Before There Was an Israel

Three bare names, no verbs, no “begat”. The Book of 1 Chronicles leaps from Adam to Seth, skipping Cain and Abel altogether, because it traces only the line that runs on to Noah. Adam is used here as a personal name; in Hebrew it is also the ordinary word for a human being.

Kenan is spelled Cainan in the King James of Genesis 5:9, though the Hebrew is the same, Qenan. Jered, called Jared in Genesis, has a name that may mean descent; Jewish tradition connected it with the descent of the watchers in his days (Genesis 6:1–4).

Henoch is the Enoch who walked with God and was not, for God took him (Genesis 5:24). The Book of 1 Chronicles gives him no more than his name, trusting the reader to know. Methuselah, the longest lived man in Genesis, sits between him and Lamech.

Noah's three sons are named in their traditional order, but the lists that follow reverse it, taking Japheth first and Shem last, as Genesis 10 does, so that the line of Shem leads straight on toward Abraham.

These seven are mostly peoples to the north and west of Israel. Madai is the Medes, Javan the Ionian Greeks, and Tubal and Meshech are peoples of Anatolia paired again in Ezekiel 38:2 with Magog. Gomer is usually identified with the Cimmerians.

Ashchenaz, spelled Ashkenaz in Genesis 10:3, was a people near Ararat (Jeremiah 51:27); medieval Jews later used the name for Germany. Togarmah appears in Ezekiel 27:14 trading horses and mules with Tyre. Riphath is Diphath in the Hebrew here, a single letter confusion.

Javan's sons are seafaring peoples: Kittim is Kition on Cyprus, Tarshish a distant western port Jonah tried to reach. Dodanim is Rodanim in the Hebrew of Chronicles, probably Rhodes; the King James follows the spelling of Genesis 10:4.

Ham's four sons are the lands to Israel's south: Cush on the upper Nile, Mizraim Egypt, and Put probably Libya. Canaan comes last, the son whose land Israel will inherit, and his descendants will be listed in more detail than any other.

Seba and Sheba, Havilah and Dedan are tribes of Arabia and the Red Sea coasts, traders in incense and gold. Sheba's queen will visit Solomon (1 Kings 10), and Dedan's caravans reappear in Isaiah 21:13.

Nimrod is the only person in this table of nations given a deed of his own. “Began to be mighty” uses gibbor, warrior, and the Book of 1 Chronicles leaves out Genesis 10:9–12, which described his hunting and the cities of Babel and Nineveh.

The names end in the plural -im, peoples rather than individuals. Ludim and Lehabim are probably Libyan groups, and Naphtuhim may be the people of the Nile delta. They are sons of Mizraim only in the sense that they belong to Egypt's sphere.

Pathrusim are the people of Pathros, Upper Egypt. The parenthesis about the Philistines hangs after the Casluhim, while Amos 9:7 and Jeremiah 47:4 say the Philistines came from Caphtor, usually taken as Crete, so the note may have slipped one name out of place.

Zidon, Sidon, is Canaan's firstborn: the Phoenician coastal city that later gave Jezebel to Ahab. Heth is the ancestor of the Hittites, from whom Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah (Genesis 23).

The Jebusite held Jerusalem until David took it (11:4–6), so the name here quietly anticipates the book's central city. The Amorite and Girgashite belong to the standard list of nations Israel was to dispossess (Deuteronomy 7:1).

The Arkite and Sinite are cities of northern Phoenicia; Arqa has been excavated at Tell Arqa in Lebanon. The Hivites, known from Shechem and Gibeon, tricked Joshua into a treaty (Joshua 9:7).

Arvad was an island city off the Syrian coast, whose sailors rowed Tyre's ships (Ezekiel 27:8). Zemar lay nearby, and Hamath on the Orontes marked Israel's ideal northern border, “the entering in of Hamath”.

Nine sons of Shem are listed here, but in Genesis 10:23 Uz, Hul, Gether and Mash are sons of Aram, not of Shem; Chronicles compresses the generation. Elam and Asshur are Persia's forerunner and Assyria, the empire that destroyed Samaria.

Eber is the name from which the word Hebrew, ivri, was traditionally derived. The verse follows only one son per generation, moving toward Abraham's line with no side branches.

Peleg means division, and the pun explains the name: in his days the earth was divided, niphlegah. Whether this means the scattering at Babel, a division of lands among the peoples, or something else, the verse does not say.

Joktan's sons are tribes of southern Arabia. Hazarmaveth, “court of death”, survives as Hadramaut, a region of Yemen still bearing the name. Jerah means moon, and Sheleph is a known Yemeni tribal name.

Uzal was traditionally identified with Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. Diklah means palm grove, a fitting name for an oasis people; Hadoram is a tribe otherwise unattested.

Ebal here is Obal in Genesis 10:28, and is not the mountain of Shechem. Sheba appears again, now as a descendant of Shem through Joktan, having been a descendant of Ham in verse 9; the name belonged to more than one Arabian group.

Ophir was the gold country to which Solomon's ships sailed (1 Kings 9:28). Havilah repeats as well, having appeared among the sons of Cush in verse 9. With this verse the survey of nations closes; Jewish tradition counted seventy nations in the Genesis form of the table.

The line of Shem is taken up again, now in the terse three name form of verse 1. Ten generations run from Shem to Abram, matching the ten from Adam to Noah, a symmetry Genesis also keeps.

Reu and his father Peleg are here only as links. Genesis 11:18–21 gives their ages; the Book of 1 Chronicles drops every number and keeps only the names.

Serug and Nahor are also place names attested in upper Mesopotamia near Haran, Sarugi and Nahur in Assyrian and Mari texts. Terah led the family out of Ur (Genesis 11:31).

Four words compress Genesis 17:5, where Abram, “exalted father”, was renamed Abraham, “father of a multitude”. The change of name is noted, the covenant that caused it is left for the reader to supply.

Isaac is named first though Ishmael was older by fourteen years. Primacy of place goes to the son of promise, yet in the next verses Ishmael's family is treated first.

The twelve sons of Ishmael match the twelve tribes of Israel, a symmetry Genesis 17:20 announced: “twelve princes shall he beget”. Nebaioth and Kedar are Arabian peoples known from Assyrian records; Kedar's tents appear in Song of Solomon 1:5.

Dumah was an oasis, Dumat al-Jandal, in north Arabia, and Tema an oasis further south, where the last Babylonian king Nabonidus lived for ten years. Massa may be the people of King Lemuel (Proverbs 31:1).

Jetur gave its name to the Itureans, who ruled in Lebanon in New Testament times (Luke 3:1). Naphish joined Jetur in warring against the Transjordan tribes (5:19). Kedemah means eastward, fitting the “children of the east”.

Keturah is called a concubine here, a wife in Genesis 25:1. Her son Midian fathered the people of Jethro, Moses' father-in-law. Sheba and Dedan appear a third time, now as grandsons of Abraham.

Ephah was famous for camels, as Isaiah 60:6 remembers. “All these are the sons of Keturah” closes the second branch of Abraham's family before the main line resumes.

The Book of 1 Chronicles nearly always calls Jacob “Israel”, as here, using the covenant name rather than the birth name. Esau is named first as the elder, and his line is traced before the chosen one again.

Esau's five sons were born of three wives (Genesis 36:4–5). Korah here is an Edomite clan chief, unrelated to the Levite Korah whose sons wrote psalms.

Timna and Amalek are listed as sons of Eliphaz, whereas Genesis 36:12 makes Timna Eliphaz's concubine and Amalek her son. Chronicles has either compressed the relationship or preserved a different arrangement. Teman became a byword for wisdom (Jeremiah 49:7).

Reuel's four sons all became clan chiefs of Edom (Genesis 36:17). Zerah's line produced Jobab, perhaps the Jobab who reigns in verse 44.

Seir was the Horite ancestor of the mountain country Esau's family later took over (Deuteronomy 2:12). The list mixes the original inhabitants with the incoming Edomites, so the region's history is kept in the family tree.

Timna appears again, as sister of Lotan, a Horite. If she is the concubine of Eliphaz in Genesis 36:12, her marriage linked the native Horites with Esau's line. Hori, “Horite”, is itself the ethnic name.

Alian is Alvan in Genesis 36:23, and Shephi is Shepho: small spelling differences between the two books common in these lists. Anah appears as a son of Zibeon, while verse 38 lists an Anah among Seir's sons.

Genesis 36:24 credits Anah son of Zibeon with finding hot springs, or perhaps mules, in the wilderness while pasturing his father's donkeys. Amram is Hemdan in Genesis 36:26, a difference of similar Hebrew letters.

Jakan is Akan in Genesis 36:27; his descendants gave their name to Beeroth Bene-jaakan, a wilderness campsite of Israel (Deuteronomy 10:6). Uz shares a name with Job's homeland (Job 1:1).

The remark about Israel's having no king yet looks forward to Saul. Bela son of Beor has a name strikingly close to Balaam son of Beor, the seer hired by Moab (Numbers 22:5), and some early interpreters identified them, though nothing in the text requires it.

Bozrah was Edom's chief city, the one Isaiah 63:1 pictures a conqueror coming from with garments dyed red. Ancient Jewish and Christian interpreters identified this Jobab with Job; the Greek appendix to Job says so explicitly.

Husham is from Teman, the district named after Esau's grandson (verse 36). None of these kings succeeds his father; each comes from a different town, suggesting an elected or confederate kingship rather than a dynasty.

Hadad is the name of the Syrian storm god, often borne by kings. His victory over Midian in Moab's territory is the only battle in the list, a glimpse of wars in Transjordan otherwise unrecorded.

Masrekah may mean vineyard place, from sorek, a choice vine. Samlah is known only from this line and its parallel in Genesis 36:36.

Shaul has the same name as Israel's first king, Saul. “Rehoboth by the river” probably means a river in Edom, not the Euphrates, though the Hebrew phrase usually denotes the great river.

Baal-hanan means “Baal is gracious”, a theophoric name honouring the Canaanite god. His father's name Achbor, mouse, recurs among Josiah's officials (2 Kings 22:12), a common enough name.

The last king, called Hadar in Genesis 36:39, is the only one whose wife is named, with her ancestry to the grandmother: Mehetabel, “God does good”. Mezahab may mean “waters of gold”. Pai is Pau in Genesis.

“Hadad died also” supplies the death Genesis omits. “Duke” translates alluph, the head of a clan or thousand, from eleph, thousand. Timnah here is a chief or clan, not the woman of verse 39, though the names echo.

Aholibamah was the name of one of Esau's wives (Genesis 36:2); here it is a clan chief or clan area, perhaps named after her. Pinon may be Punon, a copper mining site where Israel camped (Numbers 33:42).

Kenaz is the clan from which Caleb's family, the Kenizzites, may derive (Joshua 14:6), showing Edomite links within Judah itself. Mibzar means fortress.

Magdiel and Iram close the eleven chiefs. Genesis 36:43 adds “this is Esau the father of the Edomites”; the Book of 1 Chronicles stops without comment, turning in the next verse to the sons of Israel.