1 Chronicles 1:13

And Canaan begat Zidon his firstborn, and Heth,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

THE CITY ZIDON AND THE TEN RACES OF CANAAN (1Chronicles 1:13-16).

(13) Canaan begat Zidon his firstborn.—Or, in modern phrase, Zidon is the oldest city of Canaan. It is usually mentioned along with Tyre, the ruling city in later times. Sennacherib speaks of the flight of Lulî, “king of Zidon,” from Tyre. Esarhaddon mentions Baal of Tyre as a tributary. Of the eleven “sons of Canaan all but three or four have been identified in the cuneiform inscriptions of Assyria.

And Heth—that is, the Hittite race, called Heta by the Egyptians, and Hatti by the Assyrians. (See 1Chronicles 1:8, Note.) The Hittites were once the dominant race of Syria and Palestine. Carchemish, on the Euphrates, and Kadesh, as well as Hamath, appear to have been Hittite cities. Their kings had commercial relations with Solomon (1Kings 10:29). Inscriptions, in a kind of mixed hieroglyph, have been found at Hamath and Carchemish, but they still await decipherment.

(14) The Jebusite.—The men of Jebus, or Jerusalem (1Chronicles 11:4).

Amorite.—The hill-men of the trans-Jordan.

Girgashite.—Perhaps of Gergesa (Matthew 8:28).

(15) Hivite.—On the slopes of Lebanon (Joshua 11:3), “under Hermon,” but also in Gibeon and Shechem (Joshua 9:7; Genesis 34:2). Delitzsch suggests that the name is connected with Hamath (Assyrian, Hammath as Hawath).

Arkite, and the Sinite.—Tribes living to the west of northern Lebanon. A fragment of the annals of Tiglath-pileser mentions along with Simyra the towns of Arqâ and Sianu “on the sea-coast” (B C, 739). Jose-phus mentions a town Arka, which is otherwise known as the birthplace of the emperor Alexander Severus (Ruins: Tell’Araci).

(16) Arvadite.—Arvad, or Aradus, now Ruâd, an island off Phoenicia. Assurnâçirpal (B.C. 885) calls it “Arvada in the mid-sea.” Its king submitted to Sennacherib.

Zemarite.—The people of Simyra, on the coast of Phoenicia, south-east of Arvad. Simyra (Assyrian, Cimirra) was a fortified town commanding the road from the coast to the upper valley of the Orontes (Ruins: Sumra).

Hamathite.—The people of Hamath (Hamah) on the Orontes, a Hittite state which made alliance with David (circ. 1040 B.C. ).

On a review of 1Chronicles 1:8-16 we see that the “sons of Ham” include Ethiopia, Egypt, and the neighbouring shores of Arabia, and perhaps the founders of Babylon (1Chronicles 1:8-10). The tribes of Egypt and Canaan are enumerated in 1Chronicles 1:11-16.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:1-27 This chapter, and many that follow, repeat the genealogies, or lists of fathers and children in the Bible history, and put them together, with many added. When compared with other places, there are some differences found; yet we must not therefore stumble at the word, but bless God that the things necessary to salvation are plain enough. The original of the Jewish nation is here traced from the first man that God created, and is thereby distinguished from the obscure, fabulous, and absurd origins assigned to other nations. But the nations now are all so mingled with one another, that no one nation, nor the greatest part of any, is descended entirely from any of one nation, nor the greatest part of any, is descended entirely from any of these fountains. Only this we are sure of, that God has created of one blood all nations of men; they are all descended from one Adam, one Noah. Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Mal 2:10.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Dodanim - See the Genesis 10:4 note.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12. Casluhim (of whom came the Philistines), and Caphtorim—a better rendering is, "and Casluhim, of whom came the Philistim and Caphtorim." They were brethren, the sons of Casluhim, and at first dwelt together, whence their names are used interchangeably. The Caphtorim are described as inhabiting Azzah, or Gaza, the seat of the Philistines.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The sons of Japheth, Gomer,.... Here begins the genealogy of the sons of Noah after the flood; of the sons of Japheth the elder, in this and the two following verses; next of the sons of Ham, the younger brother, 1 Chronicles 1:8, then of Shem, whose posterity are mentioned last, because from him, in the line of Heber, sprang Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish nation, of whom the Messiah was to come, for whose sake this genealogy is given, 1 Chronicles 1:17. The whole is the same with the account in

Geneva Study Bible

And Canaan begat Zidon his firstborn, and Heth,

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. Canaan begat Zidon his firstborn] From the time of David downwards Tyre takes precedence of Zidon in any mention of the Phœnician cities in the O.T., but Zidon may still have been the older of the two cities, as indeed the Roman historian Justin (1 Chronicles 18:3) asserts. So we find the Phœnicians in the earlier books of the O.T. called Zidonians, not Tyrians (e.g. Jdg 3:3; 1 Kings 5:6).

Heth] i.e. the Hittites, who for centuries were the great power of Northern Syria, having their capital at Kadesh in the Orontes valley and a territory reaching from the Orontes to the Euphrates. Only an offshoot from them seems to have settled in Palestine.

1 Chronicles 1:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The peoples and races descended from the sons of Noah. - These are enumerated according to the table in Genesis 10; but our author has omitted not only the introductory and concluding remarks (Genesis 10:1, Genesis 10:21, Genesis 10:32), but also the historical notices of the founding of a kingdom in Babel by Nimrod, and the distribution of the Japhetites and Shemites in their dwelling-places (Genesis 10:5, Genesis 10:9-12, Genesis 10:18-20, and Genesis 10:30 and Genesis 10:31). The remaining divergences are partly orthographic, - such as תּבּת, 1 Chronicles 1:5, for תּוּבל, Genesis 10:2, and רעמא, 1 Chronicles 1:9, for רעמה, Genesis 10:7; and partly arising from errors of transcription, - as, for example, דּיפת, 1 Chronicles 1:6, for ריפת, Genesis 10:3, and conversely, רודנים, 1 Chronicles 1:7, for דּדנים, Genesis 10:4, where it cannot with certainty be determined which form is the original and correct one; and finally, are partly due to a different pronunciation or form of the same name, - as תּרשׁישׁה, 1 Chronicles 1:7, for תּרשׁישׁ, Genesis 10:4, the aa of motion having been gradually fused into one word with the name, לוּדּיּים, 1 Chronicles 1:11, for לוּדים, Genesis 10:13, just as in Amos 9:7 we have כּוּשׁיּים for כּוּשׁים; in 1 Chronicles 1:22, עיבל for עובל, Genesis 10:28, where the lxx have also Εὐάλ, and משׁך, 1 Chronicles 1:17, for משׁ, Genesis 10:23, which last has not yet been satisfactorily explained, since משׁך is used in Psalm 120:5 with קדר of an Arabian tribe. Finally, there is wanting in 1 Chronicles 1:17 ארם וּבני before עוּץ, Genesis 10:23, because, as in the case of Noah's sons, 1 Chronicles 1:4, where their relationship is not mentioned, so also in reference to the peoples descended from Shem, the relationship subsisting between the names Uz, Hul, etc., and Aram, is supposed to be already known from Genesis. Other suppositions as to the omission of the words ארם וּבני are improbable. That this register of seventy-one persons and tribes, descended from Shem, Ham, and Japhet, has been taken from Genesis 10, is placed beyond doubt, by the fact that not only the names of our register exactly correspond with the table in Genesis 10, with the exception of the few variations above mentioned, but also the plan and form of both registers is quite the same. In 1 Chronicles 1:5-9 the sections of the register are connected, as in Genesis 10:2-7, by וּבני; from 1 Chronicles 1:10 onwards by ילד, as in Genesis 10:8; in 1 Chronicles 1:17, again, by בּני, as in Genesis 10:22; and in 1 Chronicles 1:18 by ילד, and 1 Chronicles 1:19 by ילּד, as in Genesis 10:24 and Genesis 10:25. The historical and geographical explanation of the names has been given in the commentary to Genesis 10. According to Bertheau, the peoples descended from the sons of Noah amount to seventy, and fourteen of these are enumerated as descendants of Japhet, thirty of Ham, and twenty-six of Shem. These numbers he arrives at by omitting Nimrod, or not enumerating him among the sons of Ham; while, on the contrary, he takes Arphaxad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg, and Joktan, all of which are the names of persons, for names of people, in contradiction to Genesis, according to which the five names indicate persons, viz., the tribal ancestors of the Terahites and Joktanites, peoples descended from Eber by Peleg and Joktan.