Notes 7: The table of nations (10:1-32)

SYNOPSIS: This is a key tol'dot-like passage which attempts to enumerate and trace the affiliation of the peoples or "nations" known to the ancient Israelites to one of the three branches represented by Noah's sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

• Text of the passage in Nawat

The focus of the Table of Nations, as this section is known, seems to be different from the usual, run-of-the-mill tol'dot, which aim to trace the direct line of descent connecting Adam to the patriarchs and ultimately to Moses and beyond him to King David and so on. Here the point, it seems, is not to establish pedigree but to map out a classification telling us who-belongs-where. The difference is seen in the formulation, which is much more concise here; no interest is shown in absolute chronology, so nobody's age is mentioned. Some of the time, all we get is lists of names, but there is also some anecdotic material interspersed among these lists. In some cases, scholars today think they know what peoples, countries or cities are referred to, often by a name that is not recognisable from modern maps, but in others, there are only guesses or traditional assumptions which cannot be verified. Although couched in mythological terms as if it were a family tree, Speiser is of the opinion that "the Table stands out as a pioneering effort among the ethnographic attempts of the ancient world" (p. 71).

The detailed analysis of this list and the theories and known facts about its connections with historical geography exceed my knowledge and the scope of the blog; only the briefest of notes follow, but anyone interested will find more information in other commentaries etc.

10:1 w'élle tol'dot b'ne nóax...
The section starts out with a heading typical of tol'dot passages. As a chronological specification we have axar hammabul 'after the flood.'

10:2 b'ne yéfet
We start with the descendants of Japheth. This is the shortest of the accounts of the three branches which follow.

10:4  yavan
Cognate of Ion[ian] and taken to mean Greece.

dodanim
It is considered probable that this is a copying error for rodanim (it is easy to confuse H r and d). The name is suspected to refer to the island of Rhodes. Given as a son of yavan (see above).

10:5 ish lil'shono
'Each according to his language.' This is attributed to P. The story of the Tower of Babel will come from J!

10:6 mitzráyim
This is the Hebrew name for Egypt; cf. the present-day name for Egypt in Arabic, misr.


10:8-12 nimrod
Here the list of "nations" is interrupted by some comments about Nimrod. It is uncertain who this Nimrod is. He is thought to be the mythical Mesopostamie figure Ninurta who may have been based in part on a real thirteenth-century BCE ruler of Mesopotamia, Tukurti-Ninurta I (named after the legendary Ninurta), described by Speiser (EAS, p. 72) as "the first Assyrian conqueror of Babylonia. Aside from his conquests, this king was celebrated also for his building activities, and an epic extolling his exploits is one of the literary legacies of Assyria."

10:14 p'lishtim
I.e. the Philistines, who are thus made to come from Egypt. As Speiser and other commentators observe, other parts of the Hebrew Bible say that they came from kaftor which is identified with Crete; maybe the phrase here was a marginal gloss which got put in the wrong place when it was copied. In point of fact, the Philistines came originally from the "maritime nations" of the Mediterranean area; it is thought that their original language might have been Indo-European. But they had settled in Egypt and it was from there that they invaded and settled the coast of Canaan. This happened later than the Israelite settlement of inland Canaan, which explains why the Philistines are never referred to in Genesis as "Canaanites". During the period referred to in Genesis there is nothing to suggest that the Israelites and Philistines were bitter enemies, as they were to become in later centuries. This serves as a good example of how the Table of Nations relates to actual historical relations between the ancient peoples. It was not strictly "genetic" (since the Philistines were not ultimately of Egyptian origin), but reflects how the Israelites viewed each ethnic group (the Philistines are not called sons of Canaan, but belong to a different branch of "Ham", and did, in an immediate sense, have Egyptian connections after all).

10:15 ukh'ná‛an yalad et tzidon b'khoro w'et xet...
Interpreted historically, the analysis of "Canaan" is accurate, though again in a geo-historical rather than a genetic sense. Sidon (tzidon) was an important city of Phoenicia of great antiquity and so is a good representative of the "old Canaan" which the Israelites encountered, while the so-called Hittites (xet) were non-Semitic (linguistically) settlers from the north.

10:16-18
This looks like an additional list tacked on to the original one later, since its format is different. The Jebusites (hay'vusi) were the ancient inhabitants of the Jerusalem district. Concerning ha'emori 'the Amorite' see my note on 14:5 ff.

10:19 way'hi g'vul hakk'na‛ani...
This purely (geopolitical) note is added because it was obviously of interest to the Israelites to know which lands belonged to Canaan, since these were the lands that would be promised to Abram and his descendants (ch. 12).

10:20 l'mishp'xotam lil'shonotam b'artzotam b'goyehem
As CB observes, this ceremonious-sounding piling up of near-synonyms (KJV: 'after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations') smacks of legalistic jargon and so is the sort of thing we expect to find in a document like P. The same formula is repeated in 10:31 as the wrap-up to the list of Shem's descendants.

10:21 ul'shem... avi kol b'ne ‛éver
The b'ne ‛éver or 'sons/children of Eber' (whence the adjective ‛ivri) are the "Hebrews", the ethnic group to which the Israelites but also some of their closest relatives, such as the Aramaeans (remember Laban), were considered to belong. Logically, the text shows a special interest in the position of Eber in the family tree. Eber is part of the Semitic branch, the family of Shem, hence Shem is the ancestor (av 'father') of all Hebrews. Nevertheless, only limited information is given here about the "Eber line" and the reason is no doubt that this will be the subject of the rest of the book! Specifically, the genealogical connection between Noah, Shem, Eber and on down to Abram (a.k.a. Abraham) will be the subject of another tol'dot section coming up in ch. 11. Here, then, the text is probably principally interested in establishing the layout of the rest of the Shem branch and clarifying the relationship between "Eber" (the Hebrews) and their closest relatives.

10:22 b'ne shem ‛elam w'asshur w'arpakhshad w'lud w'aram
This section of the genealogy may give some interesting clues about who was classed by the ancient Israelites as belonging to the same branch as themselves (and hence, where they saw themselves in the scheme of things). Notice therefore the mention of Aram (i.e. the Aramaeans), Asshur (the Assyrians) and so on. Regarding Elam, see my note on 14:1. Eber, the symbolic ancestor of the Hebrews (see note on 10:21), is not one of these siblings but rather a grandson of Arpachshad, perhaps implying that they were just one tribe or clan of a larger branch. An ancient tradition attempts to analyse the name arpakhshad, noting in particular the last three consonants: k-sh-d, which is almost exactly the root of kasdim 'Chaldea' (k-ś-d) with which it is graphemically identical (כשד), i.e. the second element of ur-kasdim trad. 'Ur of the Chaldees', mentioned as the ancestral homeland of Abra(ha)m's family (whose geographical location is uncertain) in ch. 12.

10:25 péleg
Nothing much is known, although he is a son of Eber and the ancestor of Abram, about this páleg / péleg. His offspring are not listed here but will be in the next tol'dot passage, coming up in ch. 11 when Abram's line are listed.

ki v'yamaw nifl'ga ha'áretz
(JPS) '...for in his [i.e. Peleg's] day the earth was divided.' It is unclear what this is about.

w'shem axiw yoqtan
The Yoktan branch apparently consists of Arabian tribes, who are thus described as Peleg's "younger brother." Their geographical location is given in 10:30 (way'hi moshavam...).