not Shem's sons. They are Aram's sons, and so Shem's grandsons. The list sets them beside Shem's own children, which some readers have taken as an error.
In the same genealogy these four sons of Aram stand right alongside the sons of Shem, Aram included. Such lists often use this compressed style, and verse 4 prepares the reader for it. It only looks like a contradiction.
The last of the four carries a different name in Genesis 10:23. A reference work treats the two names as one man:
Mash: son of Aram, and grandson of Shem. Genesis 10:23. He is called Meshech in 1 Chronicles 1:17.
Each of these names became a people with a homeland and a history.
Elam is the first son named. He is the ancestor of the peoples east of Persia proper, who held the province whose capital was Shushan, or Susa. Elam rose to power early, then faded before the energy of Assyria and Babylon. Later, with Persia and Media, it shared the power of the second world-kingdom. Genesis 11 develops Arphaxad's line. The Lydians match Lud, and the Syrians match Aram.
One of Aram's four sons gives his name to the land where Job lived:
We do not know who Job's parents were. But he lived in the land of Uz, so he was one of Shem's descendants (Genesis 10:23). His friends came from the same branch of the human family, the line of Shem.
Readers have long asked which family Assyria came from. A reference work sorts it out:
In Genesis 10:11 an older translation seems to say that a son of Ham named Asshur built Nineveh. Then Genesis 10:22 and 1 Chronicles 1:17 name Asshur as a son of Shem. But the margin of Genesis 10:11 reads that "he went out into Assyria," that is, Nimrod went out into Asshur or Assyria (the Hebrew is the same). Micah 5:6 confirms this, linking Assyria and Nimrod together. Assyria goes back to Asshur, or Assur, a son of Shem. Nimrod came later and may have conquered the country.
These names return in the prophets, attached to events still ahead.
As to the children of Shem (Genesis 10:22), Elam is the same as Persia. Asshur appears in the judgment that will take place in the last times (Micah 5:6; Isaiah 14:25; Isaiah 30:31), and also in the conspiracy of Psalm 83, and in other places. Arphaxad is one of the ancestors of the Israelites… Asshur displaced Aram, or Syria, which then appears under the title of the king of the North.
- Order — Shem comes first in God's reckoning and last in the natural listing. Grace does not follow birth order.
- Chosen — Arphaxad sits third of five, with nothing to mark him out, yet Abraham comes from him.
- Compressed — the list folds Aram's four sons in beside Shem's own. That is shorthand, not contradiction.
- Real — Elam is Persia's region, Lud the Lydians, Aram the Syrians, and Uz the country where Job lived.
- Unfinished — Asshur, Elam and Aram return in the prophets, so the list points forward as well as back.
-- And Arphaxad begot Shelah, and Shelah begot Eber.
Two fathers, two sons, and the verse is over. Yet this short line carries the record from Shem, Noah's son, down to Abraham. (The name Arpachshad also appears as Arphaxad.) Why does the record linger over Nimrod and say so little here? And what lies inside the name Eber?
Of all the branches spreading out from Noah's sons, this one gets the fewest words and holds the most.
Of all Shem's family, the most important line is the briefest in this genealogy. It is most important in its distant results, in its nearer ones, and in its moral and divine connections. We must now look at it.
The style of the record changes at Arphaxad — the same way in Chronicles as in Genesis.
Notice how the inspiring Spirit led Moses to change his manner at this point. He introduces Arphaxad and his family as a fresh start. The same style appears in 1 Chronicles 1. It is no longer as before, "And the sons of —." Evil made a new departure with Cush and his descendants; good makes one here, where Arphaxad comes before us. Yet for the present the record says little of Arphaxad, unlike Nimrod, who shot into immediate prominence… Good is rare here below, and it grows slowly…
These names are not filler. They are links.
In 1 Chronicles 1, our present subject, we find two series of names highlighted. The first (vv. 1-4) begins with Adam and ends with Noah's sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. The second (vv. 24-27) begins again at Shem and ends with Abraham. These two series form one unbroken chain. It starts with grace toward fallen man. It reaches its high point in the promises made to Abraham and taken hold of by faith.
The order of the names in this chapter follows a rule.
Chronicles then traces the line of man chosen according to the counsels of grace. It sets that line against the line of man according to the flesh… If God in His mercy does not step in, man can only beget evil. So in these chapters the line of the flesh comes first, and the line of the Spirit second. God does not beget until sinful man has first proved what his nature could produce. This is why the apostle says in 1 Corinthians 15:46: "But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual."
Eber closes the verse, and a whole people later carried his name. Its root is a word about movement.
The root of the word is "to pass over," as when one passes over a river, or from one region to another. God told Abraham to leave his country and his relatives and go into the land of Canaan. The word Hebrew does not appear until Abraham had left his country and was in the land of Canaan (Gen. 14:13). When there he was a "sojourner," in a strange country, living in tents (Heb. 11:9). The name was therefore characteristic, and the people of the land could go to Abraham the "sojourner" and tell him that Lot had been taken prisoner.
That crossing cut against the grain of the family's habits.
But the Shemites, unlike other peoples, always liked to stay at home. That made the later crossing all the more remarkable in the ancestor of the Hebrews, who crossed at the call of God.
This list is not there for its own sake. It is going somewhere.
…the object of the Holy Spirit in Chronicles is not history — except as a secondary matter — but the bringing in of the Son who is to reign over all. The sin and failure of man, and Satan's determined opposition, as seen in Saul, are only occasions for the display of sovereign grace and of Almighty power… So His genealogy runs down from Adam, so that He, the last Adam, should win back the headship over the lower creation which the first Adam lost. Other names come in and shine among their fellows, and side purposes are accomplished, but the great purpose of God centres in His Son. The genealogy points to Him.
Shelah also appears as Sala or Salah — the same man, "son of Arphaxad and father of Eber" (Morrish Bible Dictionary). Luke's genealogy adds one more name here, Cainan, and commentators differ over how it got there. (The Septuagint is the old Greek Old Testament.)
This name is notable: it does not occur in the Hebrew, Samaritan Pentateuch, Vulgate, Syriac, nor Arabic texts in Gen. 10:24; Gen. 11:12; 1 Chr. 1:18. But it is in the Septuagint, and from there it may have found its way into the gospel of Luke. Some suppose instead that it was added to the later copies of the Septuagint because it was found in Luke.
- Grace starts it. The chain runs from Adam to Abraham. It starts with grace toward fallen man and ends in the promises.
- Grace waits. In these chapters the line of the flesh comes first; God does not beget until man has shown what his nature produces.
- Grace is quiet. Nimrod shoots into prominence; Arphaxad's line passes in a clause, because good here grows slowly.
- Grace moves. Eber's name means to pass over, and the family that stayed home produced the sojourner who crossed at God's call.
- Grace arrives. Names shine along the way, but the whole list is going one direction: it points to the Son who reigns.
And to Eber were born two sons the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan.
Chronicles opens with a bare list of names, and then pauses on one of them: Eber's two sons, Peleg and Joktan. Peleg's is the one name here that comes with an explanation. That explanation is an event which reshaped the human race.
Peleg's name is not just a label. It carries a meaning, and the record says why he was given it.
Son of Eber, a descendant of Shem. The name means 'division,' and it seems he was called this because 'in his days was the earth divided.' Genesis 10:25. The next chapter of Genesis records the confusion of tongues and the scattering of the people.
Commentators differ here. Some read the scattering at Babel and this division as one event. Others keep them apart, and rest the case on the Hebrew words themselves.
On the other hand the "dividing" of the earth in the days of Peleg (chapter 10:25) should be distinguished. Dispersion came first: a different term is used in the Hebrew, as there ought to be in the translation. The isles are said here to be "separated," as the earth there is "divided." The orderly partition followed the confused dispersion.
Not every branch of the family gets the same treatment. At Shem the tone of the record changes.
With Japheth and Ham the Holy Spirit records names and nothing more. Nimrod is called a mighty hunter, but that is the bare fact, without a word of praise or blame. When we come to Shem we are, as it were, in a higher atmosphere. We find that God is the Lord God of Shem, and the moral side, the character of things, appears — not just names or history.
The brother's name means something too. One writer points to an early paraphrase of this verse in Chronicles, which ties Joktan's name to how long people lived.
The name of Eber's second son was Joktan, "small." It stands in contrast to Peleg, whose name, "division," marked an epoch: the more peaceful dividing of the earth, after the judgment of God made the dispersion of mankind necessary… The Chaldee paraphrase on 1 Chronicles 1:19 suggests that Joktan got his name from the shortening of human life at that time. Human life certainly dropped by half then. The recorded years of Peleg (Genesis 11:18-19) and of those who followed show it, falling by degrees to its ordinary range.
The division was not random. One writer connects it to a later statement about how the Most High set the limits of the nations.
The division of the earth was in the days of Peleg. Peleg came several generations before Abraham. Still, when the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, one thought was central and controlling in His arrangements: His foreknowledge of the number of the children of Israel… The nations were to be both placed and governed in relation to Israel. So in this first setting of the bounds of their territories, He settled everything with reference to Israel.
(Trotter quotes Deuteronomy 32:8 from an older translation. Where he reads "the children of Israel," the ESV reads "the sons of God.")
The chapter does not leave the reader at Peleg. Joktan's line runs on at once, while Peleg's waits — and the judgment tied to his name is not the end of the story.
Joktan, Peleg's brother, has many sons to continue his line, but Peleg must wait for another time, when his son will appear in the famous line that leads on to David. The name of Peleg will be a continual reminder, until the new heavens and the new earth, of the judgment on man through sin. Even the day of grace met the sin and rose above the judgment in God's wise way. It did not cancel the judgment or wipe out the sin. Instead God gave power to the apostles on the day of Pentecost to speak to men in their own native languages, to their amazement. So they proclaimed the grace of God in the middle of the evidence of His judgment.
Grace then does its own dividing.
And here is another dividing. Not of the earth as in Peleg's day, but a dividing or separating out from among the nations of a people by God for Himself. Judgment did the first; grace works now.
- Divided — Peleg's name means "division," because in his days the earth was divided.
- Distinguished — some writers hold that the scattering at Babel came first and the orderly dividing followed. Others read the two as one event.
- Diminished — Joktan's name points to human life growing shorter. From Peleg on, people lived about half as long.
- Directed — the boundaries were not accidental. God placed and governed the nations with Israel in view.
- Delivered — Peleg's name is a lasting reminder of judgment. At Pentecost the divided languages carried grace instead, and a second dividing began: a people separated out for God.