1 Chronicles 1:17-27 -

D. THE LIST OF SHEM 'S DESCENDANTS TO ABRAM . This list is broken in two; it pauses a moment exactly halfway to Abram, at the name Peleg , to mention Peleg's brother Joktan and Joktan's thirteen sons. Then, repeating the first five names of lineal descent, and picking up the thread at Peleg, the list gives the remaining five to Abram. In the first half of this list, we have apparently the names of nine sons of Shem, but, as Genesis explains, really the names of five sons, and through Aram, the last of them, the names of four grandsons. Another grandson, through Arphaxad the third son, follows, and through this grandson two consecutive lineal descents bring us, in the name Peleg, half-way to Abram. It is here the lineal table pauses to give Joktan and his thirteen sons. The names then in this portion of the list are twenty-six in number. In the Authorized Version they correspond with those in Genesis, except that Meschech ( וָמֶשֶׁךְ ) here is called Mash ( וָמַשׁ ) there; Shelah here is spelled Salah there; and Ebal ( עֵיבָל ) here is written Obal ( עוֹבָל ) there. The difference between the Hebrew texts justifies the first and last of these variations in the Authorized Version, but in all other respects those texts are in entire accord with one another, for this paragraph. The Septuagint gives very little of this portion of the list. It corresponds, whether with the Hebrew or the Authorized Version, only as far as to the name Arphaxad, after which it carries down the line at once to Abram by the remaining eight names as given in our twenty-fourth to twenty-seventh verses. Nor is it in agreement with its own version in Genesis, which has points of important variation with the Hebrew text also. It is then at this break of the list that, after the names of Joktan's sons, we have in Genesis these words, "And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar a mount of the east. These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lauds, after their nations. These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations; and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the Flood." Upon this follows the account of Babel, in nine long verses, and then a chronological summary is furnished in lineal descent only from Shem to Abram. It is with the names in this chronological summary that those in this second part of our list (verses 24-27) are found to agree. But any attempt at reproduction of the chronology found in Genesis is again absent here. At this point a significant stage of these genealogies is reached. The ever-broadening stream of population now narrows again. Two thousand years have flown by, then Abraham appears on the stream and tide of human life. Of that long period the life of Adam himself spanned nearly the half. So far we learn without partiality of all his descendants in common. But henceforth, the real, the distinct purpose of the genealogy becomes apparent, in that the line of the descendants of Abraham, and that by one family, alone is maintained, and proves to be a purpose leading by one long straight line to Christ himself. With Abraham "the covenant of innoceney," long forfeited in Adam, is superseded by the everlasting "covenant of grace," and we lose sight in some measure of Adam, the "common father of our flesh," to think of a happier parentage found in Abraham, the "common father of the faithful."