Palestine, - and thence from west to east, in the direction towards Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim (see Gen 19:24) to Lesha,” i.e., Calirrhoe, a place with sulphur baths, on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, in Wady Serka Maein ( Seetzen and Ritter).
verses 21-22
Descendants of Shem. - Gen 10:21. For the construction, vid., Gen 4:26. Shem is called the father of all the sons of Eber, because two tribes sprang from Eber through Peleg and Joktan, viz., the Abrahamides, and also the Arabian tribe of the Joktanides (Gen 4:26.). - On the expression, “ the brother of Japhet הגּדול,” see Gen 9:24. The names of the five sons of Shem occur elsewhere as the names of the tribes and countries; at the same time, as there is no proof that in any single instance the name was transferred from the country to its earliest inhabitants, no well-grounded objection can be offered to the assumption, which the analogy of the other descendants of Shem renders probable, that they were originally the names of individuals. As the name of a people, Elam denotes the Elymaeans, who stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, but who are first met with as Persians no longer speaking a Semitic language. Asshur: the Assyrians who settled in the country of Assyria, Ἀτουρία, to the east of the Tigris, but who afterwards spread in the direction of Asia Minor. Arphaxad: the inhabitants of Ἀῤῥαπαχῖχτις in northern Assyria. The explanation given of the name, viz., “fortress of the Chaldeans” ( Ewald), “highland of the Chaldeans” ( Knobel), “territory of the Chaldeans” ( Dietrich), are very questionable. Lud: the Lydians of Asia Minor, whose connection with the Assyrians is confirmed by the names of the ancestors of their kings. Aram: the ancestor of the Aramaeans of Syria and Mesopotamia.
==verses 23-24== Gen 10:23-24 Descendants of Aram. Uz: a name which occurs among the Nahorides (Gen 22:21) and Horites (Gen 36:28), and which is associated with the Αἰσῖται of Ptolemy, in Arabia deserta towards Babylon; this is favoured by the fact that Uz, the country of Job, is called by the lxx χώρα Αὐσῖτις, although the notion that these Aesites were an Aramaean tribe, afterwards mixed up with Nahorides and Horites, is mere conjecture. Hul: Delitzsch associates this with Cheli ( Cheri), the old Egyptian name for the Syrians, and the Hylatae who dwelt near the Emesenes (Plin. 5, 19). Gether he
