Genesis 10:12

Gen 10:12 And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same [is] a great city.

Ver. 12. The same is a great city.] As consisting of three cities, and having more people within the walls than are now in some one kingdom. See the greatness of this city set forth in the Preacher’s Travels, p. 89. The greatest city in the world at this day is said to be Quinsai, in Tartary, which is a hundred miles about, as M. Paulus Venetus writeth, who himself dwelt therein, about the year 1260. Cambula, the imperial city, and seat of the great Cham of Tartary, is in circuit twenty-eight miles about. {a} Nineveh was three days’ journey in Jonah’s days: now it is destroyed (as was long since prophesied by Nahum), being nothing else than a sepulchre of herself, a little town of small trade, where the Patriarch of the Nestorians keeps his seat at the devotion of the Turk. As Susa, in Persia, once a lily (as the name signifies), for the sweet sight, and so rich, as afterwards is reported, {Gen 11:3} is now called Valdac, of the poverty of the place. {b}

{a} Turk. Hist., fol. 75.

{b} Preacher’s Travels, 88.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. Resen] Not yet identified; but conjectured to lie among the mounds which conceal ruins between Nineveh and Nimrud.

(the same is the great city)] This is a note added by the compiler; or, possibly, as Skinner suggests, a gloss, referring to Nineveh, which is misplaced.

13–19 (J). The descendants of Mizraim (Egypt), Gen_10:13-14; and of Canaan (Phoenicia), Gen_10:15-19. The names of tribes (the plural termination -im) in Gen_10:13-14, and of peoples (Gen_10:16-19), seem to imply a different source of tradition from that in Gen_10:2-7.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Resen, between Nineveh and Calah,.... This was another city built by Ashur, situated between those two cities mentioned: the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem call it Talsar, or Thalassar, see Isa 37:12 The conjecture of Bochart (b) is more probable, that it is the Larissa of Xenophon, situated on the Tigris; though Junius thinks it is either Bassora, or Belcina, which Ptolemy (c) places on the Tigris, near Nineveh:

the same is a great city: which Jarchi interprets of Nineveh, called a great city, and was indeed one, being sixty miles in circumference, Jon 1:2 but the construction of the words carries it to Resen, which might be the greatest city when first built; and, if understood of Larissa, was a great city, the walls of it being one hundred feet high, and the breadth twenty five, and the compass of it eight miles. Benjamin of Tudela says (d), that in his time Resen was called Gehidagan, and was a great city, in which were 5000 Israelites; but according to Schmidt, this refers to all the cities in a coalition, Nineveh, Rehoboth, Calah, and Resen, which all made that great city Nineveh; or were a Tetrapolis, as Tripoli was anciently three cities, built by the joint interest of the Aradians, Sidonians, and Tyrians, as Diodorus Siculus (e) relates.

(b) Phaleg. l. 4. c. 23. (c) Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 5. c. 19.) (d) Itinerarium, p. 75. (e) Bibliothec. l. 16. p. 439.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Resen, perhaps Larissa, here written without the La; as 1 Paralipomenon v. 26. Hala has the preposition, and is written Lahela. (Bochart.) --- This, &c. It is doubtful which of these three cities is meant: but as we know that Ninive was remarkable for size and magnificence, we may suppose this is designated. (Calmet) (Menochius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Either,

1. Nineveh, which is called a

great city, Jon 3:3; 4:11; and indeed was so, being sixty miles in compass. Thus it is a trajection, and the relative is referred to the remoter noun, as sometimes is done, though this seems to be a little forced. Or,

2. Resen; so the meaning is, though this city be much inferior to Nineveh, yet this also, if compared with most others, is a great city.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And Resen, i.e. Nimrod, between Kalah Shergat and Kouyunjik (Kalisch); but if Calah be Nimroud, then Rosen may be Selamiyeh, a village about half way, between Nineveh and Calah, i.e. Kouyunjik and Nimroud, ut supra (Layard). The same. Rosen (Kalisch), which will suit if it was Nimroud, whose remains cover a parallelogram about 1800 feet in length and 900 feet in breadth; but others apply it to Nineveh with the other towns as forming one large composite city (Knobel, Keil, Lange, Wordsworth). Is a great city. With this the record of Nimrod s achievements closes. It is generally supposed that Nimrod flourished either before or about the time of the building of the tower of Babel; but Prof. Chwolsen of St. Petersburg, in his "Ueber die Ueberreste der Altbabylon-ischen Literatur,"brings the dynasty of Nimrod down as late as 1500 B.C., relying principally on the evidence of an original work composed by Qut ami, a native Babylonian, and translated by Ibnwa hachijah, a descendant of the Chaldaeans, and assigned by Chwolsen to one of the earlier periods of Babylonian history, in which is mentioned the name of Nemrod, or Nemroda, as the founder of a Canaanite dynasty which ruled at Babylon (vide an excellent paper on this subject in Turner"s "Biblical and Oriental Studies," Edin., A. and C. Black, 1876). Perhaps the hardest difficulty to explain in connection with the ordinary date assigned to Nimrod is the fact that in Genesis 14., which speaks of the reigning monarchs in the Euphrates valley, there is no account taken of Nineveh and its king a circumstance which has been supposed to import that the founding of the capital of Assyria could not have been anterior to the days of Abraham. But early Babylonian texts confirm what Genesis 14. seems to imply the fact of an Elamite conquest of Babylonia, B.C. 2280, by Kudur-nanhundi (Kudurlagamar, the Chederlaomer of Genesis), who carried off an image of the goddess Nana from the city Erech (vide "Assyrian Discoveries," Genesis 12.; "Records of the Past," vol. 3.), so that this difficulty may be held to have disappeared before the light of archaeological discovery. But at whatever period Nimrod flourished, the Biblical narrative would lead us to anticipate a commingling of Hamitic and Shemitic tongues in the Euphrates valley, which existing monuments confirm (cf. "Records of the Past," vol. 3. p. 3).

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Nineveh

(See Scofield "Isa 13:1").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

העיר הגדלה THE GREAT CITY — This refers to Nineveh (not to Calah the last mentioned city nor to Resen), as it is said (Jonah 3:3) “Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city” (Yoma 10a).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

ויבן את נינוה היא העיר הגדולה, most commentators believe that the words העיר הגדולה refer to the city Nineveh, seeing that this city has been described in similar terms in Jonah 3,3. I believe that actually, these words refer to רסן, seeing that our verse speaks about this city in the first place. The entire story, as we mentioned previously, has as its objective to demonstrate how ownership of even a sizable land or city is subject to rapid change. Even though Ashur established a great empire, this empire was crushed by the Babylonians who replaced them, and who, in turn were replaced in short order by the Persians and the Medes.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.