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be mentioned, but these will suffice to indicate the light which Chronicles throws upon the conditions of the post-exilic community.
Much more important, however, is the insight we gain into the methods and principles, the ideals and the ideas which prevailed in Temple circles in Jerusalem during the third century . . Chronicles, like all distinctive books, is necessarily eloquent of its author’s mind and character. Now the Chronicler was a Levite of the Levites, and no doubt typical of his class at this period. But we know that this period was of the highest importance in the formation of the Old Testament, and it was precisely at the hands of the orthodox Levitical circles that many books of the Jewish Scriptures, especially the Laws, the Histories, and the Psalms, underwent the revision which brought them approximately to their present form. It is therefore extremely valuable that we should be able to study the psychological characteristics of a typical Levite of that age. From this point of view hardly any part of Chronicles is without significance. Thus the midrashic stories, whatever their value otherwise, at least reveal a great deal regarding the mental and moral outlook of the writer and his contemporaries.
“Chronicles,” it has been said (Bennett, Expositor’s Bible, p. 20), “is an object-lesson in ancient historical composition.” But it ought also to teach us that history is something more than the record of occurrences. Facts are fundamental, but of profound importance also is the attitude in which we approach them.
To sum up the whole matter of this section. Compared with Samuel‒Kings, Chronicles is of little or no value as a record of the history of the Judean kingdom. Where it differs from those books, in almost all cases the earlier account is the more accurate and trustworthy. In what Chronicles adds, there may sometimes be found traditional developments of genuine historical facts. Even if they should prove to be few, it is possible that there may be among them some points of high importance for our understanding of the Old Testament records. Finally, as a product of the Greek period,
Chronicles is very valuable in illustrating the methods, ideals, and temperament of the Levitical classes of Jerusalem about that time.
These results are disappointing only if we insist on treating Chronicles as a manual of early Judean history instead of as a remarkable and in some ways unique religious work.
§ 8. T R V C
Chronicles has suffered by comparison with the fresher, more human, history in Samuel and Kings. It has seemed to modern taste somewhat dry and uninspiring. To the superficial reader any religious feeling in the book is devoted to the concerns of a ritual that has long since passed away, and with which we might in any case have little sympathy. And, of course, the contrast is still more unfavourable if it be made with the books which contain the noblest utterances of Jewish faith. Job in his anguish crying “though He slay me yet will I trust Him”; the Psalmist fearless of all ill since God is with him; Hosea who wrote of God “I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings”—these stand on a higher spiritual level than the Chronicler. None the less, there is virtue, and even great virtue, in Chronicles, and failure to perceive it only argues lack of insight on our part.
In the first place, if Temple ritual and observance of the precepts of the Law bulk too largely in the Chronicler’s conception of the religious life, he had much excuse for his attitude. In his day and generation, faithfulness to Jehovah and to that moral and spiritual interpretation of life for which the worship of Jehovah stood, inevitably involved participation in the organised services which centred in the Temple. Whatever its imperfections, the Temple at Jerusalem in his time was performing a great religious work in keeping alive zeal for Jehovah and His Law in the face of much degenerate heathenism. Moreover it is an unfair and a false
assumption to suppose that his manifest devotion to the ritual necessarily or probably meant that his religion was mere formalism or his creed poorly conceived. Behind the parade of the formalities of worship burns a living faith. The freedom with which the Chronicler has retold the history to conform with his religious views is indeed the measure of the force of his beliefs. We have already noted (p. xlix) as regards one midrashic passage that it is essentially a sermon on the need for trust in God. The Chronicler was passionately convinced that virtue is rewarded and vice is punished. He believed in a God supremely just yet merciful, One who rules directly and personally in human life, destroying evil, guiding and fostering all that is true and good. “The might of nations counted as nothing before Him. Obedience and faith in Jehovah were more effective instruments in the hands of Israel’s kings than powerful armies and strong alliances.” It is easy to smile at the Chronicler’s belief that piety is necessarily rewarded by worldly prosperity, and sin by worldly misfortune. But, if the life and teaching of Jesus Christ have led us to a deeper interpretation of life, that does not lessen the virtue of the Chronicler in maintaining his faith in God’s justice and vigilance, despite all the cruel evidences of the prosperity of the wicked. His doctrine of reward and punishment was crude, but after all he was striving, as best he knew how, to maintain the great central conviction of religion that “all things work together for good to them that love God.” Everywhere his work is dominated by the sense of right and wrong, and a clear-eyed perception of the absolute distinction between them. He brings all men and all things to a moral and religious test. The imperishable worth of Chronicles will ever be that it is the record of a man’s endeavour to present, in terms of national experience, the eternal laws of the spiritual realm.
Finally, since the Chronicler was retelling the past in terms of the present, we know that these beliefs of his were not rules applied in theory to history and ignored in present practice. They were the convictions by which his own soul lived. No one can afford to despise a man who was prepared to walk by the light of such a faith amid the difficulties and the perils which surrounded the enfeebled Jerusalem of that age. As Curtis says, “it was under the tutelage of
men like the Chronicler that the Maccabees were nourished and the heroic age of Judaism began.” We must not allow any distaste for legalism in religion to blind us to the virtues of the post-exilic Jews. The very rigidity of the ritual and the doctrine was essential to the preservation of the nobler elements in the faith. In the memorable words of Wellhausen (Prolegomena, pp. 497 f.), “At a time when all nationalities, and at the same time all bonds of religion and national customs were beginning to be broken up in the seeming cosmos and real chaos of the Graeco-Roman Empire, the Jews stood out like a rock in the midst of the ocean. When the natural conditions of independent nationality all failed them, they nevertheless artificially maintained it with an energy truly marvellous, and thereby preserved for themselves, and at the same time for the whole world, an eternal good.” Chronicles may justly claim to have played a part in that extraordinary triumph.
§ 9. N P C
Name. The Hebrew title is Dibhrē Hayyāmīm, literally The Acts (or Sayings) of the Days. In the Greek Version (the Septuagint) Chronicles was regarded as supplementary to Samuel and Kings, and so received the title “[Books of] the Omitted Acts” παραλειπομένων or “the Omitted Acts of the Kings (or Reigns) of Judah.” This name, moreover, passed into the Latin Vulgate, “(Libri) Paralipomenōn.” The title Chronicles seems to be due to a remark made by St Jerome, who, in commenting on the Hebrew title, wrote that the book might more appropriately be styled the “Chronicle of the whole of sacred history” (Prologus in Libros Regum, edited by Vallarsi, ix. 458). The use of the phrase is also suggested by a similar expression (literally “the book of the Acts of the Days of...”) found some twenty times in Kings, and commonly rendered “the book of the chronicles of...” e.g. 1 Kings xiv. 19. On the whole, Chronicles is a satisfactory title¹ .
¹ It is, however, open to the objection that an inexperienced reader may make the mistake of supposing that these references in Kings to “the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel [Judah]” are references to the canonical Chronicles.
Division. The division of Chronicles into two books (as in the English Versions) probably originated in the Septuagint (LXX.); the MSS. and both mark the division. It entered the English Version through the Latin Vulgate. On the other hand, Rabbinical evidence (Talmud, Baba Bathra 15a; and the Masōrah) and the Christian Fathers testify that among the Hebrews the book was undivided: so Origen (apud Eusebius Church History vi. 25, 2) and Jerome (Domnioni et Rogatiano).
Position in Canon. In the English Version Chronicles stands next after Kings, the Historical Books being grouped together. This arrangement was derived from the Septuagint through the Latin Vulgate. The order of the Hebrew Bible is different. There the books are arranged in three sections, of which the first contains the Books of the Pentateuch, the second includes the Historical Books from Joshua to Kings, while the third (Hebrew “Kĕthūbhīm”) contains Chronicles. The books of this third section seem to have been the last to receive Canonical Authority among the Jews. Kings thus appears to have been taken into the Canon before Chronicles.
In the Hebrew Bible the “Kĕthūbhīm” (Hagiographa) are usually arranged thus:—first the Poetical Books (Psalms, Proverbs, Job), next the Five Rolls or Megillōth (Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther), and lastly the three books Daniel, Ezra‒Nehemiah, and Chronicles. This is the usual Hebrew tradition, though it is surprising to find Ezra (which begins with the closing verses of Chronicles) put before Chronicles. The wording of Matthew xxiii. 35, however, “From the blood of Abel the righteous (see Genesis iv. 10 f.) unto the blood of Zachariah (see 2 Chronicles xxiv. 20 ff.)” suggests that as early as our Lord’s day Chronicles was regarded as the last, just as Genesis was the first, book of the Hebrew Canon. It is probable, therefore, that Chronicles found its
way into the Canon after Ezra‒Nehemiah, the latter book being needed to represent the post-exilic period of the history, whereas Chronicles covered ground already occupied by the books of Samuel and Kings.
10. T V C
Text. The Hebrew (Masoretic) text in Chronicles is, on the whole, well preserved, although by no means free from textual errors (compare 1 Chronicles vi. 28). Many of these occur, as one would expect, in the lists of proper names. Olstead (in the American Journal of Semitic Languages, October 1913) has given reasons for holding that occasionally the original text of Chronicles may have suffered from assimilation to the text of Samuel‒Kings. Further, we note a few phrases and passages which seem to be scribal additions (see § 3, p. xxii). An interesting scribal omission of late date is noted on 2 Chronicles xxviii. 20. In passages which are parallel to the older canonical books Chronicles has occasionally preserved a superior reading, e.g. 1 Chronicles xx. 4, Hebrew and LXX. “there arose war at Gezer” = 2 Samuel xxi. 18, “there was again war ... at Gob”; or again, 1 Chronicles viii. 53, “Eshbaal” = 2 Samuel ii. 8 “Ishbosheth”; or compare 1 Chronicles xiv. 14, note on go not up.
Versions. (1) Greek Versions. What is commonly called the Septuagint (LXX.) of Chronicles is now recognised to be not the original LXX., but a later Greek translation, which most scholars (especially Torrey, Ezra Studies) consider to be the rendering of Theodotion. [For criticism of the view that it is Theodotion’s rendering see the article by Olstead mentioned above.] In the main this rendering is a close reproduction of the Masoretic text, and of little value except for determining the official Hebrew text of the second century. The old LXX., unfortunately, no longer exists for 1 Chronicles i.‒2 Chronicles xxxiv.; but for 2 Chronicles xxxv., xxxvi. it has been preserved in 1 Esdras i.—a fact of great good fortune, not merely for the textual criticism of that passage, but for the light it sheds on the relations and characteristics of the Greek Versions.
(2) The Old Latin Version was made from the old LXX. which is now lost except for the last two chapters of Chronicles, as stated above. It would therefore be of great value for criticism, but alas! only a few fragments survive.
The later Latin Version, the Vulgate, made by Jerome, is of small value, as it represents only the official Hebrew text.
(3) The Syriac Version, known as the Peshitṭa, is of even smaller value for textual criticism. Unlike the close rendering of other books in the Peshitṭa, Chronicles constantly has the characteristics of a paraphrase rather than a translation. One example will suffice. For “Joel the chief and Shaphat the second,” 1 Chronicles v. 12, the Peshitṭa has “And Joel went forth at their head and judged them and taught them the scriptures well.” The Peshitṭa is further noteworthy for curious omissions (and substitutions), e.g. 2 Chronicles iv 10‒22; xi. 5‒xii. 12 (for which 1 Kings xii. 25‒30, followed by 1 Kings xiv. 1‒9, is substituted).
For further information regarding the text and versions of Chronicles, see the edition by Curtis, pp. 35 ff.
§ 11. L
Of the more recent literature on Chronicles the following is a list of the principal works which have been consulted in the preparation of this volume.
J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena (1885), especially chapter vi.
W. H. Bennett, The Books of Chronicles in the Expositor’s Bible (1894).
F. Brown, Chronicles in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible (1898).
W R. Smith and S. R. Driver, Chronicles in the Encyclopaedia Biblica (1899).
I. Benzinger, Die Bücher der Chronik (1901).
R. Kittel, Die Bücher der Chronik (1902).
C. F. Kent, Israel’s Historical and Biographical Narratives (Student’s Old Testament, 1905).
W. R. Harvie-Jellie, Chronicles in the Century Bible (1906).
E. L. Curtis and A. A. Madsen, Chronicles (the International Critical Commentary, 1910).
S. R. Driver, Literature of the Old Testament, pp. 517‒540 (8th edition 1909).
W. R. Smith and S. A. Cook, Chronicles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1910).
C. C. Torrey, Ezra Studies (1910).
A. T. Olstead, Source Study and the Biblical Text in the American Journal of Semitic Languages (October, 1913).
Students interested in the Hebrew text should consult Kittel’s edition of the Old Testament in Hebrew; Kittel’s Chronicles in Hebrew in The Sacred Books of the Old Testament (edited by P. Haupt); Torrey’s Ezra Studies, and the commentary by Curtis and Madsen mentioned above; also Arno Kropat, “Die Syntax des Autors der Chronik,” in the Zeitschrift für Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (Beihefte) xvi. (1909).
N.B. The commentary on Chronicles according to the text of the Authorised Version was edited in this series by the Rev. Professor W. E. Barnes, D.D., in 1899. For this new edition which is based on
the Revised Version the present writer is entirely responsible. He desires here to acknowledge the courtesy of Professor Barnes who has kindly permitted the retention of notes from the first edition.
W. A. L. E.
September 1st, 1915.
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES
C I.‒IX. GENEALOGIES.
C I.
T G P .
The historical narrative of the books of Chronicles commences in chapter x. with the record of the defeat and death of King Saul on Mt Gilboa.
The first nine chapters are occupied almost entirely by a series of genealogical lists. Starting from the primeval age, the line is traced from Adam to the origin of Israel, showing its place among the nations of the ancient world. Attention is then confined to the descendants of Israel, amongst whom the genealogies of Judah (particularly, the line of David), of Levi, and of Benjamin, are given prominence. Finally the ancestry of Saul, and a list of inhabitants of Jerusalem is recorded.
The modern reader is inclined to regard these statistics as the least important section of the book, but the fact that the bare lists of
names are so foreign to our taste should serve at least as a valuable warning of the difference between our outlook and that of the Chronicler. It is in the highest degree important to understand the motives which caused the Chronicler to give these lists of names as the fitting introduction to the history, since the same motives operate throughout the book and determine the standpoint from which the entire history is considered.
(1) In the first place the genealogies were not recorded by the Chronicler simply for the archaeological interest they possess. They served a most practical purpose, in that they helped to determine for the Jewish community of the Chronicler’s time what families were of proper Levitical descent and might claim a share in the privileges pertaining thereto, and—on a wider scale—what families might justly be considered to be the pure blood of Israel. How serious the consequences entailed by the absence of a name from such lists might be is well illustrated by Ezra ii. 61‒63 (= Nehemiah vii. 63‒65), “the children of Habaiah, the children of Hakkoz ... sought their register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but they were not found: therefore were they deemed polluted and put away from the priesthood.” On the other hand the Jew who could successfully trace his ancestry in the great lists knew himself indubitably a member of the chosen people and was confident of his part in the covenantal grace and in all those hopes which the faith of Israel inspired and sustained.
(2) The practical aspect of these lists was thus essentially connected with high religious sentiment. They were an expression of the continuity of Israel, a declaration that the Present was one with the Past, a witness and an assurance of the unfailing grace of Israel’s God. The genealogies therefore are in perfect harmony with the spirit and purpose of the Chronicler’s work—see the Introduction § 6.
(3) Finally, in the lists of place-names and genealogies of inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, various facts of great historical
Chapter i. contains the genealogies of the earliest age, showing the origin of the nations. It concludes with a list of the chiefs of Edom. The names are those given in the genealogies of Genesis i.‒xxxvi., but the lists are abbreviated to the utmost by the omission of statements of relationship. Evidently the Chronicler was able to assume that the connection between the names was a matter of common knowledge.
1‒4 (compare Genesis v. 3‒32).
A G A S N .
¹A interest are preserved—see Introduction § 7, pp. xlvii f. and (e.g.) ii. 42 note.
DAM, Seth, Enosh; ²Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared;
1. Seth ... Noah] This genealogy of ten antediluvian patriarchs follows Genesis v. 3‒32 (P), the “Sethite” line as compared with Genesis iv. 17‒24 (J) where the descent is traced through Cain. There is some ancient connection between the list and the Babylonian tradition of ten kings before the Flood (see Ryle, Genesis, pp. 88 ff. in this series). For the symbols J and P, see the Introduction p. xx.
Enosh] A poetical word which, like Adam in prose writings, was used as a generic term for “man.”
³Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech; ⁴Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
3. Enoch] Hebrew Ḥanôkh. In verse 33 the same name is more correctly rendered Hanoch, but the Revised Version not unwisely has here retained the famous name in the form (derived through the Vulgate from the LXX.) with which the Authorized Version has made us familiar; compare Genesis iv. 17, and v. 21.
5‒23.
T G N .
The table which follows is taken from Genesis x. 2‒29. It is geographical rather than ethnological, i.e. neighbouring nations are regarded as having the same descent. The world as then known is divided into three areas of which that in the north and west is assigned to the Sons of Japheth (5‒7), the southern to the Sons of Ham, and the middle and eastern to the Sons of Shem (17‒23). Had the arrangement been according to actual descent the Semitic Zidonians, for instance, would not be described as the offspring of Ham (verse 13).
The passage, when analysed, divides as follows: 5‒9 (a general table of the descendants of Japheth and Ham), 10‒16 (an appendix to the descendants of Ham), 17 (a general table of the descendants of Shem), 18‒23 (an appendix to the descendants of Shem). Of these four sections, the general tables, verses 5‒9 and 17, belong to the “Priestly” narrative of the Hexateuch, whilst the two appendices, verses 10‒16, 18‒23, are from the earlier narrative known as J. For a full examination of the many interesting questions raised by this account of the origin of the nations known to the Israelites the reader must be referred to the commentaries on Genesis where such discussion is appropriate (see Ryle, Genesis, in this series; or more fully Skinner, Genesis, pp. 188 ff.). Here a few remarks of a general character must suffice.
With the exception of Nimrod the names are those of nations and tribes (e.g. Madai [Medes], Javan [Greeks]) or countries (e.g. Mizraim [Egypt]) or cities (Zidon). The names are eponymous: that is to say “each nation is represented by an imaginary personage bearing its name, who is called into existence for the purpose of expressing its unity, but is at the same time conceived as its real progenitor”; and the relations existing or supposed to exist between the various races and ethnic groups are then set forth under the scheme of a family relationship between the eponymous ancestors. This procedure may seem strange to us but it was both natural and
convenient for a period when men had not at their disposal our scientific methods of classification. It must have been specially easy for Semites, like Israel, who in everyday life were accustomed to call a population the “sons of” the district or town which they inhabited. But in truth the practice was widespread in antiquity, and, if a parallel is desired, an excellent one may be found in the Greek traditions respecting the origins of the several branches of the Hellenic race. Whether the ancients believed that these eponymous ancestors really had lived is somewhat uncertain. Probably they did, although such names as Rodanim (verse 7) and Ludim (verse 11) where the name is actually left in a plural form (as we might say “Londoners”) makes it difficult to doubt that in some cases the convention was conscious and deliberate. The notion that the chief nations of antiquity were differentiated from one another within some three generations of descent from a common ancestor, Noah, is plainly inaccurate. Equally untenable is the primary conception assumed in this table that the great races of mankind have come into being simply through the expansion and subdivision of single families.
It must not be imagined that these facts in any way destroy the value of the table. Historically, it is a document of great importance as a systematic record of the racial and geographical beliefs of the Hebrews. Its value would be increased could we determine precisely the period when it was originally drawn up, but unfortunately it is not possible to do so with certainty. Arguments based on the resemblance between this table and the nations mentioned in the books of Ezekiel and Jeremiah are inconclusive; nor does the fact that the general tables (verses 5‒9, 17) now form part of P, the “Priestly” document, help us greatly, for we cannot argue from the date of the document as a whole to the date of its component laws or traditions, which of course may be much earlier. Religiously, the worth of this table is to be seen in the conviction of the fundamental unity of the human race, which is here expressed. The significance of this may best be felt if we contrast the Greek traditions which display a keen interest in the origins of their own peoples but none at all in that of the barbarians. Ancient society in general was vitiated by failure to recognise the moral obligation involved in our common
humanity Even Israel did not wholly transcend this danger, and its sense of spiritual pre-eminence may have taken an unworthy form in Jewish particularism; but at least, as we here see, there lay beneath the surface the instinct that ultimately the families of the earth are one, and their God one.
5‒7 (= Genesis x. 2‒4). T S J .
⁵The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.
5. The sons of Japheth] The writer begins with the northern peoples.
Gomer] to be identified with the Gimirrai of the Assyrian monuments, the Κιμμέριοι of the Greeks, who migrated from South Russia into Asia Minor (Pontus and Cappadocia) under the pressure of the Scythians (Herodotus I. 103; IV. 11, 12; compare Ezekiel xxxviii. 6, Revised Version).
Magog] In Ezekiel xxxviii. 2 (Revised Version) judgement is denounced on “Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal” who is represented as accompanied in his migration by the “hordes” of Gomer and Togarmah (verse 6), “all of them riding upon horses” (verse 15). Magog represents therefore one of several tribes of northern nomads, possibly the Scythians.
Madai] i.e. Media or the Medes. Of the many allusions in the Old Testament to this famous people, the first is found in 2 Kings xvii. 6; compare also Isaiah xiii. 17; Jeremiah xxv. 25; Esther i. 3; Daniel i. 9. The Median Empire dates from the 7th century . ., but the Medes are referred to by Assyrian inscriptions of the 9th century, at which time they seem to occupy the mountainous regions to the south and south-west of the Caspian Sea. They were the first Aryan race to play an important part in Semitic history.
Javan] the Ionians, a branch of the Greek peoples. They were already settled in the Aegean islands and on the west coast of Asia Minor at the dawn of Greek history. Being a seafaring nation and having a slave-trade with Tyre (Ezekiel xxvii. 13; Joel iii. 6 [Hebrew iv. 6 “Grecians”]), they became known to Israel at an early date. In some late passages of the Old Testament (e.g. Zechariah ix. 13; Daniel viii. 21, xi. 2) Javan denotes the world-power of the Greeks, established by the conquests of Alexander the Great and maintained in part by his successors, in particular the Seleucid kings of Syria.
Tubal, and Meshech] compare Isaiah lxvi. 19; Psalms cxx. 5. They are mentioned together Ezekiel xxvii. 13, xxxii. 26, xxxviii. 2, 3, xxxix. 1; and are to be identified with the Τιβαρηνοί and Μοσχοί of Herodotus III. 94, who are the “Tabali” and “Muski” of the monuments. In the time of the later Assyrian Empire they lived as neighbours in the country north-east of Cilicia, but at a later period the Τιβαρηνοί (Tubal) lived in Pontus, and the Μοσχοί (Meshech) further East towards the Caspian. (The Meshech of this verse is to be distinguished from the Meshech son of Shem mentioned in verse 17.)
Tiras] Not the Thracians (so Josephus Antiquities of the Jews I. 6), but most probably the Tyrseni, a piratical people frequenting the coasts and islands of the north Aegean. They are mentioned among the seafarers who assailed Egypt in the reign of Merenptah.
⁶And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Diphath¹ , and Togarmah.
¹ In Genesis x. 3, Riphath.
6. Ashkenaz] In Jeremiah li. 27 “the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz” are to be summoned against Babylon. The home of the Ashkenaz is therefore somewhere in the neighbourhood of Ararat (Armenia); and they are apparently the Asguza of the monuments, and perhaps may be identified with the Scythians.
Diphath] The LXX., Vulgate and some Hebrew MSS. have Riphath (so also Genesis x. 3), which is to be preferred. The identity of the place or people is not yet ascertained.
Togarmah] Perhaps in Armenia, but the evidence is inconclusive. That it was a neighbour of Gomer, Tubal, and Meshech appears probable from Ezekiel xxvii. 14, where Togarmah is mentioned as trading with Tyre in horses and mules. Compare also Ezekiel xxxviii. 6, and the note above on Magog.
⁷And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Rodanim¹ .
¹ In Genesis x. 4, Dodanim.
7. Elishah] Ezekiel (xxvii. 7) addressing Tyre, “Blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was thine awning.” Elishah has not been identified with certainty. It has been supposed to be Carthage. Another suggestion is Alashiya (of the Tell el-Amarna Letters) which may be a Cilician district, or perhaps rather Cyprus; compare the note on Kittim below.
Tarshish] generally now identified with Tartessus, a Phoenician town in the south of Spain. This is supported by the various references to Tarshish as a Tyrian colony rich in minerals and far from Palestine (see, e.g. Ezekiel xxvii. 12; Jonah i. 3; Psalms lxxii. 10; 2 Chronicles ix. 21). To identify it with Tarsus, the famous town in Cilicia, is in some ways attractive, but is on the whole less probable.
Kittim] The inhabitants of Cyprus are meant, “Kittim” being derived from Kition (modern Larnaca), the name of one of its oldest towns. In later times Kittim (Chittim) is used vaguely of Western islands (Jeremiah ii. 10; Ezekiel xxvii. 6) or nations; “the ships of Kittim” (Daniel xi. 30) are the Roman ships; “the land of Chittim” (Χεττιείμ, 1 Maccabees i. 1) is Macedonia (1 Maccabees viii. 5).
Rodanim] No doubt the Rhodians are meant; their island was celebrated even in the days of Homer. On the spelling Dodanim (Revised Version margin; Genesis x. 4), compare the note on Diphath above. The Hebrew letters r (ר) and d (ד) are easily confused.
8, 9 (= Genesis x. 6, 7). T S H .
⁸The sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, Put, and Canaan.
8. The sons of Ham] The southern peoples are next enumerated.
Cush] The Hebrew name here transliterated Cush is several times translated “Ethiopia” (e.g. 2 Kings xix. 9; Isaiah xviii. 1) no doubt rightly. On the inscriptions of Asshur-bani-pal frequent mention is made of Ku-su (Ku-u-su) “Ethiopia” in connection with Mu-ṣur “Egypt.” The Cushites were not Negroes but a brown race like the modern Nubians (Soudanese). The “sons of Cush,” however, seem to be tribes located mostly on the Arabian side of the Red Sea, verse 9 below.
Mizraim] is without doubt Egypt. In form the word may be dual, and it is generally said to mean the two Egypts, Upper and Lower.
Put] This people is mentioned among the helpers of Egypt in Jeremiah, in Ezekiel (twice), and in Nahum. In Ezekiel xxvii. 10 it appears among the auxiliary troops of Tyre. Put used therefore to be identified with the Libyans of the north coast of Africa, but more probably it denotes the Punt of the Egyptian monuments, i.e. the African coast of the Red Sea.
Canaan] the eponym of the pre-Israelitish population of Palestine west of Jordan. Actual racial affinities are here disregarded or unperceived, for the Canaanites (except the Philistines and Phoenicians on the strip of coastland) were Semites and spoke a
language closely resembling Hebrew That they are here reckoned as Hamites and made a “brother” of Egypt is due perhaps in part to the frequent dominations of Palestine by Egypt, but more probably to the political and religious antagonism between Israel and the Canaanites, which suggested that they ought to be most closely associated with Egypt, Israel’s traditional oppressor. Note that in Genesis ix. 25‒27 (where hostile feeling against Canaan is prominent) “Canaan” is not said to be the son of Ham, but takes Ham’s place as a son of Noah (Ryle, Genesis, p. 127).
⁹And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabta, and Raama, and Sabteca. And the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.
9. the sons of Cush] According to some authorities Seba and Havilah were tribes or districts on the African coast of the Red Sea, whilst Sabta and Raama and Sabteca were in Arabia. It is somewhat more probable that all (except Seba) were located on the Arabian side of the Red Sea.
Seba] In Isaiah xliii. 3 and xlv. 14 Seba (the Sabeans) is mentioned along with Egypt and Cush, and in Psalms lxxii. 10 along with Sheba. Probably a district on the African side of the Red Sea is meant.
Sheba, and Dedan] Also in verse 32, where see note. Sheba is frequently mentioned in the Old Testament (e.g. Jeremiah vi. 20; 1 Kings x. 1 ff. = 2 Chronicles ix. 1 ff.; Isaiah lx. 6) as a distant land, rich in gold, frankincense, and precious stones. It was a flourishing and wealthy state, at one period (circa 700 ) the centre of power and civilisation in south Arabia. Dedan was probably a merchant tribe, specially associated with Sheba (compare Ezekiel xxxviii. 13).
