Genesis 10:11 - Exposition

Out of that land went forth Asshur, the son of Shem ( Genesis 10:22 ; LXX ; Vulgate, Syriac, Luther, Calvin, Michaelis, Dathe, Rosenmüller, Bohlen). i.e. the early Assyrians retired from Babylon before their Cushite. invaders, and, proceeding northward, founded the cities after mentioned; but the marginal rendering seems preferable: "Out of that land went (Nimrod) into Asshur," or Assyria, the country northeast of Babylon, through which flows the Tigris, and which had already received its name from the son of Shem (the Targums, Drusius, Bochart, Le Clerc, De Wette, Delitzsch, Keil, Kalisch, Lange, et alii ). And builded Nineveh . The capital of Assyria, opposite Mosul on the Tigris, afterward§ became the largest and most flourishing city of the ancient world ( Jonah 3:3 ; Jonah 4:11 ), being fifty-five miles in circumference (Diod; Genesis 2:3 ), and is now identified with the ruins of Nehbi-yunus and Kouyunjik. And the city Rehoboth . Rehoboth-ir, literally, the streets of the city (cf. Platea, a city in Boeotia), a town of which the site is unknown. And Calah . The mounds of Nimroud (Layard and Smith), though Kalisch and Murphy prefer Kalah Shergat (about fifty miles south of Nineveh), which the former authorities identify with Asshur, the original capital of the country.