1 Chronicles 1:16

And the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

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

The Zemarite - See Genesis 10:18 note. The inscriptions of the Assyrian monarch, Sargon, (720 B.C.) mention Zimira, which is joined with Arpad (Arvad); and there can be little doubt that it is the city indicated by the term "Zemarite."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14-17. the Jebusite, &c.—At 1Ch 1:14-17 the names are not those of individuals, but of people who all sprang from Canaan; and as several of them became extinct or were amalgamated with their brethren, their national appellations are given instead of the personal names of their ancestors.

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 the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 16. - This verse furnishes us with one illustration of the assertion made above, that the clues to the ethnological and ethnographical statements of these most ancient records are not necessarily all hopelessly lost. In the name Zemarite, it is suggested by Michaelis, that we have allusion to the place Sumra, on the west coast of Syria, this Sumra being the Siniyra of Pliny ('Hist. Nat.,' 5:20), and of the Spanish geographer of the first century, Pomponius Mela (1. 12). But the place Zimira, in company with Arpad, is found in the Assyrian inscriptions of Sargon, n.o. 720, leaving little cause to hesitate in accepting the identification of Michaelis (Courier's 'Handbook to the Bible,' p. 233). Certainty, however, cannot be felt on the subject. 1 Chronicles 1:16

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.