The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.
Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.
My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.
Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK) with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
Genesis 10:21-32
The Semites
21 Sons were also born to Shem, whose elder brother was[a] Japheth; Shem was the ancestor of all the sons of Eber.
22 The sons of Shem:
Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram.
23 The sons of Aram:
Uz, Hul, Gether and Meshek.[b]
24 Arphaxad was the father of[c] Shelah,
and Shelah the father of Eber.
25 Two sons were born to Eber:
One was named Peleg,[d] because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan.
26 Joktan was the father of
Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan.
30 The region where they lived stretched from Mesha towards Sephar, in the eastern hill country.
31 These are the sons of Shem by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations.
32 These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.
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Last week’s post gave us more detail on Ham’s sons and his descendants.
Today’s verses introduce Shem’s sons and his descendants.
Japheth was Shem’s elder brother; Shem was the ancestor of all the sons of Eber (verse 21).
Matthew Henry’s commentary answers questions that many might have about the wording of the verse (emphases mine):
We have not only his name, Shem, which signifies a name, but two titles to distinguish him by:—
1. He was the father of all the children of Eber. Eber was his great grandson; but why should he be called the father of all his children, rather than of all Arphaxad’s, or Salah’s, etc.? Probably because Abraham and his seed, God’s covenant-people, not only descended from Heber, but from him were called Hebrews; ch. 14 13, Abram the Hebrew. Paul looked upon it as his privilege that he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, Phil 3 5. Eber himself, we may suppose, was a man eminent for religion in a time of general apostasy, and a great example of piety to his family; and, the holy tongue being commonly called from him the Hebrew, it is probable that he retained it in his family, in the confusion of Babel, as a special token of God’s favour to him; and from him the professors of religion were called the children of Eber. Now, when the inspired penman would give Shem an honourable title, he calls him the father of the Hebrews. Though when Moses wrote this, they were a poor despised people, bond-slaves in Egypt, yet, being God’s people, it was an honour to a man to be akin to them. As Ham, though he had many sons, is disowned by being called the father of Canaan, on whose seed the curse was entailed (ch. 9 22), so Shem, though he had many sons, is dignified with the title of the father of Eber, on whose seed the blessing was entailed. Note, a family of saints is more truly honourable than a family of nobles, Shem’s holy seed than Ham’s royal seed, Jacob’s twelve patriarchs than Ishmael’s twelve princes, ch. 17 20. Goodness is true greatness.
2. He was the brother of Japheth the elder, by which it appears that, though Shem is commonly put first, he was not Noah’s first-born, but Japheth was older. But why should this also be put as part of Shem’s title and description, that he was the brother of Japheth, since it had been, in effect, said often before? And was he not as much brother to Ham? Probably this was intended to signify the union of the Gentiles with the Jews in the church. The sacred historian had mentioned it as Shem’s honour that he was the father of the Hebrews; but, lest Japheth’s seed should therefore be looked upon as for ever shut out from the church, he here reminds us that he was the brother of Japheth, not in birth only, but in blessing; for Japheth was to dwell in the tents of Shem. Note, (1.) Those are brethren in the best manner that are so by grace, and that meet in the covenant of God and in the communion of saints. (2.) God, in dispensing his grace, does not go by seniority, but the younger sometimes gets the start of the elder in coming into the church; so the last shall be first and the first last.
Shem had five sons: Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram (verse 22).
MacArthur tells us more, including about some of the men named in the rest of the verses in this chapter, and gives us a preview of what comes in future chapters of Genesis:
Now, verses 22 and following list the sons of Shem. They all settled in the Middle East. Lud, mentioned in verse 22, was the farthest north, up by the Black Sea. Havilah, Ophir, Sheba, and several others were the farthest south. All the way – literally all the way down to the Gulf of Aden at the tip of the Red Sea, when it goes into the Arabian Ocean. I mean this group stretched across the Middle East from north to south. All the way to Lud in the north, all the way to Havilah and Ophir – remember the gold of Ophir? – in the south, and the rest – the bulk of them in the middle, in the land surrounding Canaan to the east. So, all the way to the south, the north, and east of the land of Canaan.
Just a couple of them are mentioned. Elam is mentioned in verse 22, the father of the Elamites. There was a king – we’ll find about him in Genesis 14 – named Chedorlaomer. Remember him? King of Elam invaded Canaan so that the sons of Canaan served the sons of Shem. They didn’t have to wait till the Canaanites were conquered by the Israelites; Chedorlaomer was a Shemite who conquered Canaanites in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis.
And among the allies of Chedorlaomer was this Tidal king of Goiim, the nations [Goyim being the word the Jews use for Gentiles, people of the nations], the Hagoyim, the coastland people from Japheth …
Elamites lived east of Mesopotamia, had their capital in a little place called Susa or Shushan, mixed with the Medes and made up the Persian Empire. You also notice Asshur, father of the Assyrians, conquered by Nimrod. They became racially mixed. You have the name Arphachshad or Arpachshad. He is in the line of Abraham. We’ll see that over in chapter 11, verse 12. Lud, the father of the Lyddians in Asia Minor. Aram, the father of Arameans or Syrians who play a major role in the rest of the Bible history. And by the way, it was the Arameans who developed – guess what language? – Aramaic. A couple of portions of the Bible – Daniel and Ezra – are in Aramaic.
Shem’s son Aram had four sons: Uz, Hul, Gether and Meshek (verse 23). The footnote says that, in Hebrew, Meshek is Mash.
MacArthur points out:
The sons of Aram – Uz. Do you know who lived in Uz? … Job lived in Uz, Job 1:1.
Shem’s son Arphaxad had a son who was worthy of mention, Shelah; Shelah was Eber’s father (verse 24).
Eber had two prominent sons, Joktan and Peleg; Peleg means ‘division’ and was so named because the earth’s peoples were divided at that time (verse 25).
Henry explains the two possibilities lying behind that division:
Because in his days (that is, about the time of his birth, when his name was given him), was the earth divided among the children of men that were to inhabit it; either when Noah divided it by an orderly distribution of it, as Joshua divided the land of Canaan by lot, or when, upon their refusal to comply with that division, God, in justice, divided them by the confusion of tongues [Babel]: whichsoever of these was the occasion, pious Heber saw cause to perpetuate the remembrance of it in the name of his son; and justly may our sons be called by the same name, for in our days, in another sense, is the earth, the church, most wretchedly divided.
Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah (verse 26), Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah (verse 27), Obal, Abimael, Sheba (verse 28) and Ophir, Havilah and Jobab (verse 29).
They lived in the region from Mesha towards Sephar, in the eastern hill country (verse 30).
These were the sons — and descendants — of Shem by clans and languages, in their territories and nations (verse 31).
Genesis 10 concludes, having covered the families of Noah’s three sons, including Japheth and Ham (see here and here), saying that their respective nations spread out over the earth after the Flood (verse 32).
Next week, we find out how Shem’s family line produced Abram (later Abraham).
Next time — Genesis 11:10-26
This post first appeared on Churchmouse Campanologist | Ringing The Bells For, please read the originial post: here
