Genesis 10

Notes

1. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 18

   The names of the chapter are in the names table below, with their Hebrew forms and what is known of them. The list counts seventy names from Noah's grandsons down: Japheth's line fourteen, Ham's thirty, Shem's twenty-six, counting Nimrod and not the Philistines of v. 14. The later tradition speaks of the seventy nations of the world: the seventy bulls of Sukkot are offered for them (Num 29:12–34; b. Sukkah 55b). Deut 32:8 has the Most High fixing the borders of the peoples "by the number of the sons of Israel," who are seventy at 46:27 and Exod 1:5; the LXX there reads "by the number of the messengers of God." The names are of several kinds, and the Hebrew shows it: a person (Nimrod), peoples in the plural (Ludim, Kittim), peoples in the singular with the article (the Jebusite), lands (Egypt, Assyria) and cities (Sidon). All of them stand as "sons," and all are "borne" alike. Each is printed in its familiar English form (18).

   See the table

2. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 18, 74

   דֹּדָנִים "Dodanim" is the Masoretic reading. 1 Chr 1:7 has רוֹדָנִים "Rodanim," and the LXX here has Ῥόδιοι, "Rhodians." In the square script ד and ר differ by one corner, and the island of Rhodes would sit well beside the other sons of Javan, Elishah (Alashiya, Cyprus) and Kittim (Kition on Cyprus). The Masoretic text is printed.

3. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 39, 74

   This sentence stands where Ham's and Shem's sections have their closing formula ("These are the sons of Ham… by their clans, by their tongues," vv. 20, 31). Japheth's section has no closing line of its own, and many read v. 5 as its close, with "These are the sons of Japheth" fallen out before it. אִיֵּי הַגּוֹיִם are "the coastlands of the nations," the shores and islands of the Mediterranean (Isa 11:11; 42:4; Jer 2:10; Ezek 27:6). "A man by his tongue": the Table already has many tongues (vv. 5, 20, 31), and 11:1 then begins with one lip. The Table is set out by kin, and the story of Babylon tells how the speech came to differ, so the Hebrew puts the result before its cause. לָשׁוֹן "tongue" and שָׂפָה "lip" (11:1–9) are two organs of speech used for language; each keeps its organ (39), so the reader can see that the two chapters use two words.

4. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "Mizraim" (KJV) / "Egypt" (RSV)

   Rulings 18, 2

   מִצְרַיִם is the ordinary name of the land of Egypt (12:10–14), dual in form. In the Table it stands among the sons of Ham and "bears" peoples (v. 13), as Canaan, also a land, bears Sidon and the Jebusite (vv. 15–18). The KJV prints "Mizraim" for the son and "Egypt" for the land, making two names of one word. One name is printed for the one word (18), and the Table's way of counting lands and peoples as sons is left for the reader to see. The same holds for אַשּׁוּר among the sons of Shem (v. 22; KJV, RSV "Asshur"): its gloss "Assyria" was settled at 2:14 and is held (2).

5. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 90, 20

   The qal of יָלַד with a father as subject is "bore" through the Table (vv. 8, 13, 15, 24, 26), as at 4:18 (ruling 90). The Table uses the plain stem; the line of Shem in 11:10–27 goes back to the hiphil "produced" of Gen 5, the verb of the heading תּוֹלְדֹת "producings" (v. 1). The difference between the stems is left where the Hebrew puts it. The niphal (v. 1) and the pual (vv. 21, 25) are "born."

6. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 18, 46

   נִמְרֹד sounds like נִמְרֹד "we will rebel" (מָרַד), and the rabbis heard it so: he was called Nimrod because he made the whole world rebel (b. Erubin 53a; b. Pesahim 94b). Josephus makes him the one who urged the building of the tower (Antiquities 1.113–114). Mic 5:5 calls Assyria "the land of Nimrod." "He began to be" uses the hiphil of חָלַל, the verb of 6:1 ("the human began to multiply") and 11:6 ("this they have begun to do"); גִּבּוֹר "mighty one" is the word of 6:4, "the mighty ones that were of old." The Hebrew says only that he was the first of the mighty ones after the flood; the rebel is the tradition's reading of his name.

7. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "a mighty hunter" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 39, 2

   צַיִד is game, the hunted animal and its meat: "Isaac loved Esau, for game was in his mouth" (25:28); "go out to the field and hunt game for me" (27:3). The hunter is צַיָּד (Jer 16:16). "A mighty one of game" keeps the noun and the construct, like "a man of the field" (25:27); the hunter is implied, not printed (39). Genesis Rabbah 37:2 and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan make him a hunter of people, who trapped them with words.

8. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "before the LORD" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 1, 39

   לִפְנֵי is "to the face of." It can be the regard of the one who sees: the land was ruined "before the elohim" (6:11), Noah was "just before me" (7:1), and Nineveh was "a city great to Elohim" (Jonah 3:3), so Nimrod was mighty even in Adonai's sight. Or it can be defiance, a standing up against the face: Targum Neofiti and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan have "a mighty one in sin before the LORD," and Rashi, after Genesis Rabbah 37:2, reads that he knew his master and set out to rebel against him. "In the face of" holds the regard and the defiance alike in English, and keeps the noun "face" (39), so the crux stays open (1). The verse ends with a saying ("thus it is said"), as 22:14 does.

9. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "and Calneh, in the land of Shinar" (KJV) / "and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar" (RSV)

   Rulings 40, 74

   The Masoretic text reads וְכַלְנֵה, a fourth city, Calneh. The RSV revocalises the same letters as וְכֻלָּנָה "and all of them," because no Calneh is known in Shinar: the Calneh of Amos 6:2 (and Calno of Isa 10:9) is in Syria. No ancient version reads "all of them" (LXX Χαλαννη, Vulgate Chalanne), so the Masoretic reading is printed with the evidence (40). Babylon, Erech and Accad are Babylon, Uruk and Akkad, the great cities of the south. Babylon is named here first, before its story (11:1–9).

10. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Out of that land went forth Asshur" (KJV) / "From that land he went into Assyria" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 74, 115, 117

    יָצָא אַשּׁוּר has two readings. (a) Asshur, Shem's son (v. 22), is the subject: a son of Shem (v. 22) left the land of Nimrod and built the Assyrian cities. So the LXX (ἐξῆλθεν Ασσουρ), the Vulgate (egressus est Assur) and Targum Onkelos; Rashi, after the midrash, says Asshur left when he saw his sons following Nimrod in the revolt of the tower. (b) Nimrod is still the subject, and אַשּׁוּר is the goal of the motion without a preposition, as a place often is ("go to Anathoth," 1 Kgs 2:26). The verse goes on with Nimrod's kingdom ("the beginning of his kingdom," v. 10), and Mic 5:5 sets "the land of Assyria" beside "the land of Nimrod." English cannot hold both. Reading (a) is printed, with the oldest witnesses and with Alter and von Rad. The name is "Assyria," as at v. 22 (115): the Table counts lands among the sons, and here the son acts.

11. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 18

    רְחֹבֹת עִיר is "broad places of a city," its open squares (Prov 1:20). It may be a name (RSV "Rehoboth-Ir") or a description of Nineveh's open quarters. It is printed as a name, with its second word in its gloss, as the KJV printed "the city Rehoboth."

12. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 8, 74

    "That is the great city": the pronoun הִוא may point to Resen, the last named, or to Nineveh with the towns around it. Jonah calls Nineveh "the great city" three times (1:2; 3:2; 4:11) and "a city great to Elohim" once (3:3), which favours Nineveh; the grammar leaves Resen possible, and the English keeps "that."

13. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 74

    "From where Philistines went out" follows Casluhim. Amos 9:7, Jer 47:4 and Deut 2:23 bring the Philistines from Caphtor, the next name in the list, and many think the clause has moved; the Masoretic order is kept. Caphtor is Crete (Akkadian Kaptara, Egyptian Keftiu). "Philistines" has no article, as in the Hebrew.

14. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 37

    נָפֹצוּ is the niphal of פּוּץ, "were scattered." The verb comes back at the tower: the builders build "lest we scatter" (11:4), and Adonai "scattered them" (11:8, 9). The chain is held, so the reader sees the clans of Canaan doing here what the builders feared there. 9:19 used another verb for the peopling of the land from Noah's sons, נָפַץ "disperse."

15. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 103

    The border runs "from Sidon… to Gaza," a range opened by מִן, so the first עַד is "to" (103). The second limb, toward Sodom, has no "from" of its own, and its עַד is "as far as." בֹּאֲכָה is the infinitive of "come" with a suffix, "your coming": the idiom of direction, "as you come toward Gerar" (v. 30; 13:10; 25:18). Lasha is unknown; Jerome, after Jewish informants, takes it for Callirrhoe, the hot springs east of the Dead Sea.

16. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 18

    עֵבֶר is "beyond, across" (עֵבֶר הַיַּרְדֵּן "beyond the Jordan"), and the name stands behind עִבְרִי "Hebrew," first used of Abram (14:13), where the LXX translates it ὁ περάτης, "the one from across." Shem is introduced as "the father of all the sons of Eber" before his sons are listed, though Eber is his great-grandson (v. 24): of all Shem's line, the branch that leads to Abram is named first.

17. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "the brother of Japheth the elder" (KJV) / "the elder brother of Japheth" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 2

    הַגָּדוֹל "the great" may belong to Japheth or to Shem. Of sons, the great one is the elder (27:1, Esau "his great son"; 29:16). The LXX makes Japheth the elder (ἀδελφῷ Ιαφεθ τοῦ μείζονος, the genitive agreeing with Japheth), and Rashi reckons the same from the ages at 5:32 and 11:10. The Vulgate makes Shem the elder (fratre Iafeth maiore), as the order "Shem, Ham and Japheth" suggests (5:32; 10:1). "The brother of Japheth the great" holds both, as the KJV's English did, and keeps the settled gloss "great" (2).

18. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18

    The name פֶּלֶג is explained by נִפְלְגָה "was divided." English cannot keep "Peleg" and "divided" in one sound (17), so the pun is in this note. The division has been read three ways. (a) The speech: the land was divided at Babylon (11:8–9), in Peleg's days (Seder Olam 1; Genesis Rabbah 37:7; Rashi). (b) The land itself was divided by lot among Noah's sons (Jubilees 8:8–11). (c) The land was cut by channels: פֶּלֶג is a water-channel ("channels of water," Ps 1:3; 65:10), and the canals of Mesopotamia have been suggested. "The land" in these chapters is often its people, as in 11:1.

19. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 74

    "From these the nations separated in the land after the flood": the Table ends where 9:19 began ("these three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole land was dispersed"). The next chapter goes back to a time when all the land was one lip (11:1), and then follows one line, Shem's, to Abram (11:10–26).