Genesis: 1a 1b 1c 1d 2a 2b 2c 2d 3 4a 4b 4c/5 6a 6b 7 8 9 10 11a 11b 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25a 25b 26a 26b 27 28a 28b 29 30a 30b 31a 31b/32a 32b 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44a 44b 45 46 47a 47b 48 49 50
TOLDOT NO'ACH
The attempt to construct a detailed atlas of the known world is flawed from the outset. Some of the names are people, some tribal chieftains, some cities, some tribes, some gods, some historical anachronisms... the work was probably undertaken by the Priestly editors under Ezra, who, having little sense of historic chronology, simply put down whatever they knew, and trusted no one would challenge them. TheBibleNet hereby challenges them.
It is presented as if individual fathers had specific, individual sons. This we can discount from the outset. In most cases we are dealing with how tribes came out of tribes, or more often regions of political hegemony and local confederations. In most cases the geographical regions which one or other set of brothers inhabited was quite small.
Bear in mind as you read this that the restored Yehudah of Ezra and Nechem-Yah (Nehemiah), and their attempt to create a unified national identity, involved many very disparate peoples, principally the pre-Yisra-Eli indigenous peoples of Kena'an, the Yehudim themselves with their Babylonian recent history, and those people brought in to replace them when they were exiled, first by Sennacherib in 720BCE, then by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE; on both occasions the people forced to move to Shomron came from the area around Ninveh (Nineveh), and specifically the region known as Padan Aram, so central to the Av-Ram and Ya'akov tales. And no doubt they brought their tribal gods and goddesses and mythological explanations of the world with them, and these too needed to be absorbed. Much of the explanation of the rest of the Tanach, and the Galilee sections of the Jesus mythology as well, lies in this paragraph!
Bear in mind as you read this that the restored Yehudah of Ezra and Nechem-Yah (Nehemiah), and their attempt to create a unified national identity, involved many very disparate peoples, principally the pre-Yisra-Eli indigenous peoples of Kena'an, the Yehudim themselves with their Babylonian recent history, and those people brought in to replace them when they were exiled, first by Sennacherib in 720BCE, then by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE; on both occasions the people forced to move to Shomron came from the area around Ninveh (Nineveh), and specifically the region known as Padan Aram, so central to the Av-Ram and Ya'akov tales. And no doubt they brought their tribal gods and goddesses and mythological explanations of the world with them, and these too needed to be absorbed. Much of the explanation of the rest of the Tanach, and the Galilee sections of the Jesus mythology as well, lies in this paragraph!
10:1 VE ELEH TOLDOT BENEY NO'ACH SHEM CHAM VA YAPHET VA YIVALDU LAHEM BANIM ACHAR HA MABUL
וְאֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת בְּנֵי נֹחַ שֵׁם חָם וָיָפֶת וַיִּוָּלְדוּ לָהֶם בָּנִים אַחַר הַמַּבּוּל
KJ (King James translation): Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.
BN (BibleNet translation): This is the tribal map of the sons of No'ach - Shem, Cham and Yaphet - and of the sons who were born to them after the flood.
BENEY (בני) in this chapter means "tribes owing allegiance to" or "in the demesne of", though it is translated as "generations". BANIM is genuinely "sons", though there is a stylistic difference between here and previously, and later on we will find BENEY used for "grandsons" as well as "tribal members", "city-residents" and even "craft-guild members" and "Temple choristers": in the other genealogical tables, the patriarchs are always accredited with sons and daughters.
10:2 BENEY YEPHET GOMER U MAGOG U MADAI VE YAVAN VE TUVAL U MESHECH VE TIRAS
בְּנֵי יֶפֶת גֹּמֶר וּמָגוֹג וּמָדַי וְיָוָן וְתֻבָל וּמֶשֶׁךְ וְתִירָס
KJ: The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.
BN: The sons of Yaphet: Gomer and Magog, and Madai, and Yavan, and Tuval and Meshech, and Tiras.
Why are they given from the youngest first? Evidence of ultimogeniture again? (Some scholars believe that this is evidence that No'ach's sons were Yaphet, Cham and Shem, in that order.) All the following are from Asia Minor; is it then a Phoenician list? If so we can date it at no earlier than King David; though it is probably much later. Also several of the names have appeared previously.
GOMER (גמר): from the root GAMAR (גמר) = "to finish, complete". Probably the Cimerii or Cimmerians, a tribe that is probably of Persian origin (and a name much played with in Italo Calvino's "If On A Winter's Night A Traveller"),;in Biblical times they were Anatolians, inhabitants of the Tauric Chersonese and the area near the Don and Danube on the shores of the Caspian Sea; they were famous in Bavel (Babylon) around the 6th century BCE for their incursions into Asia Minor; the Arabs call the people the Krim, reckoning the Cimmerian sea as the Euxine Sea. Also possibly connected to the town of Gamir, which is the Armenian name for Cappadocia; see the note to verse 3 for Gomer's sons. Hertz says they lived on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Most likely these people decamped westward somewhat later on and became the Celtic Cymry, the aboriginals of what is now Wales, and the Cumbrians of northern England as well. For more on this see the essay "The Leprachauns of Palestine".
MAGOG (מגוג): Scythians, likewise of Persian origins, and famous for their red hair, whose territory bordered the Caucasus. These seem to be another of the ancestors of the Celts, and certainly Og Magog (Og son of Og; the Ma being the source of the Scots Mac = "son") gives us the link; the word Scythian giving the word "Scot" in addition. The defeat of Og king of Bashan was the first of Mosheh's military successes in Sinai (Numbers 21:33 ff). Gog may have been a god-name in Armenia (cf Ezekiel 38).
MADAI (מדי): probably the Medes, the group who, under King Cyrus (Kourosh in the Persian, Koresh in the Yehudit, circa 600 – 530 BC), overthrew the Babylonians and established the Persian empire; Cyrus personally ordered the repatriation of the Beney Yehudah from exile, and even paid for much of the rebuilding of the Temple (536 BCE) - so a place of honour in the early pages of the Tanach would have been something Ezra would have required when he ordered its writing down. Almost all references to the MADAI further this Medean conenction; it occurs in Esther 1:3, 2 Kings 17:6 and 18:11, Jeremiah 25:25 and 51:11 and 28; Isaiah 13:17 and 21:2, Daniel 5:28, 6:1, 9:1, 11:1; also Ezra 6:2. And if it is indeed the Medes, then we can date this list for certain to the 6th century BCE, 2,000 years later than No'ach!
YAVAN (יון): an unused root that appears to have been connected with the idea of "boiling" or "bubbling" or "fermenting", whence YAVEN (יון) = "clay" and YAYIN (יין) = "wine", exactly as CHOMER (חמר) = "clay" and CHEMER (חמר) = "wine" from the root CHAMAR (חמר).
More pertinently this is YAVAN = Greece, specifically the province of Ionia, the land of the moon-goddess IO, and the Ionian sea which divides Ionia from Kena'an; the name YONAH (יונה) = "a dove" is likewise connected (see note in the previous chapter). In addition, though probably not connected, Ezekiel 27:13 refers to Yavan, probably confusing it with YAWAN, a city in what is today the Yemen. That this latter town should be a brother of the Medes is logical of course. There are close links between the horned cow-goddess Io of the Ionians, and the moon-goddess YAH (יה) who may originally have been Io's female Phoenician counterpart; YAH lies at the source of the later male monotheism of YHVH, where she is transformed into the masculine Yahu, and is the goddess addressed in the earliest form of the Psalms (Hallelu-Yah).
TUVAL (תובל): likewise referred to in Ezekiel 27. For a fuller explanation see the notes to TUVAL-KAYIN (תונל-קין) in Genesis 4:20. Probably the Tibareni of Anatolia.
MESHECH (משך): also referred to in Ezekiel 27. From the root MASHACH (משך) = "to draw out", which was probably what led to the false explanation of Mosheh/Moses in Exodus as "because I drew him out of the water". The tribe here is most likely the Moschi, from the Moschian mountains between Iberia (not the Spanish Iberia, which actually took its name in Roman times from this one), Armenia and Colchis; though today they prefer to be called the Mushki. They too are usually connected with the Tibareni.
TIRAS (תורס): one of the northern tribes. Or possibly Tursha, an Egyptian sea-confederacy; or possibly the Tyrsenians of Lemnos and Imbros who became the Etruscans.
10:3 U VENEY GOMER ASHKANAZ VE RIPHAT VE TOGARMAH
וּבְנֵי גֹּמֶר אַשְׁכֲּנַז וְרִיפַת וְתֹגַרְמָה
KJ: And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.
BN: And the sons of Gomer: Ashkanaz and Riphat and Togarmah.
ASHKANAZ (אשכנז): An Armenian tribe of northern Asia. In trying to give Biblical names to Jewish colonies of the Diaspora, Ashkanaz was chosen for the area around the Rhineland, whence most European Jews are today called Ashkenazim. Their originals inhabited the region of Ararat, and thus would have been No'ach's first contacts (no, of course not, the entire world had been wiped out and he was the first).
RIPHAT (רפת): possibly connected to the Rhiphoean mountains; also perhaps to RIPHOT (רפות) = "crushed grains of corn". From Asia Minor.
TOGARMAH (תגרמה): see Ezekiel 38:6. Famous for their horses and mules (1 Chronicles 1:16, Ezekiel 27:14). An Armenian tradition records TORGOM the son of GOMER as the founder of the Armenian nation, also called "the house of Torgom"; clearly the Beney Yisra-El picked up the name in Babylon but misheard or misremembered it. Again from Asia Minor.
10:4 U VENEY YAVAN EL-ISHAH VE TARSHISH KITIM VE DODANIM
וּבְנֵי יָוָן אֱלִישָׁה וְתַרְשִׁישׁ כִּתִּים וְדֹדָנִים
KJ: And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.
BN: And the sons of Yavan: El-Ishah and Tarshish, Kitim and Dodanim.
In which case we can deduce that Elishah was probably a latterday pronunciation of what elsewhere is Elis or Elish. As a son of Yavan this connects neatly to the Phoenicians (the root of their name, "phoinix", means "purple" as does "kinnahu", the root of the Hurrian name for Kena'an) and probably refers in fact to the whole Peloponnesus, including Laconia, the Gulf of Corinth and the islands of the Aegean sea. It is likely that the Hey (ה) is redundant and that Elish only coincidentally suggests EL-ISH (אל איש) = "Man of El". The alternative view is that this is a Yehuditisation of Hellas, whence the Hellenic Greeks - though more likely Hellas was itself a later rendition of Elish. It is also identified with southern Italy, Sicily, and even Cyprus, where we know from Greek writings of the Alashiya - probably these latter were colonies and/or trading-posts.
TARSHISH (תרשיש): Two possibilities, the first the less likely: that it was Tartessus on the river Baetis in southern Spain, known today as the Guadalquivir; it was formerly a major colony and emporium of the Phoenician traders (known by them as Tarsus, as it was by the Romans later). Hugely significant later on, in that this was the destination of Yonah's (Jonah's) ship-of-flight, and this was where the Jews embarked for exile when the Spanish expelled them in 1492. It was also the ascribed birthplace of the Apostle Paul, though the Septuagint renders Tarshish as Carthage, which error is repeated in Targum Jonathan and in the Latin Vulgate.
KITIM (כתים): Cyprus, another Phoenician colony (Kitim is probably a dialect variation of Beney Chet = Hittites), known to the Greeks as Citienses; the name may have been used in a wider sense for all the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean. When the Greeks introduced the Phoneician alphabet to Cyprus, they called it Kition. However, elsewhere in the Tanach, and still today, Cyrpus is rendered as Kaprisin (קפריסין), not Kitim (but then Germany is sometimes rendered as Deutschland, and the Netherlands as Holland, so these variations should not trouble us).
DODANIM (דדנים): possibly Dodona, a city of Epirus, or the Dardani, the Trojans. However, much more likely, the first Dalet (ד) is a misreading and should be a Reysh (ר), giving Rodanim, or inhabitants of the island of Rhodos; this is how it is given in the Yehudit text of 1 Chronicles 1:7. The name-confusion seems to be because both are shortened forms of DARDANIM, i.e Dardania in the region of Troy. This may also be why the Septuagint, which after all was written in Hellenic Egypt, assumed that Tarshish must be connected with the Dardanim, and named it as Carthage.
10:5 ME ELEH NIPHREDU IYEY HA GO'IM BA ARTSOTAM ISH LILSHONO LE MISHPECHOTAM BE GOYEYHEM
מֵאֵלֶּה נִפְרְדוּ אִיֵּי הַגּוֹיִם בְּאַרְצֹתָם אִישׁ לִלְשֹׁנוֹ לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם בְּגוֹיֵהֶם
KJ: By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.
BN: From these the islands of the nations were divided, each in their land, each speaking their own language, each in their own tribe, each in their own nation.
IYEY HA GOYIM: IYEY specifically means "islands", which should be noted in reference to the above; GOYIM (גוים) literally means "nations"; it is now used to refer to any gentile people; yet the inference here is that the original "Goyim" were the Greeks.
LILSHONO (ללשנו) = "After his tongue": a problem, since the division into language groups has not yet happened (in the Tanach anyway); though it will, next chapter, with the building of the Tower of Bavel (Babel); or is this a piece of clever literature in the prefigurative style of Maupassant?
10:6 U VENEY CHAM KUSH U MITSRAYIM U PHUT U KENA'AN
וּבְנֵי חָם כּוּשׁ וּמִצְרַיִם וּפוּט וּכְנָעַן
KJ: And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.
BN: And the sons of Cham: Kush and Mitsrayim and Phut and Kena'an.
CHAM (חם): means "heat" or "black" and was one of the ancient names of Egypt; Kemi in the "Egyptian"; whence Hamite (alongside Semite and Yaphethite in the English racial cataloguing system) for the African nations.
KUSH (כוש): The land of Kush has already been referred to in connection to the rivers of Eden - cf Genesis 2:13 - where it is clearly in today's Iraq; but here it is understood to be today's Sudan or Ethiopia. This seeming conflict recurs throughout the Tanach, and may be more easily understood by looking at a map of the Red Sea, and registering that Kush is the term used for the lands on both sides of its southern portion, anywhere from Mecca in Arabia, until it bifurcates at Sharm el-Sheikh, and then across, through today's Djibouti, into Ethiopia (the link to KUSH at the start of this paragraph includes a map to show this).
MITSRAYIM (מצרים): MATSOR (מצור) was usually taken to be Lower Egypt, the channels and tributaries of the Nile flowing towards the Sudan and Ethiopia, which connects it again to Kush. MITSRAYIM (מצרים) is a double plural, presumably because the Hyksos kingdom of Egypt, which was the first to unite the two kingdoms of Egypt as one land, was the time in which the Beney Yisra-El were most familiar with the place. Upper Egypt alone was called by the Beney Yisra-El Put (see next note) and by the Greeks Patros. There may well also be a connection to the word METSER (מצר) = "distress", although I would suggest that the name of the place came first and the adjective derived afterwards.
PHUT (פוט): Here as Phut only because of a grammatical rule that softens hard consonants when there is a conjunction-prefix: so here VA PUT becomes U PHUT, but the name is nonetheless PUT and not PHUT. Greek Patros is sometimes reckoned to be Libya, which is itself as problematic as Kush, because ancient texts that speak of Libya do not always mean the Libya that we are thinking of today. Josephus reckons it to be Mauritania, while Pliny the Elder notes a river Put in Mauritania. Others treat Put as Somalia. Given that it follows MITSRAYIM in the No'achic lists, it seems reasonable to assume it is Put, or Upper Egypt.
KENA'AN (כנען): Canaan in the standard English transliteration. There is a root word meaning "to be low", suggesting it meant the lowlands of Yisra-El; since Chorim (חורים) and Chivim (חוים) and others are specifically referred to in various places as inhabiting the highlands, this is very plausible. If true it would mean the Phoenician coast and, later, the regions of the Pelishtim further south. Later it became the whole of western Yisra-El. The notion of Mitsrayim and Kena'an as brothers infers provinces of the same empire which was only ever true under the 19th dynasty.
10:7 U VENEY CHUSH SEVA VA CHAVIYLAH VE SAVTA VE RA'MAH VE SAVTECHA U VENEY RA'MAH SHEVA U DEDAN
וּבְנֵי כוּשׁ סְבָא וַחֲוִילָה וְסַבְתָּה וְרַעְמָה וְסַבְתְּכָא וּבְנֵי רַעְמָה שְׁבָא וּדְדָן
KJ: And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.
BN: And the sons of Kush: Seva and Chavilah and Savta and Ramah and Savtecha. And the sons of Ramah: Sheva and Dedan.
Spellings throughout this verse suggest non-Semitic roots: the repetition of Samech (ס) and final Aleph (א) in particular; the latter is normally a suggestion of Aramaic origins. All the places in this verse are on the African coast of the Red Sea, or opposite in Arabia.
SEVA (סבא): Josephus reckons this as Meroë, either the island-province of Ethiopia (at some points in history a province of southern Sudan) flourishing in merchandise and wealth, or the city of the same name, on the east bank of the Nile, about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi in Sudan, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum; either way surrounded by the branches of the Nile.
CHAVIYLAH (חוילה): Usually rendered in English as Chavilah, dropping the Yud, though probably it should be Chawilah, that Vav in Yehudit now a hard consonant where it was more than likely soft in Biblical times, as it still is in Arabic today - whence Daoud for David. As with DIKLAH below, this name has already appeared, as one of the four rivers of Eden; though that is probably a different Chaviylah, on the eastern borders of the Beney Yishma-El and the Beney Amalek, possibly connected to - guess what! - the town named Chawila near the Gulf of Aden (you'll need to translate the link unless you speak, I think it's Slovenian, but worth it, because it makes an important connection between Eden and Aden in the Yemen, and the Gulf of Aden where several of these tribes appear to have been located).
SAVTA (סבתה): again in Ethiopia, probably what is now Arkiko on the shore of the Arabian gulf. Josephus however reckons it to be Astabora.
RA'MAH (רעמה): again in Ethiopia, probably on the Gulf of Aden.
SAVTECHA (סבתכא): a district of Ethiopia, possibly - according to the Targumim - Zingitani on the eastern border.
SHEVA (שבא): Sheba, the land of the Sabeans; as-Saba'iyūn in the Arabic. Genesis 25:3 disagrees as to the parentage however, reckoning he is the son of Yakshan and the grandson of Keturah, Av-Raham's other wife. The Queen of Sheba (SHEVA - שְׁבָא) who visited Shelomoh (Solomon) in 1 Kings 10 was probably a descendant. A Southern Arabian trading centre.
DEDAN (גגן): See DODANIM (דוגמים) above, which this appears to repeat but which in fact further suggests a misreading above for RODANIM; Dedan is an island on the Persian Gulf, colonised by the Phoenicians; the Dedanim themselves were from northern Arabia, descended from Keturah (Genesis 25:3), whose land bordered Edom (Jeremiah 49:8; Ezekiel 25:13; Isaiah 21:13).
Is there a link between SEVA (סבא), SAVTA (סבתה) and SAVTECHA (סבתכא)? If DEDAN is the son of Ra'mah, how come the Dodanim are the sons of Yavan? This too furthers the Rodanim theory.
10:8 VE CHUSH YALAD ET NIMROD HU HECHEL LIHEYOT GIBOR BA ARETS
וְכוּשׁ יָלַד אֶת נִמְרֹד הוּא הֵחֵל לִהְיוֹת גִּבֹּר בָּאָרֶץ
KJ: And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.
BN: And Kush fathered Nimrod. He came to be a man of power on the Earth.
GIBOR (גבר): from GAVAR (גבר) = "to be strong"; in the Chaldean GEVERA = "a man", which gives the modern Ivrit GEVER for "a man" and GIVERET for "a woman". Biblically GIBOR is usually used to mean "a hero", especially in battle, rather than in the Greek sense of Titans, though this does also occur, as Giborim, in conjunction with the Nephilim and Anakim, in Genesis 6:4 and elsewhere. GIBOR TSAYID (גבר ציד) in the next verse specifically means "a great hunter", Assyrian monuments frequently depicted monarchs in the act of hunting; these are now read as shaman-drawings.
10:9 HU HAYAH GIBOR TSAYID LIPHNEY YHVH AL KEN YE'AMAR KE NIMROD GIBOR TSAYID LIPHNEY YHVH
הוּא הָיָה גִבֹּר צַיִד לִפְנֵי יְהוָה עַל כֵּן יֵאָמַר כְּנִמְרֹד גִּבּוֹר צַיִד לִפְנֵי יְהוָה
KJ: He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.
BN: He was a great hunter before YHVH; whence the adage: "Like Nimrod, a great hunter before YHVH."
YHVH: Unlikely. One of the Medean gods more likely, from the epoch before Zarathustrianism.
KE NIMROD (כנמרד)... Obviously some well-known idiom of the day akin to our saying "the strength of Hercules" or "the wisdom of Solomon".
10:10 VA TEHI RE'SHIT MAMLACHTO BAVEL VE ERECH VE AKKAD VE CHALNEH BE ERETS SHIN'AR
וַתְּהִי רֵאשִׁית מַמְלַכְתּוֹ בָּבֶל וְאֶרֶךְ וְאַכַּד וְכַלְנֵה בְּאֶרֶץ שִׁנְעָר
KJ: And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
BN: And the centre of his kingdom was Bavel, and Erech and Akkad and Kalneh in the land of Shinar.
RE'SHIT: As with the opening word of this book, re'shit is not a "beginning" but a "source". To understand its usage here we only need to think of equivalents: the "source" of the kingdom of Caligula was Rome, that of Alexander Athens, that of Hitler Berlin; source therefore meaning "political base".
BAVEL (בבל): Babylon, in Mesopotamia; not Byblos, in the Lebanon; I point this out only because the Tower of Babel, whose story follows, has always been assumed to refer to Babylon, but in fact almost certainly refers to Byblos, as that is where the first alphabet was created.
ERECH (ארך): Uruk or Warak, not far from Ur Kasdim (Ur of the Chaldees), one of the principal towns of the Land of the Two Rivers, near the Sea of Lagash on the Persian Gulf. Now called Warka, on the left bank of the Lower Euphrates. (See Asia Shepsut's "The Journey of the Priestess" for some priestess details).
AKKAD (אכד): The land to the north of ERECH. Erech was originally in Sumer, which the Akkadians conquered around 2500 BCE(?). Now referred to as Agade; Northern Babylonia. (Akkad the region, Agade the city).
CHALNEH (כלנה): Isaiah 10:9 calls it KALNO but Amos 6:2 agrees CHALNEH. Ezekiel 27:23 refers to a town named CHANEH (כנה), which may be the same town, but probably isn't. For a long time Chalneh was thought to be Ctesiphon, on the east bank of the Tigris, opposite Seleucia (the "source" of the later Seleucid empire). Now, with more significant archaeological work that has been undertaken there, Chalneh is reckoned almost certainly to be Tel Aviv - and no, not the one on the Mediterranean coast of modern Israel, but the town that was the centre of the Jewish exile between 586 and 536 BCE, and yes, the reason why modern Tel Aviv was given that name.
SHIN'AR (שנער) = Mesopotamia; all these names are familiar from the Gilgamesh epic, but would also have been familiar to the Beney Yisra-El of Yechezke-El's (Ezekiel's) time, and of Ezra's too, from the period of exile in Babylon after the fall of Yehudah (Judea) in 586 BCE. Shin'ar is the Yehudit name for Babylonia in Genesis 14:1 and 9; Joshua 7:21 et al. Perhaps specifically Sumer.
This verse is in one sense absurd - why does the Tanach need to give so much attention to the emperor of a realm a thousand miles east of Kena'an, and to a king who wasn't even a Beney Yisra-El? The answer is: to establish the region of Babylon as Av-Ram's origins, ready for the coming chapters, but also because the Beney Yehudah returning from exile to rebuild their homeland are coming from precisely this place, this culture, this history, and the connection back to Av-Ram completes the circle; like LILSHONO earlier, a prefigurative trick for establishing a tale, but here also a consolidating one, the creation of a deep psychological bond, one that quite probably helped to expunge any residual Babylonish loyalties and cultic practices into the bargain. And remember, when Ezra, and Nechem-Yah (Nehemiah), came back to Yehudah from Babylon, seventy years after Koresh gave Zeru-Bavel permission to begin the return and rebuold the Temple, the vast majority of Jews-in-exile preferred to remain in Babylon; so the connection was even more essential.
10:11 MIN HA ARETS HA HI YATS'A ASHUR VA YIVEN ET NINVEH VE ET RECHOVOT IR VE ET KALACH
מִן הָאָרֶץ הַהִוא יָצָא אַשּׁוּר וַיִּבֶן אֶת נִינְוֵה וְאֶת רְחֹבֹת עִיר וְאֶת כָּלַח
KJ: Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah,
BN: Ashur emigrated from that land, and built Ninveh, and Rechovot-Ir, and Kalach.
ASHUR (אשור): Assyria, which in ancient times stretched to the east of the Tigris, between Armenia, Susiana and Media, also including Babylonia and Mesopotamia as far as the Euphrates.
NINVEH (נינוה): Nineveh is known... but see later that these are SHEM's children, not KUSH's.... Ninveh was for many centuries the capital of Ashur (Assyria). Today it is known as Mosul, and was for some time the central focus of the war launched by ISIS, or Islamic State, who threatened to demolish its ancient walls (see photo).RECHOVOT IR (רחבת עיר): nothing known - but see the notes in the Dictionary of Names anyway.
KALACH (כלח): possibly the same as CHALACH (חלח), a province of Ashur to which Shalman-Ezer took some of the ten tribes in the first exile; if so, this is Calachene, in Northern Assyria, near Armenia (2 Kings 17:6 and 18:11).
10:12 VE ET RESEN BEYN NINVEH U VEYN KALACH HI HA IR HA GEDOLAH
וְאֶת רֶסֶן בֵּין נִינְוֵה וּבֵין כָּלַח הִוא הָעִיר הַגְּדֹלָה
KJ: And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.
BN: And Resen between Ninveh and Kalach - the latter is its capital.
RESEN (רסן): not known, except as given in the text.
IR HA GEDOLAH (עיר הגדלה): Not "a great city" but "the principal city"; the regional capitals however were known to be Susa (from which the names Susan, Suzanne, Susanna, Shoshana, and Tunisian Sousse), in the winter, and Larsa, today's Tall Sankhara, in the summer, so this would have been the local capital (the equivalent, in America, to the state capital, Anapolis or Tallahassee as against DC, the national one).
10:13 U MITSRAYIM YALAD ET LUDIM VE ET ANAMIM VE ET LEHAVIM VE ET NAPHTUCHIM
וּמִצְרַיִם יָלַד אֶת לוּדִים וְאֶת עֲנָמִים וְאֶת לְהָבִים וְאֶת נַפְתֻּחִים
KJ: And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim,
BN: And Mitsrayim fathered Ludim and Anamim and Lehavim and Naphtuchim.
LUDIM (לודים): the Lydians of Asia Minor, according to Josephus; but according to Ezekiel 27:10 & 30:5, Isaiah 66:19 and Jeremiah 46:9 an African people of Egyptian origin accustomed to fighting with bows and arrows: this latter is obviously the more likely in the context of these being sons of Mitsrayim (Egypt).
ANAMIM (ענמים): see the link.
LEHAVIM (להבים): possibly a variant on LUVIM (לובים), the known name for the Libyans.
NAPHTUCHIM (נפתחים): not clear; but Hertz reckons they were dwellers along the Nile Delta.
10:14 VE ET PATRUSIM VE ET KASLUCHIM ASHER YATS'U MI SHAM PELISHTIM VE ET KAPHTORIM
וְאֶת פַּתְרֻסִים וְאֶת כַּסְלֻחִים אֲשֶׁר יָצְאוּ מִשָּׁם פְּלִשְׁתִּים וְאֶת כַּפְתֹּרִים
KJ: And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim.
BN: And Patrusim and Kasluchim - from whom came the Pelishtim and Kaphtorim.
PATRUSIM (פתרסים): The inhabitants of Upper Egypt (see verse 6: Mitsrayim above), or the Isle of Patros on the Nile Delta.
KASLUCHIM (כסלחים): almost certainly the Colchians, a Greek colony of Egypt (but not Colchis, which is actually in Georgia and was the land of the Golden Fleece; click here). The reference to Pelishtim (Philistine) origins makes it clear that Cilicia is meant. But see Deuteronomy 2:23 and Amos 9:7, which disagree, sourcing the Pelishtim on the island of Caphtor, which is either Cyprus (usually rendered as Kaprisin) or much more probably Crete (Cheret).PELISHTIM (פלשתים): Philistines out of Mitsrayim (Egypt) eh! Ironically, in the light of modern politics, the original Palestinians, or Pelishtim, didn't have a land of their own. The root PALASH (פלש) = "to wander nomadically", and the earliest Pelishtim may actually have been the original Bedou of the Sinai desert who later came to settle in and around Aza (Gaza), which they called PELESHET (פלשת); this would help explain the constant references to Pelishtim in the Torah centuries before the arrival of the Sea Peoples from Crete, who became the people we now think of as Pelishtim or Philistines. Deuteronomy 2:23 and Amos 9:7 both have them coming from Caphtor = Crete, not Egypt; the probability is that this is correct, but that they then took, or were given, an already-existing local name: when the Minoan civilisation in Crete collapsed, the vanquished in the civil war fled in droves, many of them known to have settled the coastal regions of southern Yisra-El; others followed in the next several generations as they sought a refuge somewhere in the Mediterranean but failed to find one; they came like Saxons to Briton, in slow settlement over much time, and we can presume that they settled the whole length of the Mediterranean coast from Patros to the Lebanon, and that this also helps explain the contradiction. That they took over the name Pelishtim from the Bedou is explainable by their conquest of the Aza (Gaza) region (strange how history has repeated itself – historically, if the modern Palestinians have any grounds for a claim on land, it is precisely in Gaza, and not the West Bank – look at the stories of Sha'ul and David in the Books of Samuel for the details of how far they ever got).
KAPHTORIM (כפתרים): according to Jeremiah 47:4, Amos 9:7, and Deuteronomy 2:23 they were a colony of Egyptians from whom the Pelishtim derived; this however conflicts with the above, where they are half-brothers of the Pelishtim; the simple resolution of this could be achieved by putting the reference to the Pelishtim after Kaphtorim instead of after Kasluchim - why not! Otherwise KAPHTOR is probably Cappadocia, although hints that it was an island lead one to think of Cyprus (for which see above) or more likely Crete.
Samech break
10:15 U KENA'AN YALAD ET TSIDON BECHORO VE ET CHET
וּכְנַעַן יָלַד אֶת צִידֹן בְּכֹרוֹ וְאֶת חֵת
KJ: And Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn, and Heth,
BN: And Kena'an fathered Tsidon his first-born, and Chet.
TSIDON (צידן): The town of Sidon, on the Lebanese coast; Chet his firstborn equates Kena'an with the Phoenicians still more strongly, for Sidon was the Phoenician capital, and usually known by them as TSIDON RABAH (צידן רנה) = "great Sidon"; later the Beney Yisra-El used Tsidon to refer to the whole domain of the Phoenicians, including Tsur (Tyre) and most of the Lebanon. "First-born" probably means oldest; and this is, to us at least, incongruous: surely Chet came first, fathering the Phoenicians, who "gave birth" to the city of Tsidon?
We must also link this back to Nimrod, who in verse 9 was a "Gibor Tsayid" (גבר ציד); the same word that is at the root of Tsidon. This line gives another clue to the real geography of Kena'an, which stretched from Ugarit to Chem (= Cham = Mitsrayim = Egypt), and not just the land of Yisra-El. It also offers a strange coincidence that needs exploring further, for alongside the Nimrod link of Gibor-Tsayid and Tsidon, there is also the fact that his capital was Bavel, and there were two Bav-Els in the ancient world (there were probably dozens of Bav-Els actually; the name simply denotes the existence of a holy place: literally "a gateway to the god"), Mesopotamian Babylon and Lebanese Byblos; as we shall see shortly, the Tower of Babel was much more likely at Byblos than Babylon.
CHET (חת): the progenitor of the Hittites, or properly Chitites, who are often called BENEY CHET (בני חת), just as the Yisra-Elites are called BENEY YISRA-EL (בני ישראל); they lived (elsewhere too, of course, but this for certain) in the neighbourhood of Chevron (Genesis 23 et al). In fact the Chitite empire, based in Anatolia, predominated from 1800-900 BCE (are these dates correct? elsewhere there are suggestions that it started as early as 2200 BCE, and there is a question over whether the Hyksos were Beney Chet or not); and is unquestionably the missing piece from William Jones' search for "The Common Source".
10:16 VE ET HA YEVUSIM VE ET HA EMORI VE ET HA GIRGASHI
וְאֶת הַיְבוּסִי וְאֶת הָאֱמֹרִי וְאֵת הַגִּרְגָּשִׁי
KJ: And the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite,
BN: And the Yevusim, and the Emorim and the Girgashim.
YEVUSIM (יבוסי): Yevusim are Jerusalemites, or perhaps we should say pre-Jerusalemites, because Jerusalem (Yeru-Shala'im) did not exist as such until King David's time (and it may even have been Ir Shelomoh, the city of Solomon); seven hills, each with its own town, shrine or village, each with its own gods too, which would be unified by David into the twin cities of Tsi'on and Yiru-Shalem, proto-Yeru-Shala'im. The Yevusim inhabited YEVUS, on one of those hills. If they were related to the Emorim (אמרי), whom we usually call Amorites, which was Av-Ram's ancestry as well, then no wonder he settled where he did and waged the wars that he did!
YEVUS (יבוס) = "a threshing floor", from the root BUS (בוס), which Jesus was obviously aware of later - he was born, after all, in the Yevus of Beit Lechem Ephratah, which is virtually next door - Bethlehem (בית לחם) in English - and we can presume that the corn was ground in Yevus and the bread made in Beit Lechem - either way the two cities are very definitely connected to the corn-god Tammuz, which is again key to the Jesus story; Tammuz would have been virtually the genius loci or patron saint of both towns, themselves centres of Tammuz worship, especially under Shelomoh (Solomon), who even included a gizrah or side-chapel beside the northern gate (Ezekiel 8:14 et al). The third town connected both to the Jesus story and to Tammuz worship is Beit Anatot (בית אנתות) or Bethany, "The House of Anat" where Yirme-Yahu's (Jeremiah's) father was a priest.
Yevus may have been an abbreviation for YEVUS URU SHALEM (יבוס ערו שלם): "the threshing floor of the city of SHALEM"; Shalem being the name of the deity, as we know from the king names Av-Shalom (Absalom) and Shelomoh (Solomon), as well as from later Hasmonean names such as Shelomit (Salome Alexandra), who ruled Yisra-El from 76-67 BCE, and her namesake Salome, daughter of King Herod II and Herodias. The modern name Shalom-Tsi'on recognises the unity of the twin-cities.
HA EMORI (האמרי): the most powerful of all the later Ken'aanite nations, they superseded the Phoenicians, and were almost certainly Av-Ram's tribe. The root is AMAR (אמר) = "mountain" or "elevation", and they mostly inhabited the mountainous areas later occupied by Yehudah (which would give a nice lineage for the Jews from Av-Ram!); some lived beyond the Yarden (Jordan), north of the Arnon and as far as the brook Yavok (Jabbok); this latter part was ruled by the two kings of Cheshbon and Bashan.
HA GIRGASHI (הגרגשי): Girgash in Syriac and Arabic = "black mud"; they were probably from the far side of the Yarden (Jordan). Genesis 15:21 has them driven out of Kena'an by Av-Ram in the War of the Kings.
10:17 VE ET HA CHIVI VE ET HA ARKI VE ET HA SIYNI
וְאֶת הַחִוִּי וְאֶת הַעַרְקִי וְאֶת הַסִּינִי
KJ: And the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite,
BN: And the Chivi and the Arki and the Sini.
Tribes of the region of Mount Lebanon now follow. One interesting aspect of the Yehudit here: previously the names have been given as masculine, nominative, plural nouns, with the normal Yud-Mem ( ים) ending; here (and elsewhere) there is no Mem (מ), which renders it singular, and in the genitive form: as if the first listed the Francers, the Germaners and the Hollanders, the second Frenchmen, Germans, Dutch. The same distinction exists today in Ivrit, where a person from Israel would be called an Israeli rather than an Israelman, where a person from England would be called an Englishman (which also uses the genitive) rather than an Angli (though fifteen hundred years he would indeed have called himself Angli).
HA CHIVI (החוי): the Hivites, or more correctly Chivites, an oblique derivative of the root CHAYA (חיה) = "to live", in the sense of "to dwell", the Chivites lived at the foot of Mount Chermon and Antilibanus, with offshoot groups around Giv-On (Gibeon). Linked to the name of Chavah (Eve), and much more likely a group of worshippers than an actual tribe, in the way that the Gospels speak about the Essenes who inhabited the Dead Sea region.
HA ARKI (הערקי): Almost certainly Tel Arqa, north of Tripoli (Trablos) in northern Lebanon, known as Arca or Arca Caesarea to the Romans, and interestingly enough known as a cult city in their times.
HA SINI (הסיני): SIN also means "clay", as with the GIRGASHI above. Various possibilities: i) Sin, or Pelusium, a city on the marshes on the eastern borders of Egypt, now submerged under the sea; ii) the desert or wilderness of Sin in the neighbourhood of Mount Sinai; iii) the Sinai desert as a whole, or the area around Mount Sinai. But where exactly was Mount Sinai? The truth is, we don't know, and the best guess is actually east of the Dead Sea, in Midyan, and not the Sinai desert at all.
Having suggested all of which, the most likely, given the context here, is none of the above, but rather iv) a nation near Mount Lebanon, where there is a town called Syn or Sinna. Nor should it be confused with ERETS SINIM, which is a Yehuditisation of the word for the Chinese people, taken from the dynasty of Thsin in the 3rd century CE, exactly as the European name was.
Normally, when the Masoretic text insists on a Yud inside a name, TheBibleNet follows it (Giychon and Piyshon for the two minor rivers of Eden, for example, where most translations prefer Gichon and Pishon); here, however, Sini rather than Siyni, as the etymology indicates that the Masoretes were in error.
10:18 VE ET HA ARVADI VE ET HA TSEMARI VE ET HA CHAMATI VE ACHAR NAPHTSU MISHPECHOT HA KENA'ANI
וְאֶת הָאַרְוָדִי וְאֶת הַצְּמָרִי וְאֶת הַחֲמָתִי וְאַחַר נָפֹצוּ מִשְׁפְּחוֹת הַכְּנַעֲנִי
KJ: And the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad.
BN: And the Arvadi and the Tsemari and the Chamati; and after them the tribes of the Kena'ani became dispersed.
Meaning, one presumes, that these were the principal cities of Kena'an before the time when the Kena'ani people themselves were conquered and/or removed; the only historical occasions that we know of for certain were the conquests by Sennacherib in 720 BCE and Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, when the inhabitants of the north, in the first instance, and of the south, in the second instance were removed to Babylon, and an Aramaic people known as the Samaritans were deported to Kena'an to replace them.
ARVADI (ארודי): Arwad, a city of Phoenicia on an island of the same name, it was used as a place for fugitives (from root RUD/רוד= to flee); built by Tsidonian fugitives; Arabic calls it RUWAD. Not to be confused with Arad in modern Israel, located on the border of the Negev and Judean Deserts, 25 kilometers west of the Dead Sea and 45 km east of Be'er Sheva, but only founded as recently as 1962 - though there was also a Biblical Arad.
TSEMARI (צמרי): probably Sumra at the western base of Mount Lebanon; or possibly connected to Tsemarayim (צמריים), a town in the tribe of Bin-Yamin (who appears to have been keen on double names for towns); from this also comes Har Tsemarayim (הר צמריים), the mountains in Ephrayim which the Beney Yamin (Benjamites) owned.
CHAMATI (חמתי): from CHOMAH (חומה) = "a fortified wall", it was a key Assyrian city on the Orontes river (Isaiah 37:13); in David's time it was the capital of a great friend of the Beney Yisra-El. The Greeks called it Epiphania; today it is once again known as Hama, and it is the fourth-largest city in Syria after Aleppo, Damasek (Damascus) and Homs. In Amos 6:2 it is called CHAMAT (חמת) the Great, and in 2 Kings 25:21 it is known as ERETS CHAMAT (ארץ חמת) - the land of Chamat. However there is also a town in the tribe of Naphtali near Tiberias called CHAMAT (חמת) = "warm baths", from the natural springs which are still there now.
10:19 VA YEHI GEVUL HA KENA'ANI MI TSIDON BO'ACHAH GERARAH AD AZA BO'ACHAH SEDOMAH VA AMORAH VE ADMAH U TSEVO'IM AD LASHA
וַיְהִי גְּבוּל הַכְּנַעֲנִי מִצִּידֹן בֹּאֲכָה גְרָרָה עַד עַזָּה בֹּאֲכָה סְדֹמָה וַעֲמֹרָה וְאַדְמָה וּצְבֹיִם עַד לָשַׁע
KJ: And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.
BN: And the border of the Kena'ani was from Tsidon to Gerar, and from Aza to Sedom, Amorah and Admah, and from Tsevo'im as far as Lasha.
The borders of Kena'an (at least at the time that this list was drawn up, and historians and archaeologists should be able to deduce the date from the data) ran from Tsidon (Sidon) in the north-west to Aza (Gaza) in the south-west, from Sedom (Sodom) and the other Cities of the Plain in the south-east to Lasha, which may be a variant of La'ish, the town to which the tribe of Dan moved, or possibly from which they originally came, in the north-east; some scholars identify it with Callirhoe on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea.
Not yet the phrase "from Dan to Be'er Sheva" - the Biblical equivalent of the English "from Land's End to John O'Groats" - but still one which helps us to date the text! And also not the full scale Kena'an we know of from other texts and other times, so clearly the borders were as unconstant as we would expect.
GERARAH (גררה): the Hey suffix suggests the dative form and therefore "to" GERAR; Genesis 26:17 refers to the NACHAL GERAR, the valley or the river GERAR, originally a caravanserai, one presumes, from the root GARAR (גרר) = "a lodging-place" or indeed "a caravanserai". It was once the abode of the Peleshet (Philistine) kings; according to Genesis 20:1 and 26:6 it was subject to King Avi-Melech.
AZA (עזה): Which we would call Gaza, it was one of the five cities of the Pelishtim and a royal city; located on the southern border of their territory, it was captured by the Beney Yisra-El in the time of the Judges but then recaptured (Judges 1:18). Frequent reference is made to it in Greek writings, which call it "the greatest city of Syria" (sic!).
AMORAH (עמרה): which we would call Gomorrah because the correct pronunciation of the Ayin (ע) comes from a point so deep in the throat you think you can hear a feint G when in fact it is merely swallowing.
ADMAH (אדמה): one of the other Cities of the Plain - for some reason only two ever get remembered!
TSEVO'IM (צבים): from the root TSVI (צבי)= "a gazelle"; the fourth of the five towns in the Valley of Sidim which were destroyed at the time of Av-Ram. However, TSEVO'IM is written here without an Aleph (א); it should be (צבאים), which is part of the above root; this could link it with TSVI (צבי) = "splendour, glory", and which is usually applied specifically to the land of Yisra-El, and more especially to HAR TSVI KODESH (הר צבי קדש) = "the mountain of holy beauty" which is Mount Tsi'on (Zion). However, anyone who has visited the region of the Dead Sea, especially the springs of Ein Gedi, will known that the gazelle are in great abundance there, alongside the ibex - click here as well.
LASHA (לשע): As noted above, possibly Callirhoe, the hot springs on the east of the Dead Sea.
10:20 ELEH VENEY CHAM LE MISHPECHOTAM LI LESHONOTAM BE ARTSOTAM BE GOYEYHEM
KJ: These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.
BN: These are the sons of Cham, according to their tribes, according to their languages, in their lands, in their nations.
Samech break
10:21 U LE SHEM YULAD GAM HU AVI KOL BENEY EVER ACHI YEPHET HA GADOL
KJ: Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.
BN: And children were also born to Shem; he was the father of all the children of Ever, the elder brother of Yaphet.
Does EVER (עבר), here with an Ayin (ע), connect with IVRIM (עברים) = Hebrews? If so, it is immensely significant to see who are rated as Ivrim. The implication is that Semite and Ivri are synonymous, which also makes a very clear separation between them and the Kena'ani Chamites (see notes to Genesis 9:18, 9:26, 9:27). Does YEPHET HA GEDOL (יפת הגדול) mean "Yephet the Great" or "Yephet the Elder" – i.e. are there are two or only one Yaphet? Or is it, as the standard translation insists, merely that he is an elder brother to Yaphet?
There is also a Shem-Ever, the father and son combined, who is named in Genesis 14:2 as the king of the Tsevo'im.
LASHA (לשע): As noted above, possibly Callirhoe, the hot springs on the east of the Dead Sea.
10:20 ELEH VENEY CHAM LE MISHPECHOTAM LI LESHONOTAM BE ARTSOTAM BE GOYEYHEM
אֵלֶּה בְנֵי חָם לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם לִלְשֹׁנֹתָם בְּאַרְצֹתָם בְּגוֹיֵהֶם
KJ: These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.
BN: These are the sons of Cham, according to their tribes, according to their languages, in their lands, in their nations.
Samech break
10:21 U LE SHEM YULAD GAM HU AVI KOL BENEY EVER ACHI YEPHET HA GADOL
וּלְשֵׁם יֻלַּד גַּם הוּא אֲבִי כָּל בְּנֵי עֵבֶר אֲחִי יֶפֶת הַגָּדוֹל
KJ: Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.
BN: And children were also born to Shem; he was the father of all the children of Ever, the elder brother of Yaphet.
Does EVER (עבר), here with an Ayin (ע), connect with IVRIM (עברים) = Hebrews? If so, it is immensely significant to see who are rated as Ivrim. The implication is that Semite and Ivri are synonymous, which also makes a very clear separation between them and the Kena'ani Chamites (see notes to Genesis 9:18, 9:26, 9:27). Does YEPHET HA GEDOL (יפת הגדול) mean "Yephet the Great" or "Yephet the Elder" – i.e. are there are two or only one Yaphet? Or is it, as the standard translation insists, merely that he is an elder brother to Yaphet?
There is also a Shem-Ever, the father and son combined, who is named in Genesis 14:2 as the king of the Tsevo'im.
10:22: BENEY SHEM EYLAM VE ASHUR VE ARPHACHSHAD VE LUD VA ARAM
בְּנֵי שֵׁם עֵילָם וְאַשּׁוּר וְאַרְפַּכְשַׁד וְלוּד וַאֲרָם
KJ: The children of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.
BN: The sons of Shem: Eylam and Ashur and Arphachshad and Lud and Aram.
EYLAM (עילם): Eylam, the province of Persia in which Susa stood, and where much of the exile took place, east of Babylon on the way to the Persian Gulf. They were an Aryan tribe and not in fact Semitic at all; so this verse is wrong; however French excavations at Susa have found Babylonian inscriptions, so perhaps it was peopled by Semites at some time or another.
ASHUR (אשור): see verse 11 above. But see also the tribe of Asher (אשר), which shares a spelling with Ashur, though little else culturally or mythologically; and also Osher (Osiris), which does not share a spelling, but culturally and mythologically appears to be absolutely interconnected. A PhD thesis here, waiting to be written.
ARPHACHSHAD (ארפכשד): presumably a Yehuditisation of Arrapachitis, a region of Assyria near Armenia, from which the Chaldeans are said to have come; this is further suggested by the name, if read as ARAPH-CASHAD, CASHAD or KESED being Chaldea, as in Ur Cashdim (in most English renditions; correctly it should be Ur Kasdim) = Ur of the Chaldees, whence Av-Ram is supposed to have come, though he is also stated as being an Emorite (Amorite), and the Emorites themselves came from Armenian Assyria; it is conceivable that one branch of the tribe ended in Chaldea, the other in Kena'an; we can also presume that Kesed (כשד) is the singular form of KASDIM (כשדים), and perhaps one represents the city and the other the region. Arphachshad had a son named Shelach (verse 24 below).
ARAM (ארם): Is ARAM the Padan Aram we encounter later? Whence the Aramaeans, or Assyrians. An ARAM who was the grandson of Nachor, Av-Ram's brother, through Kemu'el, is said (Genesis 22:21) to have been the progenitor of the Assyrians. Versions of the name appear throughout, as in Padan Aram ("the field of Aram") and more significantly in ARAM NAHARAYIM (ארם נהריים) = "the land of the two rivers", or more literally "Aram of the many rivers", which refers specifically to KESED (Chaldea), the two major rivers being the Tigris and the Perat (Euphrates). The name without the opening Aleph - RAM/רם - appears on a number of occasions, and may well be connected. If so, Av-Ram (אברם) is certainly one of these occasions and would allow us to translate Av-Ram as "father/chief/elder of the Aramaean people"; see the notes on Av-Ram for further arguments to support this claim. The language known as Aramaic derives from the people of this region.
Verse 23: U VENEY ARAM UTS VE CHUL VE GETER VA MASH
וּבְנֵי אֲרָם עוּץ וְחוּל וְגֶתֶר וָמַשׁ
KJ: And the children of Aram; Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash.
BN: And the sons of Aram: Uts and Chul and Geter and Mash.
UTS (עוץ): meaning "soft and sandy earth", probably Ausitis, a region and tribe in the northern Arabian desert between Kena'an, Edom and the Perat (Euphrates - i.e. close to Eylam); some argue they were Edomites living in Eylam. Iyov (Job) lived in Uts. Lamentations 4:21 has Edomites dwelling there. Jeremiah 25:20 includes it in the list of nations whom YHVH instructs the prophet to get drunk, and then take advantage of their drunkenness to slaughter. (Worth having a look at Bruce Chatwin's lovely little book of the same name, though he spells it UTZ, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the Bible.)
The following three are all in Syria somewhere.
CHUL (חול): literally "a circle", as opposed to CHOL (חול) = "sand", so we can assume the latter in this case as it was a district of Aramaea connected to Emek ha Chulah, the Chulah valley (usually rendered as Hula Valley in English, but the Ivrit has a first-letter Chet, not a Hey - עמק החולה) near the source of the river Yarden (Jordan) in upper Galilee.
GETER (גתר): Aramaean, but it is unclear precisely where.
MASH (מש): possibly Mount Masius in the Gordian mountains, which has long been regarded, by some scholars at least, as Mount Ararat, where No'ach's Ark came to rest. The same site is also the location for the famous Gordian Knot.
10:24 VA ARPHACHSHAD YALAD ET SHALACH VE SHELACH YALAD ET EVER
וְאַרְפַּכְשַׁד יָלַד אֶת שָׁלַח וְשֶׁלַח יָלַד אֶת עֵבֶר
KJ: And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber.
BN: And Arphachshad fathered Shalach and Shelach fathered Ever.
SHALACH (שלח): see notes on Metu-Shalach (Methuselah) etc in Genesis 5:21. Here is yet another of those occasions when the pronunciation of the name changes in mid-sentence for no obvious grammatical reason. Expert opinion in the comments box below please.
EVER (עבר): As noted above, this is presented as though it were clearly and obviously the source of the Ivrim/"Hebrews" (עברים); but with an attempt to fix their roots in Mesopotamia. EVER was technically Shem's grandson, so "Hebrews" are obviously Semites though not all Semites are "Hebrews". Is this perhaps a different Ever from the one we heard about before?
10:25 U LE EVER YULAD SHENAY VANIM SHEM HA ECHAD PELEG KI VE YAMAV NIPHLEGAH HA ARETS VE SHEM ACHIV YAKTAN
וּלְעֵבֶר יֻלַּד שְׁנֵי בָנִים שֵׁם הָאֶחָד פֶּלֶג כִּי בְיָמָיו נִפְלְגָה הָאָרֶץ וְשֵׁם אָחִיו יָקְטָן
KJ: And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan.
BN: And two sons were born to Ever ; the name of one was Peleg, because in his days was the Earth divided; and his brother’s name was Yaktan.
PELEG (פלג): The explanation sounds apocryphal, and actually it is hard to decipher what if anything it actually means (see verse 32 which clarifies it). PELEG = "a river", or more often the "tributary of a river" (in Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick" he is one of the co-owners of the good ship Pequod).
In Assyrian Palgu means "canal"; Sayce reckons "division of the land" means the introduction of this canal system into Babylonia - people give their children names for all sorts of odd reasons, but rare is it that one names one's child for a canal system, and rarer still for one that hasn't been invented yet; perhaps Peleg was the nickname of the inventor. But if Av-Ram and co are reckoned to be "Hebrews" out of Ever, why are these two characters not held in higher esteem among the ancestor-worshipping Jews?
YAKTAN (יקטן): There is a reference to YAKTAN above; he is said to be the progenitor of various south Arabian tribes, and appears in many Arabian genealogies, usually as KAHTAN rather than YAKTAN; this is easy to explain however, as the Yehudit likes to add YAH as a prefix when the name belongs to a tribal chief or a king who thereby represents the deity. KATAN (קטן) means "small", though the name is probably not from this Yehudit root at all. But note how important it was to the original redactors to convey the meanings of names; the given definitions can be stated almost for certain to be smoke-screens.
10:26 VE YAKTAN YALAD ET ALMODAD VE ET SHALEPH VE ET CHATSAR-MAVET VE ET YARACH
וְיָקְטָן יָלַד אֶת אַלְמוֹדָד וְאֶת שָׁלֶף וְאֶת חֲצַרְמָוֶת וְאֶת יָרַח
KJ: And Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah,
BN: And Yaktan fathered Almodad and Shaleph and Chatsar-Mavet and Yarach.
ALMODAD (אלמדד): probably a misreading of AL-MORAD (אלמורד) the town of Morad in southern Arabi; once again that difficulty of distinguishing between a Reysh (ר) and a Dalet (ד)in pre-typewriter texts.
SHALEPH (שלף): a tribe of Arabia.
CHATSAR-MAVET (חצרמות): "the court of death", a district of Arabia on the Indian Ocean, in what is today the Yemen; rich in frankincense, aloes, myrrh and, for many centuries, Jews, for whom this was their third city in southern Arabia after Yatrib and Aden, and their second city when Yatrib became Medina (Madinat Rasul Allah) and the Moslems ethnically cleansed it and the rest of the Hejaz of its Jews. Its name stems from its lousy climate. Called Hadramawt today.
YARACH (ירח): probably Jericho, and as such should read Yericho (יְרִיחוֹ), which is how it is given throughout Joshua and Judges, or as Yareyacho (which would be spelled the same - יְרִיחוֹ), from YAREYACH = "moon".
10:27 VE ET HADORAM VE ET UZAL VE ET DIKLAH
וְאֶת הֲדוֹרָם וְאֶת אוּזָל וְאֶת דִּקְלָה
KJ: And Hadoram, and Uzal, and Diklah,
BN: And Hadoram and Uzal and Diklah.
HADORAM (הדורם): a tribe of Arabia.
DIKLAH (דקלה): from DAKAL (דקל) = "palm tree". Probably the DUKLA'ITE tribe of Yemen. Any connection to CHIDEKEL (חדקל), the third river of Eden (Genesis 2:14)?
10:28 VE ET OVAL VE ET AVI-MA-EL VE ET SHEVA
וְאֶת עוֹבָל וְאֶת אֲבִימָאֵל וְאֶת שְׁבָא
KJ: And Obal, and Abimael, and Sheba,
BN: And Oval and Avi-Ma-El and Sheva.
OVAL (עובל): any connection with Yuval etc (Genesis 4:20 et al)? The name means "stripped of leaves"; he is also called EYVAL (עיבל - Ebal in English) in 1 Chronicles 1:22 which would surely connect him with Mount Eyval (also known as Ebal in English). Some scholars regard Oval as the Avalites of Ethiopia, except that all the other Yaktanite tribes are in Arabia and Yemen; perhaps then, interchanging Gimmel (ג) and Ayin (ע) - as in Aza/Gaza and Amorah/Gomorrah - it is in fact the Geval tribe or Gobolitis of Edom. (Not to be confused with "The Oval", which is a cricket ground in Kennington, south London).
AVI-MA-EL (אבימאל): a tribe called the MA-EL is known from Arabia.
SHEVA (שבא): Which, like Seva, should really have an apostrophe to indicate a Beckettian pause before the final Aleph. Sheva was a son of Ra'mah in verse 7; which means that both of Ra'mah's sons have also appeared somewhere else (Dodan being the other, in verse 4), the only ones to do so, which is in itself interesting (though I am hard-pressed to explain why it is interesting!). And yes of course names can and do recur within families, usually naming grandchildren after late grandparents, but this list is intended to catalogue the nations of the world, and you don't get two countries with the identically same name (actually you do: Korea, Sudan, Congo, Vietnam, Samoa, Virgin Islands, Christmas Island ...there are actually three named Guinea... and please don't mention Macedonia or Cyprus... so maybe two named Sheva and two named Kush isn't that implausible after all).
10:29: VE ET OPHIR VE ET CHAVILAH VE ET YOVAV KOL ELEH BENEY YAKTAN
וְאֶת אוֹפִר וְאֶת חֲוִילָה וְאֶת יוֹבָב כָּל אֵלֶּה בְּנֵי יָקְטָן
KJ: And Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab: all these were the sons of Joktan.
BN: And Ophir and Chaviylah and Yovav; all these were the sons of Yaktan.
OPHIR: 1 Kings 9:28 and 22:49 have an OPHIR famous for its gold.
Now also Chaviylah reappears (see verse 7).
10:30 VA YEHI MOSHAVAM MI MESHA BO'ACHAH SEPHARAH HAR HA KEDEM
וַיְהִי מוֹשָׁבָם מִמֵּשָׁא בֹּאֲכָה סְפָרָה הַר הַקֶּדֶם
KJ: And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar a mount of the east.
BN: And their caravanserai were along the route from Mesha towards Mount Sephar in the east.
MOSHAVAM in modern Ivrit would mean a farming settlement, usually communal but not necessarily the full socialism of a kibbutz. The word means "settlement", from LASHEVET = "to sit"; but the intention at the epoch of this chapter is not the sedentary settlement of a farm so much as the temporary caravanserai of a nomadic drive, constantly stopping and moving on as the cattle and flock seasons, and probably the weather too, required.
Is Mesha an alternative for Mash (מש) in verse 23? 2 Kings 3 tells of a Mesha, king of Mo-Av, who rebelled against Yisra-El after the death of King Achav (Ahab). His stele, known as the Mesha Stele or the Moabite Stone, was set up at Dhiban (Biblical Dibon) in what is now Jordan, around 840 BCE, and tells virtually the same tale as that in Kings, including archaeologically and historically significant references to "Yisra-El" (the oldest known), "YHVH" and the "House of David." On the stone he names himself "Mesha, son of Kemosh[-yatti], the king of Mo-Av, the Dibonite"...you can read all 32 lines in English translation here. The stele is now in the Louvre in Paris.
SEPHARAH (ספרה): in the dative here; the name is SEPHAR. (Any connection with the equally unknown Sepharad (ספרד) which has nothing at all to do with Spain despite the fact that Jews from Spain came to be known as Sephardim? Alas, there is none.) The "mountain of the east" referred to here is thought to be either Jabal bin Kushayt or Jabal Mahrat in the Yemen, which is rather more south-east than east, but nonetheless logical as Sephar is a grandson of Yaktan.10:31: ELEH VENEY SHEM LE MISHPECHOTAM LI LESHONOTAM BE ARTSOTAM LE GOYEYHEM
אֵלֶּה בְנֵי שֵׁם לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם לִלְשֹׁנֹתָם בְּאַרְצֹתָם לְגוֹיֵהֶם
KJ: These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.
BN: These are the sons of Shem, according to their tribes, according to their languages, in their lands, in their nations.
As noted above, it is odd that the sons of No'ach are given in apparently reverse order, Cham, then Yaphet and now Shem.
10:32 ELEH MISHPECHOT BENEY NO'ACH LE TOLDOTAM, BE GOYEYHEM. U MEY ELEH NIPHREDU HA GO'IM BA ARETS ACHAR HA MABUL
אֵלֶּה מִשְׁפְּחֹת בְּנֵי־נֹחַ לְתוֹלְדֹתָם בְּגוֹיֵהֶם וּמֵאֵלֶּה נִפְרְדוּ הַגּוֹיִם בָּאָרֶץ אַחַר הַמַּבּוּל
KJ: These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.
BN: This is the genealogical table of the descendants of the sons of No'ach, each according to their nations. It was from these that the nations spread out across the earth after the flood.
MISHPECHOT (משפחת) could be read as families or clans or even tribes, the latter being in those days small enough that the word was practically interchangeable. Generally in the Tanach "tribes" are SHEVATIM, from the same root, but for the opposite reason, as the MOSHAVAM referred to in my notes to verse 30.
And now that you have read the whole chapter, it should be rather more obvious that this is not "the genealogical table of the descendants of the sons of No'ach, each according to their nations" at all, but quite simply an attempt to draw a map of the Middle East, north Africa and parts of the Mediterranean, at the time of the Redaction, done as a way of giving every nation involved in the new land of Yehudah a stakeholder interest, and thereby a commitment, a feeling of belonging, and a shared identity.
End of the sixth fragment...and the tenth chapter.
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