Genesis 10:22

The children of Shem,.... Whose names are Elam and Ashur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram; and who, as Josephus (f) says, inhabited Asia, from Euphrates to the Indian ocean: his first born, Elam, was

The children of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram. Elam - Elymais, Susiana, the name of a Persian province, of which the capital was Susa. The word is used in the early books of Scripture for Persia.

Of Elam came the Elamites or Persians: see . Asshur was father of the Assyrians: see . Of Arphaxad the Chaldeans, as many conceive; or, as others, the inhabitants of that part of Assyria, from him called Arphaxitis, which Ptolemy corruptly calls Arrapachitis. Lud was father of the Lydians, a well-known people in Asia the Less. Of Aram the Syrians, known by the name of Aramites, both in sacred and other authors: compare with this .

Genesis 10:22 The children of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.Ver. 22. Elam.] Father of the Persians, that warlike people, but worshippers of the sun. We read of a Persian ambassador, who, when he was among Christians, would have these words much in his mouth, Soli Deo gloria , cunningly, under that covert, giving honour to the sun.

(21-23) shem . . . the brother of Japheth the elder.—Really, the elder brother of Japheth. Though the rules of Hebrew grammar will admit of no other rendering, it is remarkable that both the Syriac and the Vulg. make the same mistake as our own version. In designating Shem as “the father of all the children of Eber,” attention is called to the fact that the descendants of Peleg, his elder son, are omitted from this table, and reserved for the Tôldôth Shem. (See Genesis 11:10.) The nations descended from Shem were:— 1. Elam.—According to Mr. Sayce (Chald. Gen., p. 196), “the primitive inhabitants of Elam were a race closely allied to the Accadians, and spread over the whole range of country which stretched from the southern shores of the Caspian to the Persian Gulf.” But just as the Semitic Asshur expelled a Hamite race from Assyria, so another branch of this conquering family occupied Elymais. It is now called Chuzistan, and was the most easternly of the countries occupied by the Semites. But see Excursus to Genesis 14 on the conquests of the Elamite Chedorlaomer. 2. Asshur.—This Semitic stock seems to have been the first to settle on the Tigris, as the Hamites were the first to settle on the Euphrates. Finally, as we have seen (Genesis 10:11), they conquered the whole country. 3. Arphaxad.—Heb., Arpachshad. We may dismiss the idea that he was connected with the region called Arrapachitis, for this correctly is Aryapakshata, “the land next the Aryans.” Really he appears as the ancestor of Eber and the Joktanite Arabs. 4. Lud.—Probably the Lydians, who, after various wanderings, settled in Asia Minor. 5. Aram.—As Asshur means plain, so Aram means highland. It was originally the name of the Lebanon ranges, and thus Damascus is called Aram in 2 Samuel 8:5. Subsequently the race so extended itself as to possess Mesopotamia, a lowland country, but called, as early as Genesis 24:10, “Aram of the two rivers.” The greatness of Aram will be best seen by examining those places in our version where Syria and Syrian are spoken of, and which, in the Hebrew, are really Aram. To the Aramæan stock belonged also four outlying dependencies—(1) Uz, the land of Job, a district in the northern part of Arabia Deserta; (2) Hul and (3) Gether, regions of which nothing is known; and (4) Mash, a desert region on the western side of the Euphrates (Chald. Gen., p. 276).

Verse 22. Elam] From whom came the Elamites, near to the Medes, and whose chief city was Elymais. Asshur] Who gave his name to a vast province (afterwards a mighty empire) called Assyria. Arphaxad] From whom Arrapachitis in Assyria was named, according to some; or Artaxata in Armenia, on the frontiers of Media, according to others. Lud] The founder of the Lydians. In Asia Minor; or of the Ludim, who dwelt at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris, according to Arias Montanus. Aram.] The father of the Arameans, afterwards called Syrians.

22. The sons of Shem] This is the account by P, corresponding to the previous mention of “the sons of Japheth,” Genesis 10:2, and “the sons of Ham,” Genesis 10:6. Elam] The name of a people and a country east of the Tigris and north of the Persian Gulf. The Elamites were at one time supreme in Western Asia (see note on Genesis 14:1). They do not appear to have been a Semitic race; but the place of Elam in this verse probably indicates the easternmost people with which the descendants of Shem were brought into contact. Asshur] See note on Genesis 10:11. The Assyrians were the most powerful of the Semitic peoples. Arpachshad] This name used to be identified with Ἀῤῥαπαχῖτις, a mountainous region north of Assyria, but this does not explain the two final syllables in which we naturally recognize Chesed, or the Chasdim, viz. = the “Chaldeans,” a people dwelling in the south of Babylonia. Sayce explains the word to mean “the wall of Chesed,” i.e. “the fortress-protected country of the Chaldeans.” Cheyne thinks that the name in this passage and elsewhere is an erroneous fusion of two names, “Arpach” and “Chesed.” (Z.A.T.W. 1897, p. 190. Lud] Presumably the Lydians of Asia Minor, though it is difficult to explain why they should be here associated with the “sons of Shem.” Aram] The people inhabiting the whole country north-east of Palestine, the northern region of the Euphrates Valley (Aram-Naharaim) and the country of Syria proper (Aram-Dammesek). The people denoted by Aram were destined to exercise a great influence throughout Western Asia. The Aramaean language gradually prevailed over the other Semitic dialects, and before the Christian era it had displaced even the Hebrew language among the Jews. The Aramaic tongue spoken by our Lord and the Apostles was like the language in which portions of the books of Ezra and Daniel were written.

22. Elam — The Elymaeans who originally peopled the country west of Persia, between it and Mesopotamia, Elymais, stretching from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf; called Susiana by the old geographers, the Cissia of Herodotus.