CHAPTER 6*<\/p>\n
CELESTIAL-TERRESTRIAL INTERMARRIAGE (vv. 1\u20134)<\/p>\n
At the beginning of history, humans strove to rise to the level of divine beings, and God intervened. Humankind cannot be immortal. Here divine beings lower themselves to the level of humans, and God intervenes. A severe limitation on human longevity results.
\nThe account given in these few verses is surely the strangest of all the Genesis narratives. It is so full of difficulties as to defy certainty of interpretation. The perplexities arise from the theme of the story, from its apparent intrusiveness within the larger narrative, from its extreme terseness, and from some of its vocabulary and syntax. The passage cannot be other than a fragment of what was once a well-known and fuller story, now etched in the barest outline.
\nLegends about intercourse between gods and mortal women and between goddesses and men, resulting in the generation of demigods, are widespread and familiar ingredients of pagan mythology. The present theme of celestial beings arriving on earth and intermarrying with humans seems at first glance to belong to the same genre, echoes of which are found in other biblical passages. Thus, behind the exclamation of Isaiah 14:12\u2014\u201cHow are you fallen from heaven, \/ O Shining One, son of Dawn!\/ How are you felled to earth\u201d\u2014is the notion of angels in rebellion against God and thereby forfeiting their angelic dignity. Job 4:18\u201319 similarly expresses the theme of the corruptibility of angels: \u201cIf He cannot trust His own servants, \/ And casts reproach on His angels, \/ How much less those who dwell in houses of clay.\u201d
\nIn light of these and other biblical references, such as Ezekiel 32:27, it is quite likely that the main function of the present highly condensed version of the original story is to combat polytheistic mythology. The picture here presented of celestial beings intermarrying with women on earth may partake of the mythical, but it does not overstep the bounds of monotheism; there is only one God who passes judgment and makes decisions. The offspring of such unnatural union may have possessed heroic stature, but they have no divine qualities; they are flesh and blood like all humans. They are not only mortal, but their life span is severely limited as compared with the personages listed in chapter 5. The one God is recognized as holding sole title to the breath of life, which He controls as He wills.
\nThis literary segment has three points of connection with the preceding passage: the opening reference to human fecundity in verse 1 takes up the theme implicit in the genealogy; mention of daughters links up with the oft-repeated formula there regarding the begetting of sons and daughters; and the specific restriction of human longevity presupposes knowledge of the extraordinary ages recorded in chapter 5. At the same time, the story is immediately followed by God\u2019s verdict on human wickedness, and the impression is created, even if not made explicit, that it illustrates the magnitude and the universality of evil in the world. Even the celestial host is corrupted. True, mankind is not condemned here for the acts of angels, but the effect is that the world order has been disturbed.<\/p>\n
1. men Hebrew ha-\u02beadam is here a collective, the human race.1<\/p>\n
2. the divine beings The definite article points to a familiar and well-understood term.2 The context in Job 1:6; 2:1; and 38:7 unmistakably proves the reference to be to the angelic host, the celestial entourage of God. This is a poetic image drawn from the analogy of human kings surrounded by their assemblage of courtiers. Occasionally, as in 1 Kings 22:19, \u201cthe host of heaven\u201d is used to the same effect.<\/p>\n
saw how beautiful The implication is that they were driven by lust, so that external beauty, and not character, was their sole criterion in the selection of mates.<\/p>\n
took wives Hebrew l-k-\u1e25 \u02beishah is the regular term for the marriage relationship. There is no suggestion here of violent possession or any condemnation of the women involved.<\/p>\n
3. The LORD said See Comment to 3:22.<\/p>\n
My breath The life force that issues from God, corresponding to \u201cthe breath of life\u201d in 2:7.3 Its presence or withdrawal determines life and death.<\/p>\n
shall not abide This rendering of the otherwise unexampled Hebrew yadon best suits the context and follows the Septuagint, the Vulgate, Saadia, and Ramban. However, Rashi, Rashbam, Bekhor Shor, and Ibn Ezra connect the word with the stem d-y-n, \u201cto judge.\u201d The meaning here would then be something like, \u201cI shall not go on suspending judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n
in man Taken together with the next clause, the reference would be specifically to the offspring of these unnatural unions, but all humankind is included within the scope of the verdict because disorder has been introduced into God\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n
flesh They are not divine despite their nonhuman paternity.4 \u201cFlesh\u201d connotes human frailty. Psalms 56:5 and Isaiah 31:3 are good examples of this usage.<\/p>\n
one hundred and twenty years The duration of human life is drastically shortened, the diminution being emblematic of moral and spiritual degeneration.5 Early exegesis of this verse prefers to see here a reference to the interval of time remaining before the Flood. The figure would then represent three conventional generations of forty years each.6<\/p>\n
4. This verse is obscure, probably deliberately so, in order to downgrade the mythic tone. The etymology of Nephilim is uncertain.7 The obvious association with n-f-l yields the rendering \u201cfallen ones,\u201d that is, fallen angels. But it is not clear from the text that the Nephilim are identical with the \u201cdivine beings.\u201d Rather, they appear to be the offspring of the misalliances, who continued to generate Nephilim in the course of their married lives. Because Numbers 13:33 implies that these were people of extraordinary physical stature, the term was understood to mean \u201cgiants\u201d or \u201cheroes.\u201d While it is not certain from the text whether or not the Nephilim themselves procreated, it is contrary to the understanding of the biblical narrative that they should have survived the Flood. Hence, the reference in Numbers is not to the supposedly continued existence of Nephilim into Israelite times; rather, it is used simply for oratorical effect, much as \u201cHuns\u201d was used to designate Germans during the two world wars.<\/p>\n
cohabited Significantly, the verb y-d-\u02bf is not used, as in 4:1, 17, and 25, but a coarser term, as befits the circumstances.<\/p>\n
heroes of old, the men of renown Their heroic exploits were the subject of many a popular tale. On the analogy of 11:4, it is possible that they were guilty of some vainglorious outrages.<\/p>\n
THE PROLOGUE TO THE FLOOD (vv. 5\u20138)<\/p>\n
The few notices interspersed with the genealogies of chapters 4 and 5 suggest a situation of generational regression from a moral point of view. Endowed with free will, man has used God\u2019s gift to mischievous ends. The limit of divine tolerance in the face of increasing evil has been reached.
\nThese verses are by way of theodicy; that is, the Narrator is careful to stress that the universal cataclysm into which the world is about to be plunged is not the result of blind fate or the workings of divine caprice but the considered judgment of God made inevitable by human evil.<\/p>\n
5. The LORD saw This phrase has juridical overtones, implying both investigation of the facts and readiness for action.8<\/p>\n
how great The use of the same Hebrew stem here as in verse 1 suggests that the measure of evil grows in proportion to the growth in population.<\/p>\n
every plan devised by his mind Literally, \u201cevery product of the thoughts of his heart.\u201d In biblical psychology, mental phenomena fall within the sphere of the heart, which is the organ of thought, understanding, and volition, not of feeling. In later Hebrew, yetser, \u201cthe thing devised, the product,\u201d is the term for the innate impulses or drives in human beings that dispose them to good (yetser tov) or evil (yetser ra\u02bf) and that can be controlled and directed by the exercise of the will. God\u2019s observation is a judgment on the moral state of man at that specific time.<\/p>\n
6. regretted \u2026 saddened See Comment to 5:29. This is an anthropopathism, or the ascription to God of human emotions, a frequent feature of the biblical narrative. The need for such usage arises from the inherent tension between God\u2019s transcendence and His immanence. On the one hand, He is conceived to be wholly outside of nature, omniscient and omnipotent, sovereign over time and space, and not subject to change. On the other hand, He is also immanent in the world, not withdrawn from it, a personal God who is actively involved in the lives of His creatures, approachable by them, and responsive to their needs. God\u2019s transcendence requires formulation in abstract, philosophical language that poses the danger of depriving Him of personality and relevance. God\u2019s immanence must unavoidably be expressed in concrete, imaginative terms that entail the risk of compromising His invariability. The biblical writers frequently took that risk for the sake of emphasizing God\u2019s vital presence and personality; otherwise, the God idea would have lost all meaning for them. Statements like that in Numbers 23:19, \u201cGod is not man to be capricious, \/ Or mortal to change His mind,\u201d and 1 Samuel 15:29, \u201cHe is not human that He should change His mind,\u201d serve as a corrective to the misunderstanding that may arise from a passage such as this one. In both instances, the Hebrew uses the same verb, here rendered \u201cregretted.\u201d<\/p>\n
saddened God\u2019s decision is made in sorrow not in anger.<\/p>\n
7. The LORD said Compare verse 3.<\/p>\n
8. Noah Mention of him without further detail presupposes knowledge of 5:28\u201329.<\/p>\n
Noah \u2026 favor The reason for this is given in verse 9 and in 7:1. The two words in Hebrew constitute an anagram: n\u1e25-\u1e25n.<\/p>\n
Noah and the Flood (6:9\u20139:17)<\/p>\n
Noa\u1e25<\/p>\n
By the tenth generation after Adam, human evil has reached the ultimate depths. The moral pollution is so great that the limits of divine tolerance have been breached. The world must be purged of its corruption.
\nThe Flood is a cosmic catastrophe that is actually the undoing of creation. But God\u2019s chastisement and grace operate simultaneously, so that out of the disaster comes renewal. One righteous man, Noah, together with his family and representative animals and birds are to be saved in order to regenerate the world.
\nThe action progresses in four stages. Noah receives detailed instructions from God as to how to ensure his survival and carries these out to the letter (6:9\u201322). Then the Flood is unloosed with all its intended devastation (chap. 7). Third, the Flood comes to its appointed end (8:1\u201314). Finally, the harmony between God and humanity is restored and the reordering of the world is decreed (8:15\u20139:17).<\/p>\n
The Mesopotamian Background. The very notion of a deluge of cataclysmic proportions raises the question as to the origin and historic setting of the narrative.
\nIt is unlikely that the topography of the Land of Israel, a hilly country with a dry climate, could have served as the source of inspiration. No accumulation of clay deposits, the telltale evidence of extensive flooding, has been uncovered in excavations there. None, for instance, is present in Jericho, a town that dates back 9,000 years. Indeed, rabbinic lore has it that the Land of Israel was exempt from the Flood.
\nMesopotamia, on the other hand, supplies a natural locale for a flood tradition. Both cuneiform documents and archaeological research provide abundant testimony to periodic inundation of the flat alluvial valley between the Tigris and Euphrates. Torrential rains coupled with seasonal cyclones, and the early melting of the snows in the mountains of Anatolia, have from time to time combined to cause the rivers to burst their banks and turn the land into hundreds of miles of lake. It is not surprising that it is Mesopotamian civilization that produced the popular flood stories of the ancient Near East, stories that have come down to us in several versions and recensions.
\nThe fullest extant narrative is that found in the eleventh tablet of the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic. However, the flood episode in that version is a late addition to the story. Its parent version was the Atra\u1e2basis Epic, a history of the human race from creation to the flood and its aftermath. There also exists a Sumerian counterpart to the flood narrative. The Mesopotamian story even survived into Hellenistic times. The Babylonian priest Berossus (3rd century B.C.E.) included it in his history of Babylon.
\nThe name of the hero differs from version to version. In Gilgamesh it is Utnapishtim, which means \u201cHe found [everlasting] life\u201d; Atra\u1e2basis means \u201cexceedingly wise\u201d; Ziusudra of the Sumerian epic, Grecized by Berossus as Xisuthros, denotes \u201clife of long days.\u201d The different accounts also vary in other details. Nevertheless, the literary structure and wealth of descriptive material common to them all warrant the conclusion that they are interdependent.
\nThere is also good reason to believe that a single historic event inspired the original composition. It is precisely from present-day Fara, the site of ancient Shuruppak, where Utnapishtim lived, that we have archaeological evidence of a devastating deluge. Similar fluvial deposits from the same date, about 2900 B.C.E., have turned up in the excavations at Kish. Moreover, it can now be independently established that the mythical hero Gilgamesh was actually a historical figure, a king of Uruk, as was Ubartutu, a king of Shuruppak and father of Utnapishtim. Similarly, Ziusudra was a king of the same town.<\/p>\n
Genesis and the Mesopotamian Accounts. It is safe to conclude that the parallels between the biblical account of the Flood and the Mesopotamian stories, being so numerous and detailed, are much more than the result of mere coincidence. Yet it cannot be claimed that any version presently known is the direct source of the biblical narrative, for the latter has points of contact with each version while it also contains items independent of them all. The many parallels and contrasts are given at their appropriate place within the commentary. A few significant items of broader interest are mentioned here as introductory material.
\nIn the Bible, the Flood is a climactic turning point in a larger history of humankind that begins with the history of the world. The identical situation is present in the Sumerian, Atra\u1e2basis, and Berossus stories, and it is reflected in the Sumerian King List. A crucial point of departure by the Bible from all these versions is the deliberate divine decision to save the hero, which is communicated to him directly. In the Mesopotamian tales, humanity was supposed to have been completely wiped out; the rescue of the hero occurred inadvertently, by dint of the perfidy and subterfuge of one of the gods acting against the intent of the others. The motivation of the deities in causing a flood is not recorded in Gilgamesh or Berossus, while in the Atra\u1e2basis story the flood is the gods\u2019 solution to the tumult of mankind, which increasingly disturbs them. This is apparently another way of describing the problem of overpopulation. In Genesis, the Flood is God\u2019s response to the pollution of the earth by the moral corruption of the human race, and there is not the slightest doubt that it is Noah\u2019s integrity that determines his fate. In Atra\u1e2basis and Berossus, the hero also appears to be famed for his piety and integrity, but there is no explanation for the favor shown to Utnapishtim. Both Noah and Xisuthros belong to the tenth generation of antediluvians; in the Sumerian King List there are eight such, and the other versions are silent on the place of the hero in the chronological scheme. While the biblical Noah is an ordinary person, the heroes of the parallel versions are of royal blood.
\nThe duration of the deluge is not uniform in the various accounts. Atra\u1e2basis and the Sumerian version have seven days and seven nights followed by the shining sun. In Gilgamesh there seem to be six days of inundation. Berossus gives no information on the subject, nor do the Mesopotamian accounts report on the time it took for the earth to dry up. By contrast, Genesis has a precise chronology for the various stages of the Flood.
\nPerhaps the most significant of all the distinctive features of the Torah account is that only Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives enter the ark, whereas in the other accounts the builders of the vessel, the boatman, relatives, and friends are passengers with the hero and his family. This means that only in Genesis is the concept of a single family of man possible; indeed, it is a major theme.
\nFrom all the foregoing, coupled with the detailed observations made in the commentary, it is clear that our biblical account constitutes an independent Israelite version that is nevertheless closely related to the Mesopotamian traditions. It is likely that underlying the present prose narrative was an earlier poetic composition, the substratum of which may still be discernible. This would account for the occurrence of so many unique or rare words, such as gofer, kinnim, tsohar, mabbul, yekum, and keshet. It would also explain poetic sentences such as 7:11 and 8:22, as well as the sevenfold repetition of so many key words. When Isaiah 54:9 refers to \u201cthe waters of Noah\u201d rather than to \u201cthe Flood,\u201d for instance, there may be a citation from some ancient popular source not otherwise preserved. There is every reason to believe that in ancient Israel, as in Mesopotamia, more than one version of the great flood story once circulated, each distinguished by characteristic vocabulary and emphasis on certain details. As a matter of fact, many modern scholars claim that it is still possible to isolate the various pre-Pentateuchal strands of Israelite tradition utilized by the Narrator in producing the present, definitive Torah edition of the Flood story. The evidence for this is taken to be the existence of doublets, the differences in the divine names\u2014sometimes YHVH, sometimes \u02beelohim\u2014and stylistic variants for the same thing. Examples of the latter are \u201cmale and female\u201d in 6:19 and 7:16 but \u201cmales and their mates\u201d (lit. \u201cman and his wife\u201d) in 7:2; the use of m-\u1e25-h, \u201cto blot out,\u201d in 6:7 and 7:4, 23, as opposed to sh-\u1e25-t, \u201cdestroy,\u201d in 6:13\u201317; m-v-t, \u201cto die,\u201d in 7:22 but g-v-\u02bf, \u201cto perish,\u201d in 6:17 and 7:21; kol ha-yekum, \u201call existence,\u201d in 7:4, 23 but kol basar, \u201call flesh,\u201d in 6:13, 17, and 7:21. There are also said to be internal differences in matters of chronology and in the number of animals to be brought into the ark, though these items can be otherwise explained. See Excursus 2.
\nWhatever be its literary history, the Flood story of the Torah stands out as an authentic, original expression of the religious genius of Israel. Conceptually, spiritually, and morally, it stands in striking contrast to all the other versions.<\/p>\n
The Flood and Creation. The uncompromisingly moral tenor and didactic purpose of the Genesis Flood story have influenced its literary artistry. Because humanly wrought evil is perceived to be the undoing of God\u2019s creativity, numerous elements in the story are artful echoes of the Creation narrative. Thus the divine decision to wipe out the human race employs the same two verbs that are used in the original Creation, but transposed in order to symbolize the reversal of the process (6:7; cf. 1:26\u201327). The Deluge itself is brought about by the release and virtual reuniting of the two halves of the primordial waters that had been separated in the beginning (7:11; cf. 1:1, 6\u20137). The classification of animal life in 6:20 and 7:14 corresponds to that in 1:11\u201312, 21, 24\u201325. The provisioning of food in 6:21 depends upon 1:29\u201330. Noah is the first man to be born after the death of Adam, according to the chronology of 5:28\u201329, and he becomes a second Adam, the second father of humanity. Both personages beget three sons, one of whom turns out to be degenerate. Noah\u2019s ark is the matrix of a new creation, and, like Adam in the Garden of Eden, he lives in harmony with the animals. The role of the wind in sweeping back the flood waters recalls the wind from God in 1:2. The rhythm of nature established in 1:14 is suspended during the Flood and resumed thereafter, in 8:22. Finally, the wording of the divine blessing in 9:7 repeats that in 1:28, just as the genealogical lists of the Table of Nations in chapter 10 parallel those of 4:17\u201326 and 5:1\u201332 that follow the Creation story. In both cases the lineage of the human race is traced back to a common ancestry.<\/p>\n
THE INDICTMENT (vv. 9\u201313)<\/p>\n
9. The story of Noah and the Flood opens with an amplification of the preceding verse (6:8). It makes clear that the election of Noah by God is not a capricious act but the result of the man\u2019s intrinsic moral worthiness.<\/p>\n
This is the line of Noah The present rendering regards the characterization of Noah as parenthetical, with this phrase being completed by verse 10. It is preferable to translate \u201cThis is the story of Noah\u201d and to take the phrase as the caption to the entire narrative in which Noah plays a central role.9 On the \u02beelleh toledot formula, see Comment to 2:4.<\/p>\n
righteous \u2026 blameless These cardinal terms of biblical Hebrew, tsaddik and tamim, are used here for the first time without definition, thus presupposing a clearly recognizable quality of virtue favored by God.10 As Ramban indicates, tsaddik has its origin in legal terminology and implies one who is adjudged to be \u201cin the right,\u201d which is its meaning in such texts as Exodus 23:7, Deuteronomy 25:1, and Proverbs 17:15. Accordingly, the term tsaddik describes one whose conduct is found to be beyond reproach by the divine Judge. The term tamim, which is mostly found in ritual contexts, describes a sacrificial animal that is without blemish, as in Exodus 12:5 and Leviticus 1:3, 10. Only such an animal is acceptable to God, says Leviticus 22:17\u201325. As applied to human beings, tamim acquired a moral dimension connoting \u201cunblemished\u201d by moral fault\u2014hence, a person of unimpeachable integrity. Such an individual enjoys God\u2019s fellowship, according to Psalms 15 and 101:6.<\/p>\n
in his age In the face of universal corruption, he maintained civilized standards of behavior. The prophet Ezekiel (14:14, 20) refers to Noah as one of the outstandingly righteous men of antiquity. Nevertheless, as Sanhedrin 108a reports, some rabbinic sages read into the phrase \u201cin his age\u201d a hint of some qualification of his reputation: had he lived in the age of Abraham, he would have been overshadowed by the patriarch\u2019s superior character. By use of midrash, further support for this view is read into the use of the accusative \u02beet, here \u201cwith,\u201d before \u201cGod,\u201d in contrast to lifnei, literally \u201cahead of,\u201d with the same verb as applied to Abraham in Genesis 17:1. Noah is regarded as needing a divine prop to sustain his integrity, whereas Abraham has moral autonomy. There is indeed a measure of justification in this unfavorable comparison, for, unlike Abraham\u2019s response to the case of Sodom and Gomorrah in 18:23\u201333, Noah does not plead for mercy for his contemporaries. Sensitive to this moral issue, rabbinic lore supplements the text by having Noah warn his fellow men of impending disaster and call them to repentance.<\/p>\n
walked with God See Comment to 5:22. The exceptional inversion of the Hebrew word order gives God pride of place in the sentence, thus accentuating the fact that the standards by which Noah\u2019s righteousness is judged are divine, not human.<\/p>\n
10. The data given in 5:32 are repeated in order to draw attention to the destiny of Noah and his sons as the common ancestors of a renewed humanity.11<\/p>\n
11. The earth The use of such all-inclusive terms as \u201cthe earth,\u201d \u201cman\u2019s wickedness,\u201d and \u201call flesh\u201d in the indictment of humanity serves to justify God\u2019s actions. The totality of the evil in which the world has engulfed itself makes the totality of the catastrophe inevitable.<\/p>\n
corrupt The key Hebrew stem sh-\u1e25-t occurs seven times in the narrative.<\/p>\n
corrupt \u2026 lawlessness The universal corruption is further defined as \u1e25amas. This term parallels \u201cno justice\u201d in Job 19:7 and is elsewhere the synonym of \u201cfalsehood,\u201d \u201cdeceit,\u201d or \u201cbloodshed.\u201d It means, in general, the flagrant subversion of the ordered processes of law.12 From the divine enactments for the regulation of society after the Flood, detailed in chapter 9, it may be deduced that \u1e25amas here refers predominantly to the arrogant disregard for the sanctity and inviolability of human life.<\/p>\n
before God In the judgment of the One who is the ultimate arbiter of human conduct. No higher authority than willful self-interest had determined human conduct generally.<\/p>\n
12. When God saw See Comment to 6:5.<\/p>\n
all flesh It is not clear whether this refers only to all humankind or whether it includes the animal kingdom as well, as in verses 17 and 19. Sanhedrin 108a has the idea that even the beasts had corrupted themselves through the intermating of species. From the regulation in 9:5, it would appear that the animals had become carnivorous, contrary to the implications of God\u2019s decree in 1:30. The utopian visions of Isaiah 11:6\u20137 and 65:25, which see the animal kingdom as ideally herbivorous, support such a view.<\/p>\n
13. God said to Noah God speaks to him directly seven times in this narrative. In the Mesopotamian tales, the decision of the gods was to have been kept secret from man.
\nNo date is given for the initial communication with Noah. From 7:11 and 4, however, it is clear that Noah received the order to board the ark on the tenth day of the second month, that is, forty days after the New Year. Because forty is a symbolic number in the Bible, and especially so in this story, it is reasonable to conclude that God was thought to have first communicated to Noah his decision about the impending fate of the world on New Year\u2019s day.<\/p>\n
an end Hebrew kets is overwhelmingly used in biblical Hebrew in a temporal context, meaning \u201ca set term,\u201d the completion of a fixed period of time, as in Habakkuk 2:3, Psalms 39:5, and Job 6:11. Hence it can connote \u201cdoom,\u201d as in Amos 8:2 and Lamentations 4:18. Kets later became a key term in the vocabulary of Jewish eschatology, the doctrine of a violent and radical change in the direction of history that brings an end to one era and signals the regeneration of humanity. In this context, the kets stems from the unbridgeable gap between man\u2019s willful course and God\u2019s revealed will.<\/p>\n
because of them They brought it on themselves. The impending catastrophe is not the product of divine caprice or nature\u2019s blind fury.<\/p>\n
to destroy them The Hebrew employs the same stem as for the word \u201ccorrupt.\u201d The idea is that humankind cannot undermine the moral basis of society without endangering the very existence of its civilization. In fact, through its corruption, society sets in motion the process of inevitable self-destruction.<\/p>\n
with the earth This is how \u02beet ha-\u02bearets was understood by the ancient versions.13 Genesis Rabba 31:7 interprets that the topsoil of the earth is to be removed. This reflects the biblical idea that moral corruption physically contaminates the earth, which must be purged of its pollution.<\/p>\n
INSTRUCTIONS FOR BUILDING THE ARK (vv. 14\u201316)<\/p>\n
While nothing is left to Noah\u2019s initiative, he himself must fashion the instrument of his own salvation. The stem \u02bf-s-h, \u201cto make,\u201d is featured here seven times to stress this point.<\/p>\n
14. ark The vessel, significantly, is called tevah. This key word recurs seven times here in the instructions for building the ark and seven times again in connection with the subsidence of the waters in 8:1\u201314. Yet tevah, in the sense of an ark, appears again in the Bible only in connection with the salvation of the baby Moses, in Exodus 2:3\u20135. The term suggests a boxlike craft made to float on the water but without rudder or sail or any other navigational aid. It does not use the services of a crew. The use of tevah is intended to emphasize that the fate of the occupants is to be determined solely by the will of God and not to be attributed to the skill of man. By contrast, the hero of the Mesopotamian stories builds a regular ship and employs boatmen to navigate it.<\/p>\n
gopher wood This otherwise unknown type almost certainly refers to a coniferous tree of great durability. Sanhedrin 108b and the Targums, as well as Radak, identify it with the cedar. Many modern scholars prefer the cypress both because of a similarity in sound to the Hebrew and because it was widely used in shipbuilding in ancient times, due to its resistance to rot.<\/p>\n
compartments This is the traditional understanding of the unique Hebrew kinnim. Since the singular ken means \u201ca nest,\u201d the plural is used here in the sense of \u201ccubicles\u201d for the animals.<\/p>\n
pitch The unique Hebrew kofer in this sense is identical with Akkadian kupru, which was used by Utnapishtim and Atra\u1e2basis to caulk their respective ships. The usual word for \u201cpitch\u201d is \u1e25emar, as in 11:3; 14:10; and Exodus 2:3.<\/p>\n
15. cubits Hebrew \u02beammah literally means \u201cforearm,\u201d the distance between the elbow and the tip of the middle finger of an average-sized man (cf. Deut. 3:11). The standard biblical cubit is about 18 inches (45 cm.). This would yield dimensions of about 450 feet (157 m.) in length, 75 feet (23 m.) in width, and 45 feet (14 m.) in height, giving a displacement of about 43,000 tons. Utnapishtim\u2019s vessel is an exact cube of 120 cubits on each side, with a tonnage three or four times that of Noah\u2019s.<\/p>\n
16. an opening for daylight Hebrew tsohar is another unique word.14 It is either the \u201cwindow\u201d of 8:6, or it means \u201ca roof.\u201d Depending on which meaning is adopted, the unclear directive to \u201cterminate it within a cubit of the top\u201d (lit. \u201cfrom above\u201d) could variously mean that a space of one cubit is to be left between the top of the window and the roof, that the window itself is to be a cubit in height, or that the slanting roof should project one cubit beyond the side of the ark.<\/p>\n
decks The Gilgamesh Epic reports on seven stories, each subdivided into nine sections, giving sixty-three compartments in all. The vessel of Atra\u1e2basis seems to have had only two decks.<\/p>\n
THE PURPOSE OF THE ARK (vv. 17\u201322)<\/p>\n
17. For My part The sense is, \u201cWhen you, Noah, have built the ark, I, God, will act.\u201d<\/p>\n
the Flood The extraordinary term mabbul indicates the unparalleled cataclysmic nature of the event.15 The definite article implies some well-known entity. The closer definition here and in 7:6, \u201cwaters upon the earth,\u201d points to a celestial origin. This suggests that mabbul was a technical term denoting the heavenly or upper part of the original cosmic ocean that is now allowed to fall upon the earth.<\/p>\n
18. My covenant This is the first biblical use of the Hebrew term berit, one of the cardinal and pervasive concepts of biblical theology. It is employed for the relationship between God and man and, especially, between God and Israel. In the present passage it is uncertain whether the governing verb means to fashion a covenant anew or to fulfill one already made. Outside the Flood narrative, all biblical usages of the phrase favor the latter interpretation. The meaning would then be that the divine blessing made to Adam in 1:28 would be fulfilled through Noah and his line, an assurance that he and his family would survive and regenerate the world. However, because \u201ccovenant\u201d is not used in connection with the blessing of Adam, the phrase could imply that a new, unconditional guarantee of salvation is now being given to Noah. Still another possibility is to take the term here as anticipating the covenant made after the Flood, as recorded in 9:8\u201317.<\/p>\n
you shall enter the ark, with \u2026 The human occupants are to be restricted to eight persons in all, a single family from which a renewed family of man will spring.<\/p>\n
your sons The males are listed first, then the females. See Comment to 8:16.<\/p>\n
19\u201322. The ark is to be the matrix of a regenerated world.<\/p>\n
21. of everything that is eaten Meaning the vegetarian diet prescribed in 1:29\u201330.<\/p>\n
22. Noah\u2019s unquestioning obedience and unfaltering trust in God are stressed.16 According to Rashi, this verse refers to the actual construction of the ark. If the calculation made in the Comment to verse 13 is correct, the ark would have taken forty days to complete.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 7*<\/p>\n
The construction of the ark is completed. Noah is told to enter it together with those destined to be saved. The Flood is unleashed.<\/p>\n
THE EMBARKATION (vv. 1\u20139)<\/p>\n
1. Go into the ark The key verb b-w-\u02be appears seven times in this chapter.<\/p>\n
Your household The term was defined in 6:18 and is again explained in verse 7. The purpose is to contrast it with the Mesopotamian stories in which, in addition to the hero and his immediate family, his relations, craftsmen, and boatmen also enter the vessel.<\/p>\n
for you alone It is not clear whether Noah\u2019s family is saved solely through his merit or whether they were individually righteous as well. The thesis of Ezekiel 14:14, 20 and 18:20 about strict individual responsibility is not helpful in deciding the point because it reflects the problems and emphases of another age.<\/p>\n
2. clean \u2026 not clean This division cannot be referring to criteria of human consumption after the Flood, when man was permitted to eat flesh, for no such distinctions are made in 9:2\u20133. The categories refer only to suitability for sacrifice. Although only animals are mentioned here, 8:20 shows that the birds too were so classified.1<\/p>\n
seven pairs The discrepancy between the instructions of 6:19\u201320, which speak of one pair of each species, and the requirements of the present verse is explained as follows by those who reject the idea of assigning the two passages to two different strands of tradition: 6:19\u201320 refers to the minimum number needed for the regeneration of the species, whereas 7:2\u20133 includes the additional clean animals to meet the needs of sacrifices after the Flood. As Bekhor Shor notes, one would not require an equal number of males and females merely for breeding purposes.<\/p>\n
4. in seven days\u2019 time Presumably, this is the period of time needed for the future occupants of the ark to get aboard and be properly accommodated. Seven-day periods are characteristic of this story (cf. v. 10 and 8:10, 12).
\nTwo systems of recording time are employed in the Flood narrative; the one registers the interval in days between one development and another, while the other designates exact dates (see Excursus 2).<\/p>\n
I will make it rain The phrase exemplifies the absolute, transcendent character of the one God, who is sovereign over all of nature. He predetermines the extent of the Flood\u2019s duration.<\/p>\n
forty days So verses 12 and 17. Forty, a symbolic number in the Bible, is often connected with purification and the purging of sin.2 It undoubtedly has that significance here.<\/p>\n
5. This refers to the boarding of the ark (cf. 6:22).<\/p>\n
6. six hundred years old See Comment to 5:32. Six hundred constituted a basic unit of time in the Mesopotamian tradition.<\/p>\n
9. two of each Better, \u201cby pairs,\u201d irrespective of the total numbers of each category, be they seven or one of each gender. The text is silent about any personal possessions taken into the ark; it concentrates on living beings. Utnapishtim is careful to take aboard silver and gold, and Atrahasis similarly loads his chattels.<\/p>\n
THE CATACLYSM (vv. 11\u201324)<\/p>\n
11. The seven-day period mentioned in verse 4 terminated on the seventeenth day of the second month. Whether the New Year fell in the fall or the spring is a matter of dispute in Rosh Ha-Shanah 10b\u201311b. According to R. Eliezer, whose view coincides with that of Josephus3 and Targum Jonathan, the rains fell in October and November, the season of heavy precipitation in both Israel and Mesopotamia. The calendar of 8:22, which commences with seed time, also suggests an autumnal New Year. R. Joshua would have the Flood start in the spring, which happens to be the time when the Euphrates experiences its highest swelling and flooding, caused more by the melting of the snows in Anatolia than by the rains. In the Berossus version, the only Mesopotamian one with a precise date, the deluge began in the second month, in the spring.<\/p>\n
fountains \u2026 floodgates This sentence is couched in classic poetic phraseology and parallelistic structure (see Comment to 4:23\u201324). The description of the cataclysm is incisively brief, in striking contrast to the elaborate detail given in the Gilgamesh Epic.
\nThe \u201cgreat deep\u201d is the cosmic abyssal water discussed in the Comment to 1:2.4 The \u201cfloodgates of the sky\u201d are openings in the expanse of the heavens through which water from the celestial part of the cosmic ocean can escape onto the earth. In other words, creation is being undone, and the world returned to chaos.
\nAccording to R. Yohanan in Sanhedrin 108a, the use of the adjective rabbah, \u201cgreat,\u201d both here and in the description of human evil in 6:5, suggests the notion of retributive justice. To put it another way, human wickedness inevitably undermines the very foundations of society, so that the pillars upon which rest the permanence of all earthly relationships totter and collapse, bringing ruin and disaster to humankind.<\/p>\n
15. two each See Comment to verse 9.<\/p>\n
16. the Lord shut him in Atra\u1e2basis and Utnapishtim shut the hatch themselves. Here the text is careful to note that the salvation of Noah is solely due to divine will, not to any independent measures of his own.<\/p>\n
18. drifted Literally, \u201cit went\u201d; that is, the vessel, having no steering gear, was entirely at the mercy of the floodwaters.<\/p>\n
20. higher The waters crested at just about fifteen cubits above the highest peak, so that the ark was half-submerged in water just above the highest mountain.<\/p>\n
22. All \u2026 of life The combination of phrases, a blend of 2:7 with 6:17, is unique and emphasizes the total nature of the catastrophe.<\/p>\n
dry land Marine life was exempted.<\/p>\n
23. The divine intention proclaimed in verse 4 has been wholly carried out.<\/p>\n
was left The Hebrew stem sh-\u02be-r connotes survival by design, not accident.5<\/p>\n
24. This verse may introduce the next chapter or close the preceding. In the latter case it would be rendered, \u201cThe waters swelled on the earth \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
one hundred and fifty days That is, exactly five months of thirty days each. The waters drained away so slowly and imperceptibly that they appeared to remain at their maximum height for this length of time. Tectonic subsidence would cause such a condition.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 8<\/p>\n
THE FLOOD COMES TO AN END (vv. 1\u201314)<\/p>\n
1. God remembered In the Bible, \u201cremembering,\u201d particularly on the part of God, is not the retention or recollection of a mental image, but a focusing upon the object of memory that results in action.1<\/p>\n
Noah He is here the representative human being, like Adam, and therefore he alone is mentioned.<\/p>\n
caused a wind to blow As the waters are the symbol of chaos, the undoing of Creation, so the movement of the wind, Hebrew rua\u1e25, heralds the reimposition of order. See Comment to 1:2.<\/p>\n
2. The phenomena described in 7:11 are abruptly terminated, thus underscoring that everything issues from God\u2019s sovereign will and is under His undisputed control. This is in sharp contrast to the limitations imposed upon the gods by a mythological, polytheistic system. The subservience of the gods to nature and their singular lack of freedom are vividly demonstrated in Utnapishtim\u2019s account. Once the flood started, the gods were terror-struck at the forces they themselves had unleashed. They were appalled at the consequences of their own actions over which they no longer had control. They were \u201cfrightened by the deluge\u201d and they \u201ccowered like dogs crouched against the outer wall; Ishtar cried out like a woman in travail.\u201d<\/p>\n
3\u20134. According to 7:20, when the Flood crested the ark was just above the highest peak. Hence, a slight receding of the waters would cause it to ground.<\/p>\n
4. came to rest Hebrew va-tana\u1e25 is another play on the name noa\u1e25.2<\/p>\n
on the mountains of Ararat Not on Mount Ararat but on the highest peak in Ararat, which is a lofty tableland mentioned in 2 Kings 19:37, Isaiah 37:38, and Jeremiah 51:27. It is known as Urartu in Assyrian inscriptions. That kingdom occupied a large portion of present-day Armenia between the River Araxes and Lake Van. The sources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers lie in this region. Today there is a mountain called Ararat near the conjunction of the Turkish, Armenian, and Iranian borders. Rising nearly 17,000 feet (5,185 m.) above sea level, its peak is perpetually covered with snow.
\nIn the Mesopotamian tales the vessel also ran aground on a mountain. Utnapishtim\u2019s boat settles on Mount Nisir, apparently the modern Pir-Omar-Gudru in southern Kurdistan. In the Berossus edition the landing place lies in southwestern Armenia.<\/p>\n
5. The tops of other mountains in the area became visible seventy-three days after the ark grounded.<\/p>\n
THE RELEASE OF THE BIRDS (vv. 6\u201312)<\/p>\n
Forty days later Noah releases a raven and a dove, and the latter twice more, at seven-day intervals. In ancient times mariners would take birds aboard and use them in order to determine their proximity to land. Utnapishtim waits seven days after grounding before releasing a dove, then a swallow, and then a raven. Berossus, too, tells of three separate dispatches of birds, but there are no details about them. It is not known whether the same practice was part of the Atrahasis story.<\/p>\n
6. At the end of Hebrew kets establishes a kind of verbal symmetry between the pronunciation of humanity\u2019s doom in 6:13 and its fulfillment, just as the forty-day interval here corresponds to the forty days of rain.<\/p>\n
7. sent out Rather, \u201clet out.\u201d The Piel form of this verb usually carries this nuance.3<\/p>\n
the raven The representative of the class of ravens. No reason for doing this is given. The Septuagint version adds here, like the Hebrew in verse 8, \u201cto see whether the waters had abated,\u201d but this is probably an explanatory addition on its part. The raven is a wild bird that is not discriminating in its diet. It feeds on carrion as well as vegetation and could thus obtain its food from among the floating carcasses. That is why it made repeated forays from the ark. Noah could observe its movements over several days.<\/p>\n
8. the dove From the opening words in verse 10 it may reasonably be assumed that seven days intervened between the two experiments. The dove is a gentle, timid bird. When it returned, Noah took it in his hand to see if there was clay on its feet.<\/p>\n
11. toward evening That is, when birds customarily return to their nests. The note implies that the dove had been out all day, signifying the availability of resting places.<\/p>\n
plucked-off The rare noun taraf connotes that it was freshly removed from the tree and was not flotsam, a sure sign that plant life had begun to renew itself.4<\/p>\n
olive leaf The olive tree, one of the earliest to be cultivated in the Near East, is an evergreen. It is extraordinarily sturdy and may thrive for up to a thousand years. Thus it became symbolic of God\u2019s blessings of regeneration, abundance, and strength, which is most likely the function it serves here.5 In the present context the olive branch is invested with the idea of peace and reconciliation, and for this reason it was incorporated into the official emblem of the State of Israel.<\/p>\n
THE GROUND DRIES OUT (vv. 13\u201314)<\/p>\n
13\u201314. On New Year\u2019s day, exactly one year after God first communicated with Noah, the ground was dry,6 meaning that no water was visible on the surface. It took another fifty-six days for the earth to be in the state that it was on the third day of Creation.<\/p>\n
THE DISEMBARKATION (vv. 15\u201319)<\/p>\n
15\u201316. The divine order to disembark corresponds to that for embarkation in 7:1. In the Mesopotamian stories the disembarkation is at the initiative of the hero.<\/p>\n
16. together with your wife The variation in the order of persons from 6:18 and 7:7, where husbands and wives are not listed together, led midrashic sources to infer that sexual relationships were forbidden in the ark and were permitted to be resumed only after disembarkation.7<\/p>\n
17. The regeneration of animal, insect, and bird life is signaled by the repetition of the divine blessing of 1:22.<\/p>\n
19. by families That is, species by species.<\/p>\n
NOAH\u2019S SACRIFICE AND GOD\u2019S RESPONSE (vv. 20\u201322)<\/p>\n
Noah now builds an altar and brings burnt offerings on his own initiative. His act of worship not only expresses gratitude for the safe deliverance of the ark with its living cargo, but also probably has an expiatory function. Now that the earth has been purged of its evil, sacrifice symbolizes the restoration of harmony between God and humanity.<\/p>\n
20\u201321. burnt offerings Hebrew \u02bfolah is literally \u201cthat which ascends,\u201d or that which is entirely consumed by fire on the altar. This is in contradistinction to zeva\u1e25im, of which both priest and worshipper partake (cf. Deut. 12:27).
\nSignificantly, Noah does not offer a libation, in contrast to Utnapishtim. The omission points up the fact that sacrifice is not food for God. This is important because in the Gilgamesh Epic, the destruction of mankind deprived the gods of the food and drink offerings on which they depended to sustain their immortal existence. According to that text, when \u201cthe gods smelled the sweet savor,\u201d they \u201ccrowded like flies around the sacrificer.\u201d The omission of libation in the case of Noah throws light on the statement that \u201cthe Lord smelled the pleasing odor.\u201d8 The phrase is frequently employed in ritual texts in a specific technical sense, divested of its literal meaning. It simply connotes God\u2019s acceptance of the sacrifice, as is clear from Leviticus 26:31. In other words, it affirms that the worshipper\u2019s encounter with God is sincere and wholehearted.<\/p>\n
21. pleasing Hebrew ni\u1e25oa\u1e25 is one more play on the name noa\u1e25.<\/p>\n
the LORD said to Himself This statement of divine resolve is a foil to that of 6:7; there it was for destruction, here for salvation. Similarly, the present observation on the nature of man verbally echoes that of 6:5. The whole makes for an inclusion, or envelopelike structure, with the chiastic reversal of the order signifying the antithesis to the antediluvian situation.<\/p>\n
the devisings of man\u2019s mind As compared with 6:5, the language is considerably modified and is no longer all-inclusive. The statement is not a judgment but an observation that a proclivity for evil is woven into the fabric of human nature. The key phrase is \u201cfrom his youth,\u201d not from birth or conception, implying that the tendency to evil may be curbed and redirected through the discipline of laws. Hence, the next section deals with the imposition of laws upon postdiluvian humanity.<\/p>\n
Never again will I The repetition of the promise, just as in 9:11, accords it the force of a solemn oath.9 Such is the understanding of Isaiah 54:9: \u201cI swore that the waters of Noah \/ Nevermore would flood the earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
22. The ordered processes of nature will never again be interrupted. The rhythm of life, reflected in the rhythmic quality of the language, is here presented through four pairs of merisms\u2014the expression of totality by means of opposites. These describe three environmental phenomena: agricultural, climatic, and temporal.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 9<\/p>\n
Epilogue: The Regeneration and Reordering of Society (vv. 1\u201317)<\/p>\n
The destruction of the old world calls for the repopulation of the earth and the remedying of the ills that brought on the Flood. Society must henceforth rest on more secure moral foundations. New norms of human behavior must be instituted. At the same time, the haunting specter of a repetition of the cataclysm must be laid to rest, lest it have a paralyzing effect on human activity and impede all progress. The epilogue to the Flood narrative attends to these considerations. It divides clearly into two complementary parts, logically interconnected. Verses 1\u20137 deal with the renewal of the world, verses 8\u201317 with divine assurances. A key phrase frames each part: the first, \u201cBe fertile and increase\u201d (vv. 1, 7); the second, \u201cI establish a covenant\u201d (vv. 9, 17).<\/p>\n
THE NEW ORDER (vv. 1\u20137)<\/p>\n
1. The climax to the biblical Flood story affords an illuminating contrast to its Mesopotamian counterpart. The heroes of both are recipients of divine blessings, but whereas Utnapishtim and his wife are granted immortality and are removed from human society, God\u2019s blessing to Noah and his family is socially oriented. They are not to withdraw from the world but to be fertile and to utilize the resources of nature for humanity\u2019s benefit.<\/p>\n
Be fertile See Comment to 1:28. This injunction is in sharp conflict with the Atra\u1e2basis Epic, where the problem that precipitated the flood was overpopulation. The gods, therefore, inflict stillbirth, sterility, and spinsterhood on humanity to ensure that the problem does not recur.<\/p>\n
2\u20134. Man\u2019s power over the animal kingdom is confirmed and enhanced. Animal flesh is henceforth permitted for food, though the privilege is not unrestricted. This concession to human weakness is not a license for savagery.<\/p>\n
4. with its life-blood in it Partaking of the flesh of a living animal is prohibited. It must first be slaughtered. This prohibition is known in rabbinic parlance as \u02beever min he-\u1e25ni, \u201ca limb [cut off] from a living animal.\u201d Also implicit in the formulation is the additional prohibition on partaking of the blood that oozes out of the animal\u2019s dying body. This means that the flesh may not be eaten unless the life-blood has first been drained. These laws are here made incumbent on all humanity. In rabbinic theology they, together with those of the succeeding verses, form part of what are known as the \u201cNoachide Laws.\u201d On this subject see Excursus 3.
\nIt might be thought that the eating of blood would be so naturally repulsive as not to require legal proscription, but the history of the subject discredits such a notion. The frequency with which the prohibition is repeated in the Torah legislation testifies to the attractiveness of the practice in ancient times.1 Its appeal lay in the premise, explicated in Leviticus 17:11, 14 and Deuteronomy 12:23, that the blood constituted the life-essence. Consequently, popular thought had it that one could renew or reinforce one\u2019s vitality through its absorption of blood. For this reason, blood played an important role in the cults of the dead in the ancient world. In the Torah, however, precisely because blood is the symbol of life, it belongs to God alone, as does life itself. The legislation contained in the present verse has no known analogy in the ancient Near East. It, together with Leviticus 17:13 and Deuteronomy 12:24, forms the basis of the Jewish dietary laws governing the koshering of meat, the purpose of which is to ensure the maximum extraction of blood from the flesh before cooking.<\/p>\n
5\u20136. The slaughter of animals, now sanctioned, might easily become a dehumanizing experience. Also, the mass annihilation of human beings in the Flood might have tended to cheapen life in the eyes of the survivors. Accordingly, the reaffirmation of the sanctity of human life and the inviolability of the human person is singularly appropriate here.<\/p>\n
I will require a reckoning Murder cannot be perpetrated with impunity. God Himself calls the criminal to account. Hebrew d-r-sh, with God as the subject, twice repeated for emphasis, is a powerful evocative expression connoting relentless pursuit until punishment is meted out.<\/p>\n
of every beast The killing of a human being by a beast is a disturbance of the divinely ordered structure of relationships laid down in verse 2. The act itself, like murder, constitutes the destruction of the image of God. The creature must therefore be put to death. The principles here enunciated find concrete expression in the legislation of Exodus 21:28, \u201cWhen an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten.\u201d<\/p>\n
of his fellow man Literally, \u201chis brother.\u201d This reiterates the teaching of 4:10 that homicide is fratricide.<\/p>\n
6. The first half of this verse has a poetic ring. The initial three Hebrew words, which describe the crime, are placed in exactly the reverse order to proclaim the penalty\u2014poetic justice! In this way, the chiastic literary form gives expression to the underlying legal principle of talion, or measure for measure. Capital punishment is here divinely sanctioned; murder cannot be recompensed by monetary restitution, as was often the case in the ancient world. As Numbers 35:31 lays down, \u201cYou may not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of a capital crime; he must be put to death.\u201d In practice, however, the imposition of capital punishment is strongly questioned in rabbinic sources. Mishnah Makkot 1:10 states: \u201cA Sanhedrin that executes the death penalty once in seven years is branded \u2018destructive.\u2019 R. Eleazar b. Azariah says, \u2018once in seventy years.\u2019 R. Tarfon and R. Akiba say, \u2018had we been members of the Sanhedrin, no one would ever have been put to death.\u2019 [However,] Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel says, \u2018They would also have multiplied murderers in Israel.\u2019\u00a0\u201d The rabbis explored and took advantage of every mitigating factor in the laws of evidence in order to avoid a death sentence.<\/p>\n
By man It is a human responsibility. The particle bet in Hebrew ba-\u02beadam is here taken to indicate the instrument of punishment.2 Human institutions, a judiciary, must be established for the purpose. This requirement seeks to correct the condition of \u201clawlessness\u201d that existed prior to the Flood (6:11). The blood feud is eliminated, and murder is no longer a private affair between the killer and the family of the victim; it is a crime against society.<\/p>\n
shall his blood be shed This biblical phrase is never used for divine action and can only mean capital punishment humanly administered.<\/p>\n
for in His image \u2026 Murder is the supreme and capital crime because the dignity, sanctity, and inviolability of human life all derive from the fact that every human being bears the stamp of the divine Maker. The murderer may be put to death because his unspeakable act effaces the divine image in his victim and within himself as well, so that his own life forfeits its claim to inviolability. It should be noted that, unlike the law collections of the ancient Near East, the Bible never imposes the death penalty for crimes against the property of one\u2019s fellow.<\/p>\n
image The other term used of the creation of man in 1:26 and 5:3\u2014\u201clikeness,\u201d Hebrew demut\u2014is here omitted, most likely because the cluster of similar sounding words\u2014dam, \u201cblood\u201d; \u02beadam, \u201cman\u201d; and demut\u2014might appear to echo the objectionable Babylonian notion that man was created from clay mixed with divine blood.<\/p>\n
THE COVENANT AND THE RAINBOW (vv. 8\u201317)<\/p>\n
The key term in this section is \u201ccovenant,\u201d Hebrew berit, which is repeated seven times. There are two divine proclamations. In verses 8\u201311, God\u2019s decision, referred to in 8:21, is communicated to the world and is sealed for all eternity by a solemn, unilateral, covenantal pledge that a universal, cataclysmic flood would never recur. In verses 12\u201317, the world is provided with a visible token of that divine commitment.<\/p>\n
9. I now Hebrew va-\u02beani hinneni is the same phrase used in 6:17 to introduce the original pronouncement of doom. The identity draws attention to the reassuring fact that the same Supreme Authority who executed the judgment stands behind the message of hope.<\/p>\n
12. the sign Hebrew \u02beot is here a distinctive, visible object that immediately calls to mind a particular message.3<\/p>\n
13. My bow As Ramban points out, the rainbow is an already existing natural phenomenon that is henceforth invested with new symbolic significance as an eternal and universal testimony to God\u2019s constancy and mercy. This conception has no parallel in biblical literature; no other celestial body is similarly endowed. Of course, being associated with rain, the rainbow naturally lends itself to the purpose, but there is more to it than this.
\nApart from the present passage and Ezekiel 1:28, where the rainbow is emblematic of the radiance of the Divine Presence, Hebrew keshet invariably means \u201ca bow.\u201d This weapon is frequently featured in ancient Near Eastern mythology. In the Mesopotamian creation epic Enuma Elish (6.82\u201390), Marduk suspended in the sky and set as a constellation the victorious bow with which he had defeated Tiamat. In Babylonian astronomy, a group of stars in the shape of a bow was mythologically identified with the accoutrements of the war goddess. In the Ugaritic myth dealing with the relationship of Aqhat and the bellicose goddess Anath, a bow plays a prominent role. In the Bible itself, numerous poetic texts figuratively refer to God\u2019s bow and arrows and are probably echoes of some now lost ancient Hebrew epic.4 Against this background, the rainbow in our narrative takes on added significance as a departure from Near Eastern notions. The symbol of divine bellicosity and hostility has been transformed into a token of reconciliation between God and man.<\/p>\n
15. I will remember My covenant A superficial but instructive parallel exists with passages in Gilgamesh and Atra\u1e2basis5 that relate how, when the gods partook of Utnapishtim\u2019s sacrifice, the goddess Ishtar raised her jeweled necklace and swore that she would ever be mindful of the days of the flood and never forget them. However, this oath is not accompanied by any promise or assurance about mankind\u2019s future, and it issues from the lips of that member of the Mesopotamian pantheon most notorious for perfidy.<\/p>\n
The Depravity of Canaan (vv. 18\u201329)<\/p>\n
This episode is quite independent of the Flood narrative and has no counterpart in the traditions of Mesopotamia. The vine was little cultivated there, and, in any case, the heroes of Mesopotamian epics, unlike Noah, were removed from the world of men and therefore could not be associated with agriculture on earth. Furthermore, mention of Japheth and Canaan takes us out of the Mesopotamian world and into the eastern Mediterranean ambience.
\nThe narrative is also separated from the account of the Flood by a time lapse equivalent to the years it takes for a newly planted vine to yield its grape harvest. This span of time is clearly indicated by the fact that Noah by now has a grown grandson. Nevertheless, a sense of continuity with the foregoing is conveyed by the connectives of verses 18\u201319, as by the unstated but pertinent historical fact that the vine and viticulture were highly developed in the region of Armenia, where the ark grounded.
\nThe section deals with Noah as a culture hero who introduced viticulture and who fell victim to his progeny\u2019s depravity. Because the original incidents, in all their detail, were well known to the biblical audience and for reasons of delicate sensibility, only the barest outline of his downfall is reported here. The fuller account, now lost, has been truncated and condensed, resulting in the many difficulties we now find in the narrative. For instance, we are not certain if Ham is guilty solely of voyeurism or if the description of his offense in verse 22 is a euphemism for some act of gross indecency; we are not told why Noah curses Canaan rather than Ham. Japheth\u2019s alliance with Shem and the threefold emphasis on Ham\u2019s paternity of Canaan and on the curse of servitude imposed on his son are obviously elements of critical importance to the Narrator that require clarification.
\nThe section closes with the death of Noah. This event opens a second ten-generation epoch in the Bible\u2019s scheme of human history, in the course of which nations come into existence. The second era concludes with the birth of Abraham, the founding father of a new nation that is to have a special relationship with God and whose fortunes and destiny are henceforth to constitute the major theme of biblical literature. The ensuing narrative gives a preparatory intimation of the direction in which the Book of Genesis is moving. The focus of interest gradually narrows from the universal to the particular, until the birth of Abraham. God makes promises to Abraham that one day his descendants will dispossess the Canaanites and inherit their land. Abraham belongs to the line of Shem, while the Canaanites derive from Ham. The present episode illustrates the virtue and piety of the original ancestor, Shem, values that are to serve as the paradigm for his descendants, the Israelites. By the same token, the typically degenerate state of the Canaanites provides the reason and moral justification for their displacement.
\nThe portrayal of political relationships in terms of genealogies, a phenomenon that will be more fully examined in the Comments to chapter 10, is a well recognized and recurring feature of the Book of Genesis. The filial relationship of Canaan to Ham in our story must be considered against this background. In 10:6, both Egypt and Canaan are among the sons of Ham. In Psalms 78:51, Egypt is termed \u201cthe tents of Ham,\u201d and in Psalms 105:23, 27 and 106:22, Egypt is again identified with Ham. In other words, Ham in this chapter is most likely symbolic of Egypt, and Canaan, as Ham\u2019s \u201cson,\u201d would be figurative for Egyptian suzerainty over the land of Canaan. This relationship was a historical reality in the Late Bronze Age in the course of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Egyptian Dynasties (ca. 1552\u2013ca. 1200 B.C.E.). The association of Canaan with Egypt finds expression elsewhere in the Bible on a different level. Leviticus 18:3 reads, \u201cYou shall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt where you dwelt, or of the land of Canaan to which I am taking you.\u201d Then follows an inventory of sexual abominations, because of which, the chapter concludes, the Canaanites are expelled from their land. The same sentiment is repeated in Leviticus 20:23 after another list of the depraved practices of the Canaanites. The identical theme underlies several episodes in Genesis: Pharaoh\u2019s kidnapping of Sarai in Egypt (12:10\u201320); Abimelech\u2019s dealings with her and with Rebekah in Canaan (20; 26:7\u201311); the sexual perversions of the Sodomites (19:5\u20138); Dinah\u2019s experience in Shechem (chap. 34); the offenses of Er and Onan, sons of Judah\u2019s Canaanite wife (chap. 38); and, finally, the attempted seduction of Joseph in Egypt by Potiphar\u2019s wife (chap. 39). There can be no doubt that a major function of our present narrative is to introduce the theme of the depravity of the Canaanites.
\nThe role of Japheth, who acts in concert with Shem, and to whom the Canaanites too are to be subjugated, also points to the political-historical level of the narrative. According to the genealogy of Japheth in 10:2\u20134, he becomes the ancestor of tribes and peoples associated with Anatolia and the Aegean. This suggests that behind the text is some historical situation that resulted in the Canaanites becoming subjected both to the Japhethites and to the descendants of Shem. The most plausible theory links the present narrative with the events connected with the invasions by the sea peoples of the east Mediterranean littoral. These peoples first attacked Egypt ca. 1220 B.C.E., during the reign of Merneptah, and then again in 1175 B.C.E., during the reign of Ramses III. It was as a result of these invasions that the Philistines and others from the Aegean area arrived and settled on the coast of Canaan. This happened about the same time that the Israelites were invading Canaan from the east. The Canaanites found themselves assailed from east and west, and their civilization, in the region that was to become the Land of Israel, totally collapsed.
\nSuch, most likely, are the historical circumstances to which the narrative points. However, there is also a didactic level on which it must be understood. Central to the events described are the fundamental biblical teachings that human history is under the continual direction of God and that the fate of peoples is inseparably bound up with their moral state.<\/p>\n
REPEOPLING THE EARTH (vv. 18\u201319)<\/p>\n
18. Ham being the father of Canaan Rashbam observes that this note is an example of a frequently used literary technique of introducing information seemingly irrelevant to the immediate context yet crucial to the understanding of subsequent developments.6 Without it, we would be ignorant of the identity of the object of Noah\u2019s curse.<\/p>\n
19. from these the whole world branched out The divine blessing and command of 9:1 are fulfilled. The next chapter will give the precise details and will conclude with a reiteration of the fact that after the Flood the nations of the world branched out from the three sons of Noah. Behind this emphasis is the natural, nonmagical approach of the Bible to the issue of repeopling the world. By way of contrast, the Atra\u1e2basis Epic ascribes that development to practical magic on the part of the gods, who fashion human beings from clay. In Greek legend, Deucalion and Pyrrha, the survivors of the flood, were both told to cast behind them the bones of their mother, which they understood to mean stones from the earth. These miraculously turned into male and female humans.<\/p>\n
NOAH\u2019S INEBRIATION (vv. 20\u201321)<\/p>\n
20. the tiller of the soil This phrase, a designation of Noah, implies something well known about him, which links up with 5:29 (see Comment).<\/p>\n
was the first to plant a vineyard He is the initiator of orchard husbandry. The next verse implies that Noah was involved not just in viticulture, the science and art of grape-growing, but also in viniculture, the specific cultivation of grapes for wine-making. Here again, as in 4:17\u201322, advances in the arts of civilization are purely human achievements, not the work of gods or demigods as they generally are in the ancient world. Thus, the Egyptians ascribed the original cultivation of the vine to Osiris; the Greeks, to Dionysus. The present story also constitutes another departure from Near Eastern tradition in assigning the origin of wine to postdiluvian times. Utnapishtim is said to have given the beverage to the builders of his vessel before the flood.<\/p>\n
21. No blame attaches to Noah since he was oblivious to the intoxicating effects of his discovery.<\/p>\n
he uncovered himself Habakkuk 2:15 and Lamentations 4:21 also mention exposure of nakedness by the inebriated. The act is associated with shame and with loss of human dignity, as Genesis 3:7, 21 make clear.<\/p>\n
within his tent In the privacy of his dwelling, not in public. This makes Ham\u2019s behavior all the more contemptible. Although the cultivation of the vine implies a settled, nonnomadic community, Noah and his sons still reside in tents. The transition from nomadism to sedentary life is indicated.<\/p>\n
THE BEHAVIOR OF THE SONS (vv. 22\u201323)<\/p>\n
22. The earliest postbiblical traditions take this verse literally,7 and the final clause of verse 23 would seem to support it. Ham compounded his lack of modesty and filial respect by leaving his father uncovered and by shamelessly bruiting about what he had seen. On the other hand, the verbs of verse 24 and the severity of Noah\u2019s reaction suggest that the Torah has suppressed the sordid details of some repugnant act. Rabbinic sources are divided on whether Ham castrated his father or committed sodomy. The former interpretation might be supported by the fact that Noah has no children after the Flood.<\/p>\n
23. so that they did not see their father\u2019s nakedness The Hebrew word order is the reverse of that which tells of Ham\u2019s behavior in verse 22. The chiasm points up the contrast between their conduct and his.<\/p>\n
a cloth Hebrew simlah is a kind of common cloak, more or less square, that also served as a covering at night. This is clear from Exodus 22:25\u201326 and Deuteronomy 24:13.<\/p>\n
NOAH\u2019S CURSE AND BLESSING (vv. 24\u201327)<\/p>\n
The following is the first example of the genre of parental blessing and cursing, featured again in 27:4, 27\u201329, 39\u201340 and especially in chapter 49. As verse 27 shows, the word that issues from Noah\u2019s mouth is itself neither the active agent nor automatically effective; rather, the curse and blessing are actually the invoking of God\u2019s power in judgment of the conduct of the respective parties, to punish the one and to bestow divine favor on the other.<\/p>\n
24. woke up from his wine That is, when he had sobered up.8<\/p>\n
learned what \u2026 had done to him Shem and Japheth must have reported the facts, whatever they were, to their father.<\/p>\n
his youngest son This description implies a tradition that makes Ham the youngest despite the five-times repeated sequence: Shem, Ham, Japheth.9 Ramban points to Genesis 25:9 and Joshua 24:4 as proof that the order of listing need not always reflect the order of birth. In 10:21, the text explicitly states that Shem is the elder brother of Japheth.<\/p>\n
25. Canaan The text is silent as to why Canaan, not Ham, is cursed. Saadia and Ibn Jana\u1e25 construe it to mean \u201cCursed be [the father of] Canaan,\u201d a phrase that has already appeared twice in this brief narrative. A reasonable assumption would be that in the fuller story Canaan, son of Ham, was a participant in the offense against Noah, a detail omitted here on grounds of delicacy and on the assumption that the original story was well known to the reader.<\/p>\n
The lowest of slaves Literally, \u201ca slave of slaves.\u201d10 This construction expresses the extreme degree. Bekhor Shor notes that implicit in the pronouncement of the subjugation of Canaan, repeated three times for emphasis, is a word play on the name, connecting it with the stem k-n-\u02bf, \u201cto be humbled, to humiliate oneself.\u201d<\/p>\n
shall he be Rather, \u201cLet him be.\u201d<\/p>\n
his brothers If taken literally, this would refer to 10:6, but more likely the phrase belongs to the conventional language of curses and blessings. Used of Ishmael in 16:12 and of Jacob in 27:29, 37, it expresses comprehensiveness.<\/p>\n
26. Blessed be the LORD In place of the expected blessing on Shem, which would contrast with the curse on Canaan, we find Noah blessing the Lord. Shem\u2019s disinterested, virtuous behavior earns no other reward than that men are inspired thereby to bless the Lord, whose norms of conduct he upholds. The phrasing of the blessing corresponds to that used by Abraham\u2019s servant in Genesis 24:27 and conforms to the later, standard liturgical formula \u201cBlessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,\u201d which may be a spontaneous outpouring of religious feeling or an expression of thanksgiving.11<\/p>\n
the Lord, The God of Shem Here, too, Bekhor Shor points to word play, for Shem means \u201cname,\u201d and the word frequently evokes the divine name YHVH or the Divine Presence.12<\/p>\n
27. The blessing for Japheth likewise contains a word play, this one explicit, but the rendering, \u201cenlarge\u201d for Hebrew yaft, although traditional, is uncertain.13 The stem p-t-h means \u201cto be open,\u201d and nowhere else does it have the sense of enlargement of territorial boundaries. The phrase may simply be figurative of prosperity. The meaning of the second clause is also problematical. The subject of the verb is Japheth, but elsewhere the idiom means \u201cto displace,\u201d which is hardly appropriate to the present context. The intention must be to convey some unusual, specialized connotation, such as \u201cto live in amity\u201d or \u201cto be allied with.\u201d A subtle point is the use here of the general term \u02beelohim, \u201cGod,\u201d with Japheth, in contrast to the sacred name YHVH, which is exclusive to Shem and later to Israel, his descendants.<\/p>\n
THE DEATH OF NOAH (vv. 28\u201329)<\/p>\n
These two verses conclude the story of Noah. They belong to the pattern of the listings in chapter 5 and complement verse 32 there.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 10*<\/p>\n
The Table of Nations (vv. 1\u201332)<\/p>\n
The preceding chapter noted that after the Flood \u201cthe whole world branched out\u201d from the three sons of Noah. The text now amplifies this statement in elaborate detail through an intricate series of genealogies. Hitherto, all such accounts in Genesis have related to individuals. Now we are given a genealogy of nations.
\nThe Table of Nations, as it has come to be known, is framed by introductory and concluding formulas of summarization. In addition, each of three major groupings has its own caption as well as a generalized closing recapitulation that draws attention to the territorial, linguistic, familial, and national divisions that characterize the human race.
\nThe geographic horizon of this roster of peoples roughly encompasses the vast territory that stretches from the Caucasus in the north to Arabia in the south, from the Iranian plateau in the east to the island of Crete, and perhaps beyond, in the west\u2014all from the perspective of one centered in Canaan, the future Land of Israel, which is where three geographic arcs intersect. The are of Japhethites covers approximately the areas to the north and west of the land, including Asia Minor, the Greek mainland, and the islands of the eastern Mediterranean. That of the Hamites, by far the most extensive, comprises the great river civilizations of the Nile and the Euphrates, as well as the areas both west and east of the Nile Delta and also some parts of Arabia in the south. The Shemite are embraces the area stretching from the Iranian mountains into northern Mesopotamia and Syria and down into the Arabian Peninsula.<\/p>\n
The Nature Of the Table. On the surface, the use of verbs expressing birth and of terms like \u201cson,\u201d \u201cfather,\u201d \u201cfirst-born\u201d suggest straightforward genealogies of the kind already encountered in previous chapters. In actual fact, these recapitulations disclose that the terminology is not meant to be taken literally but, rather, in the same figurative way that one speaks of a \u201cmetropolis\u201d in the sense of \u201cmother city,\u201d of \u201cdaughter colonies,\u201d or of \u201cfatherland\u201d and \u201cmother country.\u201d Many of the personal names listed here are otherwise known to be those of places or peoples. Ten names have plural endings, nine others take the gentilic adjectival suffix -i, which indicates ethnic affiliation, and they also have the definite article, which is inadmissible with personal names in Hebrew.
\nIn the ancient world, kinship terms were often employed to describe treaty relationships. Thus, where the contracting parties were on equal terms, they would describe themselves as \u201cbrothers,\u201d but a vassal would refer to the suzerain as \u201cfather,\u201d and the suzerain would speak of his dependent as \u201cson\u201d or as having \u201cborne\u201d him. The same kind of familial terminology is used in connection with the phenomenon of the \u201ceponymous ancestor\u201d\u2014the explanation of the name of a city or a people deriving from a personage of antiquity who is said to have been its progenitor. The ancient Greeks, who were known as Hellenes, provide an excellent illustration of this process. Hellen was said to have been the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the survivors of the flood. His three sons were Dorus, Aeolus, and Xuthus. The first two were supposed to have been, respectively, the ancestors of two of the four major subdivisions of the Hellenes, the Dorians and Aeolians; the third fathered Ion and Achaeus, from whom sprang the Ionians and Achaeans. Similar familial ethnographic usage is attested at Ugarit, where, for instance, the \u201csons of Ugarit\u201d conduct an international transaction with the \u201csons of Canaan.\u201d
\nIn the Bible, too, a pedigree is often the literary form through which ethnic origins and political and other relationships are described. The genealogical register provides a convenient way of schematizing these relationships. This is demonstrated, for instance, by the merging of the individual with the group. For example, in Genesis 17:20 Ishmael is prenatally destined to become the \u201cfather\u201d of twelve chieftains; however, when the names are listed in 25:16 \u201cin the order of their birth\u201d it is clear that one is dealing with the constituents of a confederation of Arab tribes. In the present chapter, the summarizing formulas in verses 5, 20, and 31 show the same literary process at work and indicate the diverse and composite nature of the materials included.
\nApart from the genealogical data, the Table of Nations, like chapter 4, is sprinkled with various tidbits of information, such as fragmentary biographical details about a certain Nimrod, a list of cities in Mesopotamia, the boundaries of the Canaanite territory, the area of Joktanite settlement, and a reference to some major event that occurred in the days of Peleg.<\/p>\n
Its Problems. The Table itself is riddled with difficulties, many of which remain insoluble in the present state of knowledge. It defies the consistent application of any single criterion of selectivity or of principles of classification, apart from the very general and rudimentary distribution according to the three broad groupings. Racial characteristics, physical types, or the color of skin play no role in the categorizing. Nor is language a guideline since Canaan, recognized in Isaiah 19:18 to have the same tongue as Israel, is affiliated with Egypt among the Hamites, while the Elamites, who spoke a decidedly non-Semitic language, are classified under Shem. A special problem is the listing of Sheba and Havilah under both Ham and Shem and the subsuming of Mesopotamian, Ethiopian, and Arabian entities all under Cush, a Hamite.
\nClearly, geographic proximity, ethnic affiliations, sociopolitical and economic relationships, as well as historical and even literary considerations, were the varied factors that controlled inclusion in the Table and that determined its internal divisions and subdivisions. In many instances, one or more of these factors are evident; in some, future discovery may provide illumination.<\/p>\n
The Seventy Peoples. The peoples listed amount precisely to seventy, excluding Nimrod, who is an individual. There are fourteen Japhethites, thirty Hamites, and twenty-six Shemites. The figure seventy, even if not explicitly given, can hardly be fortuitous. The mere recognition in verse 5 of the existence of additional, unnamed \u201cmaritime nations\u201d lends added significance to the enumeration as being deliberately chosen. In the biblical world the number seventy is \u201ctypological\u201d; that is, it is used for rhetorical effect to evoke the idea of totality, of comprehensiveness on a large scale, as opposed to the use of seven on a smaller scale. Thus, according to Genesis 46:27, the entire household of Jacob that went down to Egypt comprised seventy souls. The representative body of the entire community of Israel in the wilderness consisted of seventy elders, as recorded in Exodus 24:9 and Numbers 11:24; and the prophet Ezekiel, in 8:11, uses the same figure at the end of the period of the monarchy. In the mythology of Canaan, as expressed in Ugaritic literature, the pantheon comprised seventy members, who are said to have been the sons of the supreme god Il and the mother goddess Ashirat.1
\nIn light of this convention, one may safely assume that making the offspring of Noah\u2019s sons total seventy is a literary device to convey the notion of the totality of the human race. The same device is employed in rabbinic literature, where the phrases \u201cseventy peoples\u201d or \u201cseventy languages\u201d express humanity in its entirety.2 This device affords an insight into a major function of the Table, a document thus far unparalleled in the ancient world. This strangely perplexing miscellany of peoples, tribes, and places is no mere academic or scholastic exercise. It affirms, first of all, the common origin and absolute unity of humankind after the Flood; then it tacitly, but effectively, asserts that the varied instrumentalities of human divisiveness are all secondary to the essential unity of the international community, which truly constitutes a family of man.
\nThis conviction, incidentally, is strikingly inconsistent with the particularistic fancies of the ancient Egyptians, who exclusively reserved for themselves the designation \u201cmen,\u201d while regarding all other peoples as descended from the enemies of the gods. Of course, the universalistic approach of the Table of Nations proceeds naturally from the monotheistic Creation narratives of Genesis. God\u2019s sovereignty extends to every nation; His providence governs them all.<\/p>\n
The Prominence of the Shemites. While the preceding episode about Noah, Ham, and Canaan contains an intimation of future developments, the present chapter carries forward this fore-shadowing in several subtle ways. The genealogies pointedly reverse the order of Noah\u2019s sons, even though the sequence Shem-Ham-Japheth has already appeared in 5:32, 6:10, 9:18, and here in 10:1. This inversion serves to dispose of those branches of humanity whose religious history becomes static and sterile from the monotheistic standpoint of the Narrator. This strategy enables the text to direct attention climactically to the line of descent that eventually leads to the spiritually dynamic Abraham. The Narrator used the identical technique in shifting the focus from the spiritually sterile line of Cain in 4:17\u201325, to the divinely favored Seth in chapter 5. In the same way, 25:12\u201318 will detail the line of Ishmael in order to make way for the story of Isaac, and chapter 36 will dispose of Esau\u2019s genealogies so that the biography of Jacob and his progeny may resume without interruption.
\nAnother pointer to a major function of the Table is the use of exceptional, double prefatory formulas in verses 21\u201322 to introduce Shem\u2019s line, a sure indication of his importance to the Narrator and another proof that the entire document is deliberately structured so as to project Shem and one line of his offspring into prominence. Moreover, while the genealogies of Japheth and Ham continue for only three generations each, that of Shem extends to the sixth generation. Here again, Aram is disposed of first, then one line is selected in chapter 11, and it continues for a total of ten generations that reach to Abraham.<\/p>\n
Israel and the Nations. This brings us back to the number seventy, which is not only emblematic of the totality of the human race but may also function to intensify the general prefiguring thrust of the Table. The number seventy resonates with the composition of the offspring of Jacob who went down to Egypt. The special significance this assumes is demonstrated not only by its emphasis in Genesis 46:27 but also by its reiteration twice more, in Exodus 1:5 and Deuteronomy 10:22. It is as though the totality of the nations and the totality of the Israelites who migrate to Egypt are intertwined.3 The fundamental biblical theme of Israel and the international community is delicately insinuated into the text. It is not coincidental that God\u2019s first communication to the patriarch Abraham immediately places his offspring in a worldwide context: \u201cAll the families of the earth \/ shall bless themselves by you.\u201d This same universal frame of reference recurs in subsequent reiterations of the divine blessing to Abraham as well as to Isaac and Jacob.4 It finds its first expression, albeit by artful insinuation, in the present chapter.<\/p>\n
1. Following the digression about Noah\u2019s drunkenness, the text resumes the theme of 9:18\u201319.<\/p>\n
after the Flood This same phrase functions in Mesopotamian texts as a designation for historical time.<\/p>\n
THE JAPHETHITES (vv. 2\u20135)<\/p>\n
These are the most northerly group, comprising seven \u201csons\u201d and seven \u201cgrandsons.\u201d<\/p>\n
2. Gomer The Gimmiraya of cuneiform sources, Kimmerioi in Greek, and Cimmerians in English. This people came from beyond the Caucasus Mountains in the region of the Black Sea to invade and terrorize Asia Minor in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.E.<\/p>\n
Magog This name has become famous through the combination \u201cGog and Magog,\u201d based on Ezekiel 38 and 39, which came to be used figuratively for the final war that is to prelude the messianic age. The name \u201cMagog,\u201d however, has not yet turned up in cxtrabiblical sources. From the passages in Ezekiel, it is clear that the land of Magog was thought to be in the furthermost reaches of the north, which may possibly mean southern Russia or Asia.<\/p>\n
Madai Derived from Old Persian Mada, it refers to the land and people of the Medes in the mountainous country east of Mesopotamia, west of the Caspian Sea, and south of the Zagros Mountains, now northwestern Iran. In biblical texts, such as Isaiah 13:17 and 21:2 and Jeremiah 51:11, 28, Madai includes the Persians as well. They are frequently mentioned by Assyrian kings from the ninth century B.C.E. on.<\/p>\n
Javan The Ionians, a branch of the Greek people, who colonized the west coast of Asia Minor. They are similarly listed together with Tubal and Meshech in Ezekiel 27:13, where they are described as traffickers in slaves and traders in bronze vessels.<\/p>\n
Tubal, Meshech See Comment to 4:22.<\/p>\n
Tiras This may be identical with the Tursha, one of the sea peoples defeated by Pharaoh Merneptah, ca. 1220 B.C.E.; or perhaps it is the same as the Tyrsenoi, the Greek name for the Etruscans, a people who migrated from Asia Minor to Italy and competed with the Romans for control of the central part of that country.<\/p>\n
THE DEPENDENCIES OF GOMER (V. 3)<\/p>\n
Ashkenaz Doubtless identical with the Ashkuzai or Ishkuza of Assyrian texts. They were an Indo-European nomadic people, expert in cavalry and archery, who inhabited the area between the Black and Caspian seas. The Greeks called them \u201cScythians.\u201d Jeremiah 51:27 mentions them in association with Ararat and with Minni, who are the Mannai of Assyrian texts, both of which peoples are located in Armenia. Since the Middle Ages, \u201cAshkenaz\u201d has been used by Jews as a designation for Germany.<\/p>\n
Riphath The corresponding list of 1 Chronicles 1:6 reads Diphath, as do many biblical manuscripts and printed editions here. Neither name is identifiable.<\/p>\n
Togarmah In Ezekiel 27:14 and 38:6 the names associated with Beth-togarmah place it in Asia Minor. Cuneiform texts from the nineteenth century B.C.E. on frequently mentioned the city and district of Tegarama, which lay north of Carchemish and Haran along an important trade route that led from Assyria to Cappadocia in Asia Minor.<\/p>\n
THE DEPENDENCIES OF JAVAN (V. 4)<\/p>\n
These are listed in two pairs, the first being place-names, the second ethnic designations. All four are located west of the preceding group, beyond the mainland of Asia Minor.<\/p>\n
Elishah Ezekiel 27:7 refers to \u201cthe coasts of Elishah\u201d as a source for the export of blue and purple cloth to the city of Tyre in Phoenicia. Doubtless, Elishah is Alashiya, frequently mentioned in Egyptian, Hittite, and Akkadian texts of the second millennium B.C.E. in reference to Cyprus or to part of that island, perhaps to Enkomi and the area under its control on the east coast of the island.<\/p>\n
Tarshish This is one of the most enigmatic place-names in the Bible. With the exception of a Phoenician inscription from Nora, Sardinia, it is not found in extrabiblical sources. Jonah 1:3 shows that it must be accessible via the Mediterranean Sea. Ezekiel 27:12 indicates that it was a place from which silver, iron, tin, and lead were exported. Three Mediterranean coastal cities bear names that resemble Tarshish: Tarsus, the chief city of Cilicia in southeast Asia Minor; Tartessus, on the Iberian Peninsula west of the Straits of Gibraltar; and Tharros, in the western part of the isle of Sardinia. Only in the last two were all the aforementioned metals mined. The oft-mentioned \u201cships of Tarshish\u201d5 would be oceangoing vessels that sailed to far-off Tarshish. But in 1 Kings 22:49 these ships are at Ezion-geber on the Red Sea; clearly, the term had lost its original meaning. According to one view, tarshish is simply a Semitic term for a metal refinery, deriving from Akkadian rashashu, \u201cto melt, smelt.\u201d A \u201ctarshish ship\u201d would then be a vessel capable of transporting metals, that is, one able to sail the open sea. Another view derives the name from Greek taros, \u201can oar,\u201d or complex of oars, that is, a great oceangoing ship propelled by sets of oars. A third suggestion connects the term with Hebrew tirosh, \u201cwine,\u201d a poetic description of the sea as \u201cwine dark,\u201d as used in the Homeric epics, with the secondary meaning of oceangoing vessel.<\/p>\n
the Kittim The inhabitants of Kition, present-day Larnaca on the southeast coast of Cyprus. The Phoenicians called it kitt or kitti. The name was gradually extended to designate the entire island. Before the Phoenicians colonized it in the ninth century B.C.E., it had been inhabited first by Minoans, then by Mycenaeans in the second half of the second millennium B.C.E. By the twelfth century most parts of the island had been settled by Greeks, a situation reflected in the present genealogy.<\/p>\n
the Dodanim The associated names require that this refers to a people in the area of the Aegean islands, but no such is presently known there. The Targums Jonathan and Yerushalmi render \u201cdardenaya,\u201d which suggests the inhabitants of the town of Dardania in Asia Minor in the region of classical Troy. The parallel text in 1 Chronicles 1:7 reads \u201cRodanim,\u201d which is also the text of the Greek Septuagint translation, the Samaritan recension, and many Hebrew manuscripts.6 This would refer to the Isle of Rhodes, which certainly fits the context. Genesis Rabba 37:1 makes note of these variant readings, which may be attributed to the graphic similarity of the Hebrew letters resh and dalet.<\/p>\n
5. From these \u2026 branched out Several maritime peoples separated themselves from the parent body of Japhethites in order to populate the isles and coastlands of the Mediterranean and form distinct political entities.<\/p>\n
These are the descendants of Japheth This phrase is not in the Hebrew text but is supplied here in conformity with the summary notations that close the lists of Ham and Shem in verses 20 and 31.<\/p>\n
THE HAMITES (vv. 6\u201320)<\/p>\n
These comprise four primary subgroupings, listed from south to north. The first three are situated in Africa, while the last constitutes the land bridge between Africa and Asia. The principal Hamitic components formed the Egyptian Empire during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties (ca. 1552\u2013ca. 1200 B.C.E.). The list contains seven Cushite peoples, seven peoples connected with Mizraim, seven Mesopotamian cities, five peoples associated with Canaan, and six Phoenician-Syrian cities.<\/p>\n
6. Cush See the Comment to 2:13. Here the term is restricted to the region known as Kash or Kesh in Egyptian, roughly covering Nubia or northern Sudan, south of Egypt.<\/p>\n
Mizraim This is the usual Hebrew word for Egypt, but here, in light of verse 14, it specifically refers to Lower Egypt, from the Mediterranean Sea to Memphis, as also in Isaiah 11:11 and Jeremiah 44:1.<\/p>\n
Put This originally must have been the name of a Libyan tribe or district, then used for the entire land of Libya, west of Egypt. Elsewhere in the Bible, the Greek Septuagint renders Put by \u201cLibya.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canaan As in the previous chapter, Canaan is the \u201cson\u201d of Ham, meaning that it is closely affiliated with Egypt. This was especially the case in the period of the Egyptian Empire, when it was designated \u201cthe Province of Canaan\u201d and when the petty kingdoms or city-states within the country were vassals of Pharaoh. The geographic boundaries of Canaan are given in verse 19. The term \u201cCanaanite\u201d is already found in an eighteenth century B.C.E. document found at Mari.<\/p>\n
THE DEPENDENCIES OF CUSH (VV. 7\u201312)<\/p>\n
Three groups ethnically and geographically distinct\u2014African, Arabian, and Mesopotamian\u2014are all subsumed under the Hamites because they all happen to bear similar sounding names. In addition, historical considerations seem to have entered into the classification. It is known that from very early times, the African and Asian shores of the Red Sea, particularly at its southern part, engaged in active and reciprocal sea commerce. South Arabians crossed the Bab el-Mandeb as traders and colonists and greatly influenced the culture on the western side. The connection with Mesopotamia is discussed below.<\/p>\n
7. Seba This name is associated with Egypt and Cush also in Isaiah 43:3 and 45:14, but the location is unknown. In Psalms 72:10 it is paired with Sheba, which also appears in the present list. It is possible that the two forms, Seba and Sheba, are dialectic variants of the same name and refer to one tribe that split up. Seba would designate the African branch.<\/p>\n
Havilah See Comment to 2:11\u201312.<\/p>\n
Sabtah This may refer to Shabwat, the ancient capital of Hadramaut in southern Arabia, but that region is listed in verse 26 as Shemitic.<\/p>\n
Raamah Also mentioned together with Sheba in Ezekiel 27:22 as a trading people whose merchandise happens to be characteristic of Arabia, but it is otherwise unknown.<\/p>\n
Sabteca No such locality is known, but a Nubian prince named Shebteko (ca. 700 B.C.E.) is recorded, whose name may reflect a place-name.<\/p>\n
THE DEPENDENCIES OF RAAMAH (V. 7)<\/p>\n
Sheba Ezekiel 38:13 also connects Sheba with Dedan. Since the latter can be located in northern Arabia, it is reasonable to suppose that the Sheba mentioned with it is situated in the same area and that the reference here is not to the kingdom of that name in southern Arabia with which Solomon had commercial connections. That Sheba is listed in verse 28.<\/p>\n
Dedan The Dedanites are caravaneers and traders, according to Isaiah 21:13 and Ezekiel 27:15, 20. Cuneiform texts mention them as early as the Old Babylonian and Ur III periods (2113\u20132006 B.C.E.), and Dedan can now be identified with the present-day oasis of Al-\u02beUla in northern Arabia. This was a major center of the spice trade and an important station along the international trade route.<\/p>\n
NIMROD (VV. 8\u201312)<\/p>\n
This section is a digression that shifts the focus of interest to Mesopotamia. How this region came to be associated here with Cush, son of Ham, can be accounted for on the principle of homonym referred to above. Two possible explanations exist. One is that behind the present Cush is the royal city of Kish, where, according to Mesopotamian tradition, kingship initially resumed after the flood. These early postdiluvian rulers inaugurated the first fully historical period in Mesopotamian history, called by scholars the Early Dynastic Period (2800\u20132500 B.C.E.). The royal city of Kish long enjoyed preeminence and imposed a measure of unity on Lower Mesopotamia. The title \u201cKing of Kish\u201d acquired such prestige that, even after that city was no longer a royal capital, later kings of Mesopotamia retained the epithet in order to signify hegemony over Sumer and Akkad and as a symbol of imperial rule. Another possibility is that Cush is a reflex of the dynasty of Kassites, a Caucasian people who came down from the Zagros Mountains and ruled Babylonia for about four centuries from 1595 B.C.E. on. Their chief god was named Kashshu, which is written Kushshu in the Nuzi texts.<\/p>\n
8. Nimrod This outstanding personality, whose exploits obviously left their mark on the historical memory of Israel, has not been positively identified with any known individual in the ancient world. Micah 5:5 echoes the traditions behind these verses. The site of the ancient city of Calah, mentioned in verse 11, is presently known locally as Birs Nimrud. Attempts have been made to associate him with Naram-Sin, grandson of Sargon I of Akkad, who dominated a great portion of the Near East for about fifty years during the last quarter of the third millennium B.C.E. He was the first to use the title \u201cKing of the Four Quarters of the World,\u201d and another of his titles was \u201cStrong Male,\u201d which recalls the \u201cman of might\u201d here in verse 8. His achievements were widely commemorated on steles, buildings, and votive inscriptions, and he was the subject of numerous tales and legends. One persistent tradition holds that he came to a grievous end for defying the gods. In this connection, the Hebrew name Nimrod may be a play on the name Naram-Sin in that it evokes the verb m-r-d, \u201cto rebel.\u201d This interpretation of the name as \u201crebel\u201d is found in Eruvin 53a.
\nAnother suggestion identifies the hero with Tukulti-Ninurta I (ca. 1234\u20131197 B.C.E.), the famed Assyrian monarch who first conquered Babylon and whose enthusiasm for hunting big game is well documented. His exploits, too, were the subjects of epic poems. It is not easy, however, to connect the name Nimrod with Tukulti-Ninurta.<\/p>\n
10. The mainstays of his kingdom Rather, in light of verse 11, \u201cHis kingdom began with.\u2026\u201d These cities constituted the power base from which he proceeded to expand into Assyria.<\/p>\n
Babylon The famous city on the River Euphrates, about 50 miles (80 km.) south of modern Baghdad, Iraq. The oldest Sumerian name for the city was ka-dingir-ra, which was understood to mean \u201cthe gate of God.\u201d It was translated into Akkadian as bab-il. According to Enuma Elish, the Mesopotamian creation epic, the gods themselves built the temple there for the god Marduk at the beginning of time. The choice of Babylon to head the list of cities here is most likely determined by the next episode, in chapter 11.<\/p>\n
Erech The Sumerian city-state Uruk, now Warka on the east side of the Euphrates, about 40 miles (64 km.) up the river from Ur in southern Iraq. The Sumerian King List gives this city as the seat of the second dynasty of kings after the flood, the third monarch of which was Gilgamesh.<\/p>\n
Accad The Sumerian King List reports that Uruk was defeated, and its kingship carried off to Akkad. This city, called agade in Sumerian, became the center of the kingdom of Akkad founded by the famous Sargon (ca. 2300 B.C.E.), who established a dynasty that lasted about 150 years. The site of this city, somewhere on the Euphrates, has not been located. Eventually its name came to embrace the whole of northern Babylonia as opposed to Sumer in the south. \u201cAkkadian\u201d now signifies the Semitic Assyrian and Babylonian languages.<\/p>\n
Calneh The only name in this list that never appears in Akkadian inscriptions. It cannot refer to the city mentioned in Amos 6:2 and called Calno in Isaiah 10:9 because that is situated in northern Syria, not in Mesopotamia. A widely accepted suggestion is to read ve-khullanah, \u201call of them being \u2026,\u201d which is also an ancient Samaritan tradition. The advantage of this interpretation is that verses 10\u201312 list exactly seven Mesopotamian cities, another example of the heptad pattern in the Table of Nations.<\/p>\n
Shinar The land of Babylonia, embracing Sumer and Akkad and bounded on the north by Assyria, modern southern Iraq.7 This name was not used in Mesopotamia itself but is frequently found in one form or another in Egyptian, Hittite, Mitannian, and Amarna texts to designate the Kassite kingdom of Babylon (ca. 1595\u20131160 B.C.E.).<\/p>\n
11. Either Asshur or Nimrod could be the subject of the Hebrew verb yatsa\u02be, \u201cwent forth.\u201d8 The latter is preferable, and the text would thus be rendered, \u201cFrom that land, he (i.e., Nimrod) went forth to Asshur.\u201d This reading is supported by Micah 5:5, which terms Assyria \u201cthe land of Nimrod,\u201d and it is also how Targum Jonathan and Bekhor Shor understand the text. \u201cAsshur\u201d is then a geographical name, parallel to \u201cShinar,\u201d the two referring respectively to Upper and Lower Mesopotamia. The passage reflects the verifiable historical fact that, in its early period, Assyria was long under the domination and religious, linguistic, and cultural influence of Sumer and Akkad, a debt it freely acknowledged.<\/p>\n
Asshur The entire region of the Upper Mesopotamian plain. The city of Asshur, situated on the right bank of the Tigris, gave its name to this region. The other principal cities of Assyria were Nineveh and Calah, both mentioned here. All three sites have been thoroughly excavated. See Comment to 2:14.<\/p>\n
Nineveh Situated on the left bank of the Tigris, about 250 miles (400 km.) northwest of Babylon, presently the mounds of Kuyunjik and Nebi Yunus (\u201cthe prophet Jonah\u201d) opposite Mosul. The kings of Akkad, including Sargon, built at Nineveh. The name suggests a Sumerian origin.<\/p>\n
Rehoboth-ir Literally, \u201cbroad places of the city.\u201d No such city is known from Assyrian sources, but the reference is probably to a well-known suburb of Nineveh there called rebit Ninua, \u201cgreater Nineveh.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calah This is the famous Assyrian city Kalah, the site of which is presently known as Nimrud, located on the left bank of the Tigris near where that river is joined by the Great Zab. Shalmaneser I (ca. 1265\u20131235 B.C.E.) rebuilt Kalah and made it his capital after abandoning Asshur.<\/p>\n
12. Resen An unknown site, possibly standing for Akkadian re\u0161-eni, meaning \u201cspring-head,\u201d equivalent to Hebrew Rosh Ha\u02bfayin, which is the name of a modern Israeli urban settlement.<\/p>\n
that is the great city The ambiguity here is noted in Yoma 10a, where the parallel with Jonah 1:2 and 3:1, 3 is taken as indicating decisively that the reference is to Nineveh.<\/p>\n
THE DEPENDENCIES OF MIZRAIM (VV. 13\u201314)<\/p>\n
All seven names are in the plural form, which indicates inhabitants of a region or designates members of a tribe.<\/p>\n
13. Ludim Both Jeremiah 46:9 and Ezekiel 30:5 mention this people in association with Cush and Put in prophecies concerning Egypt. The contexts there, as here, exclude identification with the Lydians of Asia Minor. They may be some as yet unknown African people.<\/p>\n
Anamim An unknown name, possibly in Cyrenaica, west of the Libyan plateau.<\/p>\n
Lehabim Possibly Libyans, though they are usually called Lubim in the Bible.9<\/p>\n
Naphtuhim This otherwise unknown name has been connected uncertainly with an Egyptian phrase signifying the \u201cnorthland,\u201d that is, Lower Egypt or the Delta region, in contrast to the next name.<\/p>\n
14. Pathrusim This undoubtedly refers to the inhabitants of Pathros, which is Egyptian for the \u201csouthland,\u201d that is, Upper Egypt, a meaning it also has in Isaiah 11:11. King Esarhaddon of Assyria called himself \u201cKing of Musur (=mizraim), Paturisi (=pathros), and Cush.\u201d<\/p>\n
Casluhim The place is otherwise unknown.<\/p>\n
Caphtorim This corresponds to kaptaru in Akkadian texts, kptr in Ugaritic, and probably also to keftiu in Egyptian, all generally identified with the isle of Crete and its environs in the eastern Mediterranean. Deuteronomy 2:23 tells that the Caphtorim settled in Gaza, which became a major stronghold of the Philistines in the times of the Judges. Both Amos 9:7 and Jeremiah 47:4 report that this people came from Caphtor. Hence, the phrase \u201cwhence the Philistines came forth\u201d more likely applies to the Caphtorim than to the unknown Casluhim.<\/p>\n
THE DEPENDENCIES OF CANAAN (VV. 15\u201319)<\/p>\n
This section is a composite. Only the first two of the eleven names listed are without the -i ending that indicates a gentilic form, and they are to be understood as the names of individuals who are the eponymous, or name-giving, ancestors of the Sidonians and the Hittites. The next four names appear in the numerous biblical registers of the original, pre-Israelite inhabitants of Canaan. It is not clear why specifically these were selected here. Further, the order of presentation is unique and appears to be independent of the other similar registers. The Jebusites, named first here, otherwise almost invariably close the lists. Also, the list includes the rarely mentioned Girgashites. The last five names are those of cities in Phoenicia and Syria.<\/p>\n
15. Sidon The famous Phoenician port city. The designation \u201cfirst-born\u201d and the omission of Tyre point to a period when Sidon held undisputed sway over the other cities of southern Phoenicia, so that the name became synonymous with the whole of Phoenicia, as in Deuteronomy 3:9 and Joshua 13:4, 6. This biblical usage conforms with information available from other sources. Thus the Egyptian inscriptions that record the campaigns of Thutmose III (ca. 1490\u20131436 B.C.E.) in Canaan and Syria also mention Sidon, but not Tyre. The latter is similarly ignored in the Homeric epics, which deal with events in the twelfth century B.C.E. and which refer to Sidon and its inhabitants. The same is true of the annals of Tiglath-pileser I (1109\u20131088 B.C.E.), who conducted military expeditions to Syria and Phoenicia. By the tenth century, however, Tyre had eclipsed Sidon in importance.<\/p>\n
Heth Undoubtedly, Heth is taken here to be a personal name, that of the ancestor of the Hittites. This term, like \u201cCanaan\/Canaanite,\u201d is noticeably imprecise. Around 1800 B.C.E., an Indo-European people who had settled in Asia Minor and had taken over the name of the earlier inhabitants, the \u1e2aatti, founded an empire. The name \u201cHittite\u201d was gradually extended to the entire region and the peoples incorporated within it. After the Hittite empire collapsed ca. 1200 B.C.E. and the city-states of Syria became independent, they continued to call themselves Hittite for several centuries. Assyrian and Babylonian records regularly used \u201c\u1e2aatti-land\u201d to refer to the whole of Syria and Palestine. In the present context, Heth probably refers to the Neo-Hittite states of Syria.<\/p>\n
16. Jebusites Nothing is known about the origins or history of this people. At the time of the Exodus they lived in the hill country, according to Numbers 13:29. In the period of Joshua\u2019s wars of conquest, and until David\u2019s time, they were located more specifically in Jerusalem. In fact, Jerusalem itself was called Jebus, and it was from Araunah the Jebusite that David bought the plot of land on which the Temple was later built.10<\/p>\n
Amorites They appear as a distinct ethnic group in all the lists of the pre-Israelite peoples of the land. In the course of time, the term lost all ethnic significance in the Bible and, like \u201cCanaanite,\u201d came to be employed as a general designation for them all, as for instance in 15:16. The Amurru, as they were called in Akkadian, were a West Semitic people who first appeared in Babylonia in significant numbers about 2000 B.C.E., having migrated from the fringes of the Syrian desert. In subsequent centuries, successive waves of Amorites infiltrated the entire Fertile Crescent. In the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C.E., cuneiform texts refer to a state north of Canaan called Amurru.<\/p>\n
Girgashites Nothing is known of them.11 They may have been an offshoot of the \u201cland of Karkisha\u201d in Asia Minor, mentioned among the allies of the Hittites in the inscriptions of Ramses II about the battle of Kadesh. The personal names grgsh and bn grgsh appear in Ugaritic texts.<\/p>\n
17. Hivites Despite more than a score of scriptural references, nothing is known about this people from any external source.<\/p>\n
17\u201318. Arkites \u2026 Hamathites All these refer to the inhabitants of five Syrian cities, four on the coast and one inland. Arka, about 13 miles (20 km.) northeast of Tripoli, Lebanon, is mentioned in Egyptian execration texts as early as the twentieth century B.C.E. Sin, in cuneiform siannu, bordered on the territory of Ugarit. Arvad was the most northerly of the important Phoenician cities. The site is presently Ruad, built on a rocky island about 50 miles (80.5 km.) north of Byblos. It is frequently mentioned in Assyrian records. Zemar, lying about midway between Arvad to its north and Tripoli to its south, is mentioned in Egyptian, Amarna, and Assyrian texts. Hamath, now Hamah, lies inland on the middle Orontes River alongside one of the major trade routes, about 50 miles (80.5 km.) east-northeast of Arvad.<\/p>\n
Afterward \u2026 This note corresponds to that in verse 5. Here the text gives recognition to the fact that Phoenicia proper and Palestine constituted a cultural continuum.<\/p>\n
19. Here \u201cCanaan\u201d is not a person but a people. The Table of Nations displays this exceptional interest in the territorial boundaries of Canaan because it is leading up to the progenitors of Abraham, whose descendants are to inherit the land. Significantly, the city-states north of Sidon, detailed in verses 17\u201318, are excluded, and only the region west of the Jordan is included. Sidon constitutes the extreme northern limit; Gaza represents the southwestern extremity, and then the border extends westward across the low hill country to the Dead Sea region.
\nThese boundaries do not correspond either to those delineated elsewhere in the Bible, particularly in Genesis 15:18 and Numbers 34:2\u201312, or to any known historical reality in Israelite times. The Israelite conquest never reached Sidon. The description of Canaan given here corresponds to that of the Egyptian province of Canaan as it emerged following the peace treaty between the Egyptian king Ramses II and the Hittite king Hattusilis III (ca. 1280 B.C.E.), which defined the spheres of interest of the respective empires. Following this, the Egyptians gave up all efforts to control northern Syria, which belonged to the Hittites, while southern Syria and Palestine remained under Egyptian tutelage.<\/p>\n
Gerar This city is not mentioned in either Egyptian or Assyrian sources, which means that it was not situated along the Via Maris or main north-south highway parallel to the coast, the road used by imperial armies. The patriarchal narratives in chapters 20 and 26 show Gerar to have been an important royal city in the western Negeb and to have been situated west or northwest of Beer-sheba in a region sufficiently well watered to provide pasturing facilities for shepherds. All the signs point to its being identified with the impressive mound of Tell Haror (Tell Abu Hureireh), which lies on one of the major wadis, Wadi esh-Shari\u02beah, about 15 miles (24 km.) northwest of Beer-sheba. Archaeological surveys in this area have revealed strong Egyptian influence on the material culture between 1550 and 1200 B.C.E.<\/p>\n
Gaza Inscriptions of the Egyptian king Seti I from around 1300 B.C.E. refer to this city as \u201cThe Canaan.\u201d It was the regional capital of the Egyptian province of Canaan. Gaza, the most southerly of the coastal cities, was strategically situated along the main highway and trade route that linked Mesopotamia and Egypt. Later it became a major Philistine city.<\/p>\n
Sodom \u2026 Zeboiim These are the so-called \u201ccities of the Plain,\u201d mentioned again in 14:2 and Deuteronomy 29:22, that were destroyed because of their wickedness. The first two form the theme of chapter 19, while the last two appear in Hosea 11:8. Since the order of the cities is always uniform, it most likely derives from some ancient topographical list, many examples of which have been found in Mesopotamia and Egypt. It should be noted that, unlike 13:10, the present passage contains no reference to the destruction of the cities. They have not been identified. Their most likely location appears to be in the area now covered by the southern extension of the Dead Sea below the Lisan.<\/p>\n
Lasha Otherwise unknown; Targum Jonathan and rabbinic sources identified it with Callirrhoe, a site of hot springs near the eastern shore of the Dead Sea.<\/p>\n
THE SHEMITES (vv. 21\u201331)<\/p>\n
The introduction to this chapter makes note of the special nature of this section. As to the order of listing, the guiding principle seems to be from the more remote to the closer kinship with Israel. The Shemites comprise two groups of thirteen entities each.<\/p>\n
21. all the descendants of Eber Although he is the fourth generation from Shem, he receives special mention here because he is the ancestor both of Israel and of a variety of peoples with whom Israelite history is closely intertwined. According to later genealogies in Genesis, these include Arameans, Ammonites, Moabites, Midianites, the Ishmaelite tribes, and Edomites.12 One would expect these descendants of Eber to be called \u201cHebrews\u201d (Heb. \u02bfivrim). Nevertheless, it is strange that of all the above-mentioned peoples, only the line of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob is so designated. Probably for these reasons, Rashi and Ramban take \u02bfever here not as the name of the individual mentioned in verse 24, whose line is taken up again in 11:16\u201329, but as meaning \u201cthe region beyond,\u201d a denotation \u02bfever has in 50:10 and Numbers 21:13. Benei \u02bfever would then be \u201cthe inhabitants of the region beyond [the Euphrates].\u201d In fact, in Akkadian, the land west of this river is called eber nari, a phrase often used as a geographical term referring to Upper Syria, which is what \u02bfever ha-nahar means in Joshua 24:2.<\/p>\n
older brother of Japheth Because an adjective does not usually modify a proper name in biblical Hebrew, this is the natural meaning required by the syntax. However, the Septuagint, Genesis Rabba 37:6, and most medieval exegetes render \u201cbrother of Japheth who is the oldest.\u201d<\/p>\n
22. Elam The ancient name for modern Khuzistan in southwestern Iran in the Iranian Plateau east of Babylon and northeast of the Persian Gulf. Its capital was Susa, the biblical Shushan of Esther 1:2\u20135. Elam is the most easterly country in the Table.<\/p>\n
Asshur See Comment to verse 11. The city of Asshur on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia gave its name to the surrounding territory, which became known as Assyria. Asshur-uballit I (ca. 1356\u20131321 B.C.E.) was the first monarch to be called \u201cking of the land of Assyria.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arpachshad This name is a puzzle. A tradition from Second Temple times connects the last three Hebrew consonants with Chesed of 22:22, the eponymous ancestor of the Chaldeans (Heb. kasdim, Akk. kashdu).13 This was the name of a seminomadic Aramean tribe that inhabited the desert regions between northern Arabia and the Persian Gulf. As a geographical term, it was first applied to the southern part of Mesopotamia but was eventually used for the whole of Babylonia. The first element of the name\u2014Arpa\u2014might be Arip, which is frequently found in Hurrian proper names.<\/p>\n
Lud This cannot be the same people as the Ludim of verse 13. It may refer to Lydia, a region on the west coast of Asia Minor, but its known history does not begin until the middle of the seventh century B.C.E., and it would be expected to be classified under the Japhethites. Neither Isaiah 66:19 nor Ezekiel 27:10 shed light on its identity.<\/p>\n
Aram It is unclear whether this term applies here to a specific tribe or to the wider confederation of Aramean tribes that were Western Semites. The patriarchs of Israel maintained close family connections with Arameans in Aram-naharaim and Paddan-aram. This is clear from 25:20; 28:5; and 31:18, 20\u201324. In fact, according to Deuteronomy 26:5, the Israelite farmer annually declared at the festival of first fruits, \u201cMy father was a fugitive Aramean.\u201d
\nA variant tradition in Genesis 22:21 has Aram as the grandson of Nahor, Abraham\u2019s brother. The different genealogies may well reflect tribal relationships at different periods of history. Amos 9:7 says that the Arameans migrated from Kir, which in Isaiah 22:6 is parallel to Elam and which would place them in the northeastern part of the Fertile Crescent. That would be consonant with the tradition of the present Table.<\/p>\n
23. Of the four subdivisions of Aram, only Uz is otherwise known. In 1 Chronicles 1:17 he and the other three are sons of Shem and brothers of Aram. In Genesis 22:21, Uz is Aram\u2019s uncle. The present Table, which makes him a son, reflects the historic reality of a later time, when Aram had overwhelmed the Uzzites and incorporated them into the Aramean tribal league. Two regions named Uz are mentioned, one northeast of Canaan near Har(r)an and another between Edom and northern Arabia, referred to in 36:29, apparently the homeland of Job (1:2). Josephus locates Hul in Armenia. Mash may be the mountains of Lebanon and the Ante-Lebanon; they are called Mashu in the Gilgamesh Epic.14<\/p>\n
24. Shelah See Comment to 5:25.<\/p>\n
25. Peleg His descendants are listed in 11:18\u201328. The name can mean \u201cwater channel\u201d (Akk. palgu) and so may refer to an area of land watered by irrigation canals.15 A geographic lexicon from the city of Ebla in Syria, deriving from ca. 2500 B.C.E., includes a place named Palag.<\/p>\n
the earth was divided Hebrew niflegah is a play on peleg. Traditionally, this has been taken as a reference to the confusion of languages and the dispersal of mankind described in the next chapter. Hence, the rabbinic term dor ha-pallagah, \u201cthe generation of the dispersal\/confusion of speech,\u201d an interpretation perhaps supported by Psalms 55:10. However, the verb p-l-g is used neither in 11:7\u20139 nor here in verse 32. Accordingly, \u201cthe dividing of the earth\u201d more likely has some other reference, possibly the development of agriculture by irrigation canals, or some historic split-up of tribes, or even an earthquake. Bekhor Shor observes that from Peleg on the life spans of the patriarchs listed in 11:11\u201332 are all in the two-hundred-year range and less, whereas his predecessors lived at least four hundred years. He therefore interprets the phrase to mean that the human life span was halved.<\/p>\n
THE DEPENDENCIES OF JOKTAN (VV. 26\u201330)<\/p>\n
This list is extraordinary, both for its unparalleled extent and because the Joktanites are here said to be descended from the same stock as the Israelites, which is itself remarkable since their settlements, where identifiable, are located in the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Furthermore, most of the names are not the same as the Arab tribes mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions from the ninth century B.C.E. on. All these peculiarities suggest that behind this list is some lost history of relationships, probably of a commercial nature in connection with the spice trade, between Israel and the Arabian tribes. Incidentally, the name Joktan (Heb. yoktan) can mean \u201cdiminution\u201d and may hide some now forgotten word play corresponding to that on the name of his brother Peleg. It is noteworthy that the names of several areas in Arabia are formed from the stem k-t-n, such as Qatna.<\/p>\n
26. Almodad The element modad means \u201cbeloved one,\u201d the same as in Medad of Numbers 11:26. It occurs as a divine epithet in Ugaritic. The first syllable may either represent \u02beel, \u201cgod,\u201d or Arabic \u02beal, \u201cfamily.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sheleph Possibly the same as a Yemenite tribe Shalph or the Arabic place-name Salph between Yemen and Hadramaut.<\/p>\n
Hazarmaveth This well-known kingdom mentioned in South Arabic inscriptions is the present-day Hadramaut on the southern coast east of Yemen.<\/p>\n
Jerah Omitted in the list of 1 Chronicles 1:20\u201324, which has twelve Joktanite tribes in all. This may be the region of Yemen known as Wara\u1e25. In Hebrew and in South Arabic inscriptions, yr\u1e25 means \u201cmonth.\u201d<\/p>\n
27. Hadoram The first element is an epithet of the god Baal, the name meaning \u201c[the god] Had is exalted.\u201d A modern place-name Dauraum near San\u02bfa, capital of Yemen, is known.<\/p>\n
Uzal A late Arab tradition of doubtful validity identifies Uzal as the old name for San\u02bfa.<\/p>\n
Diklah Probably derived from dekel, \u201ca palm tree,\u201d and the name of some oasis in Yemen.<\/p>\n
28. Obal Omitted in the Septuagint, which has a twelve-tribe list. \u02bfAbil is a common place-name in Yemen.<\/p>\n
Abimael An unknown name that means \u201cMy Father is indeed God.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sheba See Comment to verse 7. This is the kingdom in southern Arabia, frequently mentioned in Assyrian royal inscriptions, with which King Solomon formed relationships.<\/p>\n
29. Ophir A \u201cbrother\u201d of Havilah, which is a source of gold according to 2:11\u201312. Ophir is consistently cited in the Bible for its gold.16 An ostracon found at Tell Qasileh on the River Yarkon northeast of Tel Aviv reads, \u201cGold from Ophir for Beth Horon 30 Shekels.\u201d Since the biblical sources indicate that Ophir was accessible by ship, it was most likely located somewhere on the shores of the Red Sea.<\/p>\n
Havilah See Comment to 2:11\u201312.<\/p>\n
Jobab No satisfactory identification for the name has been found.<\/p>\n
30. The extent of the settlements of the Joktanites is paralleled in the Table only by the boundaries of the Canaanites, again testifying to the special importance of this tribal league at some still unknown period of Israelite history.<\/p>\n
Mesha This may be the same as Massa of 25:14, but that appears to be in northern Arabia, and a southerly location, otherwise unknown, is indicated here.<\/p>\n
Sephar The word means \u201cborder\u201d in postbiblical Hebrew. The reference may be to \u1e92afar, a port city and center of the spice trade in Hadramaut, or to a place southwest of San\u02bfa.17<\/p>\n
32. Taken with verse 1, this summarizing conclusion forms a literary frame to the Table of Nations and forges the transition to the next episode.<\/p>\n