17 The sons of Shem: Elam and Asshur and Arpachshad and Lud and Aram and Uz and Hul and Gether and Meshech.
And Elam was armed with arrows, and Aram came on horseback; and the breastplate of Kir was uncovered.
Take with you words, and come back to the Lord; say to him, Let there be forgiveness for all wrongdoing, so that we may take what is good, and give in payment the fruit of our lips.
There is Elam and all her people, round about her last resting-place: all of them put to death by the sword, who have gone down without circumcision into the lowest parts of the earth, who were a cause of fear in the land of the living, and are put to shame with those who go down to the underworld:
There is Asshur and all her army, round about her last resting-place: all of them put to death by the sword:
Cush and Lud and Put were in your army, your men of war, hanging up their body-covers and head-dresses of war in you: they gave you your glory.
And all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes;
And I will put a sign among them, and I will send those who are still living to the nations, to Tarshish, Put, and Lud, Meshech and Rosh, Tubal and Javan, to the sea-lands far away, who have not had word of me, or seen my glory; and they will give the knowledge of my glory to the nations.
These are the sons of Shem: Elam and Asshur and Arpachshad and Lud and Aram. And the sons of Aram: Uz and Hul and Gether and Mash. And Arpachshad became the father of Shelah; and Shelah became the father of Eber. And Eber had two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, because in his time the peoples of the earth became separate; and his brother's name was Joktan. And Joktan was the father of Almodad and Sheleph and Hazarmaveth and Jerah And Hadoram and Uzal and Diklah And Obal and Abimael and Sheba And Ophir and Havilah and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. And their country was from Mesha, in the direction of Sephar, the mountain of the east. These, with their families and their languages and their lands and their nations, are the offspring of Shem. These are the families of the sons of Noah, in the order of their generations and their nations: from these came all the nations of the earth after the great flow of waters.
A vision of fear comes before my eyes; the worker of deceit goes on in his false way, and the waster goes on making waste. Up! Elam; to the attack! Media; I have put an end to her sorrow.
Assur is joined with them; they have become the support of the children of Lot. (Selah.)
Then they came to Zerubbabel and to the heads of families, and said to them, Let us take part in the building with you; for we are servants of your God, even as you are; and we have been making offerings to him from the days of Esar-haddon, king of Assyria, who put us here.
But still the Kenites will be wasted, till Asshur takes you away prisoner. Then he went on with his story and said, But who may keep his life when God does this? But ships will come from the direction of Kittim, troubling Asshur and troubling Eber, and like the others their fate will be destruction.
And in the words which the Lord had given him he said, From Aram Balak has sent for me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the East: come, put curses on Jacob for me and be angry with Israel.
Now in the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar, Arioch, king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of Goiim,
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 1 Chronicles 1
Commentary on 1 Chronicles 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The First Book of Chronicles
Chapter 1
This chapter and many that follow it repeat the genealogies we have hitherto met with in the sacred history, and put them all together, with considerable additions. We may be tempted, it may be, to think it would have been well if they had not been written, because, when they come to be compared with other parallel places, there are differences found, which we can scarcely accommodate to our satisfaction; yet we must not therefore stumble at the word, but bless God that the things necessary to salvation are plain enough. And since the wise God has thought fit to write these things to us, we should not pass them over unread. All scripture is profitable, though not all alike profitable; and we may take occasion for good thoughts and meditations even from those parts of scripture that do not furnish so much matter for profitable remarks as some other parts. These genealogies,
1Ch 1:1-27
This paragraph has Adam for its first word and Abraham for its last. Between the creation of the former and the birth of the latter were 2000 years, almost the one-half of which time Adam himself lived. Adam was the common father of our flesh, Abraham the common father of the faithful. By the breach which the former made of the covenant of innocency, we were all made miserable; by the covenant of grace made with the latter, we all are, or may be, made happy. We all are, by nature, the seed of Adam, branches of that wild olive. Let us see to it that, by faith, we become the seed of Abraham (Rom. 4:11, 12), that we be grafted into the good olive and partake of its root and fatness.
1Ch 1:28-54
All nations but the seed of Abraham are already shaken off from this genealogy: they have no part nor lot in this matter. The Lord's portion is his people. Of them he keeps an account, knows them by name; but those who are strangers to him he beholds afar off. Not that we are to conclude that therefore no particular persons of any other nation but the seed of Abraham found favour with God. It was a truth, before Peter perceived it, that in every nation he that feared God and wrought righteousness was accepted of him. Multitudes will be brought to heaven out of all nations (Rev. 7:9), and we are willing to hope there were many, very many, good people in the world, that lay out of the pale of God's covenant of peculiarity with Abraham, whose names were in the book of life, though not descended from any of the following families written in this book. The Lord knows those that are his. But Israel was a chosen nation, elect in type; and no other nation, in its national capacity, was so dignified and privileged as the Jewish nation was. That is the holy nation which is the subject of the sacred story; and therefore we are next to shake off all the seed of Abraham but the posterity of Jacob only, which were all incorporated into one nation and joined to the Lord, while the other descendants from Abraham, for aught that appears, were estranged both from God and from one another.