Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Chronicles 1:5 - 1:5
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The peoples and races descended from the sons of Noah. - These are enumerated according to the table in Gen 10; but our author has omitted not only the introductory and concluding remarks (Gen 10:1, Gen 10:21, Gen 10:32), but also the historical notices of the founding of a kingdom in Babel by Nimrod, and the distribution of the Japhetites and Shemites in their dwelling-places (Gen 10:5, Gen 10:9-12, Gen 10:18-20, and Gen 10:30 and Gen 10:31). The remaining divergences are partly orthographic, - such as תֻּבַּת, 1Ch 1:5, for תּוּבָל, Gen 10:2, and רַעְמָא, 1Ch 1:9, for רַעְמָה, Gen 10:7; and partly arising from errors of transcription, - as, for example, דִּיפַת, 1Ch 1:6, for רִיפַת, Gen 10:3, and conversely, רֹודָנִים, 1Ch 1:7, for דֹּדָנִים, Gen 10:4, where it cannot with certainty be determined which form is the original and correct one; and finally, are partly due to a different pronunciation or form of the same name, - as תַּרְשִׁישָׁה, 1Ch 1:7, for תַּרְשִׁישׁ, Gen 10:4, the aa of motion having been gradually fused into one word with the name, לוּדִּיִּים, 1Ch 1:11, for לוּדִים, Gen 10:13, just as in Amo 9:7 we have כּוּשִׁיִּים for כּוּשִׁים; in 1Ch 1:22, עֵיבָל for עֹובָל, Gen 10:28, where the lxx have also Εὐάλ, and מֶשֶׁךְ, 1Ch 1:17, for מַשׁ, Gen 10:23, which last has not yet been satisfactorily explained, since מֶשֶׁךְ is used in Psa 120:5 with קֵדָר of an Arabian tribe. Finally, there is wanting in 1Ch 1:17 אֲרָם וּבְנֵי before עוּץ, Gen 10:23, because, as in the case of Noah's sons, 1Ch 1:4, where their relationship is not mentioned, so also in reference to the peoples descended from Shem, the relationship subsisting between the names Uz, Hul, etc., and Aram, is supposed to be already known from Genesis. Other suppositions as to the omission of the words אֲרָם וּבְנֵי are improbable. That this register of seventy-one persons and tribes, descended from Shem, Ham, and Japhet, has been taken from Gen 10, is placed beyond doubt, by the fact that not only the names of our register exactly correspond with the table in Gen 10, with the exception of the few variations above mentioned, but also the plan and form of both registers is quite the same. In 1Ch 1:5-9 the sections of the register are connected, as in Gen 10:2-7, by וּבְנֵי; from 1Ch 1:10 onwards by יָלַד, as in Gen 10:8; in 1Ch 1:17, again, by בְּנֵי, as in Gen 10:22; and in 1Ch 1:18 by יָלַד, and 1Ch 1:19 by יֻלַּד, as in Gen 10:24 and Gen 10:25. The historical and geographical explanation of the names has been given in the commentary to Gen 10. According to Bertheau, the peoples descended from the sons of Noah amount to seventy, and fourteen of these are enumerated as descendants of Japhet, thirty of Ham, and twenty-six of Shem. These numbers he arrives at by omitting Nimrod, or not enumerating him among the sons of Ham; while, on the contrary, he takes Arphaxad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg, and Joktan, all of which are the names of persons, for names of people, in contradiction to Genesis, according to which the five names indicate persons, viz., the tribal ancestors of the Terahites and Joktanites, peoples descended from Eber by Peleg and Joktan.