a significance, as well as a literary propriety, which cannot be mistaken (Di. 164; Gu. 77; Dri. 114).
The Table is repeated in 1 Ch. 14-23 with various omissions and
textual variations. The list is still further abridged in G of 1 Chr.,
which omits 13-18a and all names after Arpachshad in 22.—On the extensive
literature on the chapter, see especially the commentaries of
Tu. (159 f.) and Di. (170 f.). See also the map at the end of ATLO. The Table of P.
1a. Superscription.—Shēm, Ḥām, and Yepheth] cf. 532 (P), 918 (J).
On the original sense of the names only vague conjectures can be
reported. (
Hebrew characters) is supposed by some to be the Heb. word for 'name,'
applied by the Israelites to themselves in the first instance as (Hebrew characters) =
'men of name' or 'distinction'—the titled or noble race (cf. (Greek characters)):
"perhaps nothing more than the ruling caste in opposition to the
aborigines." So We. (Comp.2 14), who compares the name 'Aryan,'
and contrasts (Hebrew characters) (Jb. 308); cf. Bu. Urg. 328 f.; al. Gu. (73)
mentions a speculation of Jen. that (Hebrew characters) is the Babylonian šumu, in the
sense of 'eldest son,' who perpetuates the father's name.
(Hebrew characters) must, at a certain stage of tradition, have supplanted the earlier
(Hebrew characters) as the name of Noah's third son (p. 182). The change is easily
explicable from the extension of geographical knowledge, which made
it impossible any longer to regard the father of the Canaanites as the
ancestor of one-third of the human race; but the origin of the name
has still to be accounted for. As a Heb. word it might mean 'hot'
(Jos. 912, Jb. 3717): hence it has been taken to denote the hot lands of
the south (Lepsius, al.; cf. Jub. viii. 30: "the land of Ham is hot").
Again, since in some late Pss. (7851 10523. 27 10622) (Hebrew characters) is a poetic designation
of Egypt, it has been plausibly connected with the native keme
or chemi = 'black,' with reference to the black soil of the Nile valley
(Bochart, Ebers, Bu. 323 ff.).[1] A less probable theory is that of Glaser,
cited by Hommel (AHT, 48), who identifies it with Eg. 'amu, a collective
name for the neighbouring Semitic nomads, derived by Müller (AE,
123 ff.) from their distinctive primitive weapon, the boomerang.
(Hebrew characters) is connected in 927 with [root] (Hebrew characters), and no better etymology has been
proposed. Che. (EB, ii. 2330) compares the theophorous personal name
Yapti-'Addu in TA Tab., and thinks it a modification of (Hebrew characters), 'God
opens.' But the form (Hebrew characters) (pitû) with the probable sense of 'open' also
occurs in the Tab. (KIB, v. 290 [last line]). The derivation from [root] (Hebrew characters)
(beautiful), favoured by Bu. (358 ff.), in allusion to the beauty of the
Phœnician cities, is very improbable. The resemblance to the Greek
Iapetos was pointed out by Buttmann, and is undoubtedly striking.
(Greek characters) was the father of Prometheus, and therefore (through Deu-
- ↑ Cf. the rare word (
Hebrew characters), 'black,' 3032ff.
