Genesis 10:22

Gen 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.

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.

10:22 The descendants of Elam lived in the region of modern southwestern Iran (see 14:1, 9; Ezra 4:9; Isa 11:11). • The descendants of Asshur were later Assyrians who lived under Nimrod’s jurisdiction (see Gen 10:11). Sumerians descended from Ham were ousted by Mesopotamian Semites. • Arphaxad possibly settled northeast of Nineveh; his descendants are further described in 11:12-26. • Lud was near the Tigris River; its people were related to the Lydians (see 10:13). • Aram was a kingdom of tribes that lived in the Mesopotamian plains.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

22. The sons of Shem] This is the account by P, corresponding to the previous mention of “the sons of Japheth,” Gen_10:2, and “the sons of Ham,” Gen_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 Gen_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 Gen_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.

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.

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 father of the Elymaeans, from whom sprung the Persians, as the same writer observes, and his posterity are called Elamites, Act 2:10 their country Elam, and is sometimes mentioned with Media, when the Persians and Medes are intended, Isa 21:2 see also Isa 22:6, &c. in Daniel's time, Shushan, in the province of Elam, was the seat of the kings of Persia: the country of Elymais, so called from this man, is said by Pliny (g) to be divided from Susiane by the river Eulaeus, and to join with Persia; and the famous city of Elymais, the metropolis of the country, is placed by Josephus (h) in Persia. Ashur, the second son of Shem, gives name to Assyria, a country frequently mentioned in Scripture; and which, according to Ptolemy (i), was bounded on the north by part of Armenia the great, and the mountain Niphates, on the west by Mesopotamia and the river Tigris, on the south by Susiane, and on the east by part of Media. Strabo says (k) they call Babylonia, and great part of the country about it, Assyria, in which was Ninus or Nineveh, the chief city of the Assyrian empire; and which was built by Ashur, as Josephus (l) affirms, and says he gave the name of Assyrians to his subjects: Arphaxad, the third son of Shem, from him that part of Assyria, which lay northward next to Armenia, was called Arphaxitis, as it is probable that was its original name, though corruptly called by Ptolemy (m) Arrapachitis: Josephus says (n), he gave name to the Arphaxadaeans, whom he ruled over, now called Chaldeans; and indeed the name of the Chaldeans may as well be derived from the latter part of Arphaxad's name, "Chashad", as from Chesed, the son of Nahor, and brother of Abraham, as it more commonly is; since the Chaldeans were called Chasdim before Chesed was born, and were a nation when Abraham came out of Ur, before Chesed could be old or considerable enough to build towns and found a nation; see Gen 11:31 though Bochart treats this as a mere dream, yet he is obliged to have recourse to the usual refuge, that Ur was called Ur of the Chaldees, by anticipation. The fourth son of Shem was Lud, from whom sprung the Lydians, a people of Asia minor, and whose country is called Lydia, including Mysia and Caria, which all lay by the river Maeander; and Lud, in the Phoenician language, signifies bending and crooked, as that river was, being full of windings and turnings: some think that the posterity of Lud are carried too far off from those of his brethren, but know not where else to fix them. From Aram, the last son of Shem, sprung the Aramaeans, called by the Greeks Syrians, as Josephus (o) observes; and by Homer (p) and Hesiod (q) and so says Strabo (r); some by the Arimi understand the Syrians, now called Arami; and elsewhere (s) he observes, that they who are by us called Syrians, are by the Syrians themselves called Aramaeans, and this is the name they give to themselves to this day: the country inhabited by them included Mesopotamia and Syria, and particularly all those places that have the name of Aram added to them, as Padan Aram, and Aram Naharaim (which is Mesopotamia), Aram of Damascus, Aram Zobah, Aram Maacha, and Aram Beth Rehob, Gen 28:2 and the title of Psa 60:1, the Septuagint version here adds, "and Cainan", but without any authority.

(f) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 4. (g) Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 27. (h) Antiqu. l. 12. c. 8. sect. 1. (i) Geograph. l. 6. c. 1. (k) Ib. l. 16. p. 507. (l) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 4. (m) Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 6. c. 1.) (n) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 4.). So R. Gedaliah, in Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 76. 2. (o) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 4.) (p) Iliad. 2. (q) Theogonia. (r) Geograph. l. 13. p. 431. l. 16. p. 540. (s) Ib. l. 1. p. 28.

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

Of Elam came the Elamites or Persians: see Gen 14:9; Isa 21:2; Jer 49:34; Dan 8:2; Act 2:9.

Asshur was father of the Assyrians: see Gen 10:11.

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 Gen 22:21.

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

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. It had become important and powerful in the time of Abraham, (Gen_14:1, etc.,) although before that time, having been overrun by a Cushite race, it had lost its Shemitish language.

Asshur — Assyria; probably the word signifies plain, originally applied to the plain along the east bank of the Tigris, north of Susiana, (Elam,) which was the original seat of the great Assyrian empire. The recently discovered Assyrian monuments show that the people originally spoke a Shemitic language, although Aryan and Hamitic elements were afterwards mingled with it. (Furst, Gesch. Bib. Lit., p. 9.)

Arphaxad — Ewald interprets this word fortress of the Chaldees; Furst, country of the Chaldees, but the etymology is doubtful. Following Bochart, scholars have usually identified this name with Arrapachitis, a region on the east bank of the Tigris, north of the primitive Assyria and joining Armenia.

Lud — Supposed by eminent ethnologists to be the Lydians, a warlike race who spread westward into Asia Minor, and there founded a powerful kingdom, which was conquered by Cyrus, and swallowed up in the Medo-Persian empire. But the undoubted Aryan (Sanskrit) derivation of certain Lydian proper names (for example, Sardis, Candaules) makes the conclusion at least doubtful. The matter must be regarded as yet unsettled. (Comp. Rawl., Her., i, Essay ii; Furst, Gesch., Bib. Lit., p. 19.) The Arabic historians assign to Lud the Amalekites and the primitive Arabs, the Joktanite (Gen_10:26) and Ishmaelite (Gen_25:13) Arabs being younger branches of the nation. With this Knobel coincides, and also makes it probable that the primitive Amorites and the Philistines were Shemitic peoples of the stock of Lud. (Volktfl., p. 198, etc.)

Aram — High land, Aramea, or Syria, especially that part north of Palestine. Mesopotamia is the Aram of the two rivers, that is, Euphrates and Tigris — that part of Aram which falls between these streams; so there is an Aram of Damascus — Aram Zoba, north of Damascus, etc. It probably receives its name from Lebanon, the conspicuous mountain chain of the region. The Shemitic languages, Syriac and Chaldee, originated in Aram.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The children of Shem were twenty-six in number, of whom five were sons. Elam. Elymais, a region adjoining Snaiana and Media, stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Rod Sea; the people first met with as Persians. And Asshur. The ancestor of the Assyrians (vide ver. 11).

And Arphaxad. A region in the north of Assyria; the Arrhapacitis of Ptolemy (Rosenm Keil, Kalisch). The explanation of the name is "fortress of the Chaldaeans" (Ewald); "highland of the Chaldaeans" (Knobel). And Lud. The Lydians of Asia Minor, to which they appear to have migrated from the land of Shem (Josephus, Bochart, Keil, Kalisch). And Aram. "The high land;" Mesopotamia being the Aram of the two rivers, and Syria the Aram of Damascua

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