Genesis 10:24

And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(24) Arphaxad begat Salah.—Heb., Shelah. The rest of the chapter is devoted to giving an account of the settlements of the Joktanite Arabs, who formed only one, apparently, of the races sprung from Arphaxad, as in this table even the Hebrews are omitted, although Eber’s birth is given with the view of showing that the right of primogeniture belonged not to Joktan, but to Eber. The name Arphaxad, as we have seen (Genesis 10:22), at present defies all explanation. For the rest, see the Tôldôth Shem, Genesis 11:10-26.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:15-32 The posterity of Canaan were numerous, rich, and pleasantly seated; yet Canaan was under a Divine curse, and not a curse causeless. Those that are under the curse of God, may, perhaps, thrive and prosper in this world; for we cannot know love or hatred, the blessing or the curse, by what is before us, but by what is within us. The curse of God always works really, and always terribly. Perhaps it is a secret curse, a curse to the soul, and does not work so that others can see it; or a slow curse, and does not work soon; but sinners are reserved by it for a day of wrath Canaan here has a better land than either Shem or Japheth, and yet they have a better lot, for they inherit the blessing. Abram and his seed, God's covenant people, descended from Eber, and from him were called Hebrews. How much better it is to be like Eber, the father of a family of saints and honest men, than the father of a family of hunters after power, worldly wealth, or vanities. Goodness is true greatness.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Arpakshad begat (54) Shelah. We know nothing of the nation of which he was the founder. He begat

(55) Heber. He is the progenitor of the Hebrews, the race to which Abraham belonged. He is marked out very prominently for reasons partly unknown to us at this distance of time, but partly no doubt because he was the ancestor of the chosen race who immediately preceded the confusion of tongues, and to whom belonged that generic Hebrew tongue, which afterward branched into several dialects, of which the Hebrew, now strictly so called, was one. It is probable that most of the diversified modes of speech retained the substance of the primeval speech of mankind. And it is not improbable, for various reasons, that this Hebrew tongue, taken in its largest sense, deviated less from the original standard than any other. The Shemites, and especially the Hebrews, departed less from the knowledge of the true God than the other families of man, and, therefore, may be presumed to have suffered less from the concussion given to the living speech of the race.

The knowledge previously accumulated of the true God, and of his will and way, would have been lost, if the terms and other modes of expressing divine things had been entirely obliterated. It is consonant with reason, then, to suppose that some one language was so little shaken from its primary structure as to preserve this knowledge. We know as a fact, that, while other nations retained some faint traces of the primeval history, the Hebrews have handed down certain and tangible information concerning former things in a consecutive order from the very first. This is a proof positive that they had the distinct outline and material substance of the primeval tongue in which these things were originally expressed. In keeping with this line of reasoning, while distinct from it, is the fact that the names of persons and things are given and explained in the Hebrew tongue, and most of them in that branch of it in which the Old Testament is composed. We do not enter further into the special nature of the Hebrew family of languages, or the relationship in which they are found to stand with the other forms of human speech than to intimate that such investigations tend to confirm the conclusions here enunciated.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

24. Arphaxad—The settlement of his posterity was in the extensive valley of Shinar, on the Tigris, towards the southern extremity of Mesopotamia, including the country of Eden and the region on the east side of the river.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And Arphaxad begat Salah,.... Or Shelach which signifies "a sending forth"; that is, of waters: it is part of the name of Methuselah, given him by his father, as prophetic of the flood, see Genesis 5:21 and Arphaxad, who was born two years after the flood, gives this name to his first born, as commemorative of it: according to some, from him are the Susians (g); and in Susiana is found a city called Sele, by Ptolemy (h); but this seems not to be a sufficient proof:

and Salah begat Eber; from whom, Josephus (i) says, the Jews were called Hebrews from the beginning; and which, perhaps, is as good a derivation of their name as can be given, and seems to be confirmed by Numbers 24:24 though some derive it from Abraham's passing over the rivers in his way from Chaldea into Syria; but be it so, why might not this name be given to Eber, as prophetic of that passage, or of the passage of his posterity over the Euphrates into Canaan, as well as Eber gave to his son Peleg his name, as a prediction of the division of the earth in his time? the Septuagint version of this text inserts a Cainan between Arphaxad and Salah, but is not to be found in any Hebrew copy, nor in the Samaritan, Syriac, and Arabic versions, nor in Josephus, see Luke 3:36.

(g) Vid. Bochart. Phaleg. l. 2. c. 13. Colossians 92. (h) Geograph. l. 6. c. 3.((i) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 4.)

Geneva Study Bible

And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

24. begat Shelah] R.V. marg. “The Sept. reads begat Cainan, and Cainan begat Shelah.” This addition is followed in Luke 3:36.

Eber] See note on Genesis 10:21. Eber is evidently the most important name in this genealogy. As the grandson of Arpachshad, his name stands geographically in some kind of connexion with Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad and Aram. Êber in the Hebrew means “on the other side of.” The ancestors of Israel are described as those who “dwelt of old time beyond the River” (êber ha-nâhâr = “on the other side of the Euphrates river”). See Joshua 24:2.

24–30 (J). Genealogy of Shem

A section from J, who speaks not of peoples, but of individuals of the heroic age. See Genesis 11:10-19 (P) for a duplicate mention of “Arpachshad, … Peleg.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 24. - And Arphaxad begat Salah. The nation descended from him has not been identified, though their name, "Extension," may imply that they were early colonists. And Salah begat Eber. The father of the Hebrews or Emigrants (vide ver. 21). Genesis 10:24

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Descendants of Aram. Uz: a name which occurs among the Nahorides (Genesis 22:21) and Horites (Genesis 36:28), and which is associated with the Αἰσῖται of Ptolemy, in Arabia deserta towards Babylon; this is favoured by the fact that Uz, the country of Job, is called by the lxx χώρα Αὐσῖτις, although the notion that these Aesites were an Aramaean tribe, afterwards mixed up with Nahorides and Horites, is mere conjecture. Hul: Delitzsch associates this with Cheli (Cheri), the old Egyptian name for the Syrians, and the Hylatae who dwelt near the Emesenes (Plin. 5, 19). Gether he connects with the name give in the Arabian legends to the ancestor of the tribes Themd and Ghadis. Mash: for which we find Meshech in 1 Chronicles 1:17, a tribe mentioned in Psalm 120:5 along with Kedar, and since the time of Bochart generally associated with the πορος Μάσιον above Nisibis.