Genesis 10:22

22. Elam The Elymaeans who originally peopled the country west of Persia, between it and Mesopotamia, Elymais, stretching from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf; called Susiana by the old geographers, the Cissia of Herodotus . It had become important and powerful in the time of Abraham, (Genesis 14:1, etc . ,) although before that time, having been overrun by a Cushite race, it had lost its Shemitish language .

Asshur Assyria; probably the word signifies plain, originally applied to the plain along the east bank of the Tigris, north of Susiana, (Elam,) which was the original seat of the great Assyrian empire. The recently discovered Assyrian monuments show that the people originally spoke a Shemitic language, although Aryan and Hamitic elements were afterwards mingled with it. (Furst, Gesch. Bib. Lit., p. 9.)

Arphaxad Ewald interprets this word fortress of the Chaldees; Furst, country of the Chaldees, but the etymology is doubtful. Following Bochart, scholars have usually identified this name with Arrapachitis, a region on the east bank of the Tigris, north of the primitive Assyria and joining Armenia.

Lud Supposed by eminent ethnologists to be the Lydians, a warlike race who spread westward into Asia Minor, and there founded a powerful kingdom, which was conquered by Cyrus, and swallowed up in the Medo-Persian empire. But the undoubted Aryan (Sanskrit) derivation of certain Lydian proper names (for example, Sardis, Candaules) makes the conclusion at least doubtful. The matter must be regarded as yet unsettled. (Comp. Rawl., Her., i, Essay ii; Furst, Gesch., Bib. Lit., p. 19.) The Arabic historians assign to Lud the Amalekites and the primitive Arabs, the Joktanite (Genesis 10:26) and Ishmaelite (Genesis 25:13) Arabs being younger branches of the nation. With this Knobel coincides, and also makes it probable that the primitive Amorites and the Philistines were Shemitic peoples of the stock of Lud. ( Volktfl., p. 198, etc.)

Aram High land, Aramea, or Syria, especially that part north of Palestine. Mesopotamia is the Aram of the two rivers, that is, Euphrates and Tigris that part of Aram which falls between these streams; so there is an Aram of Damascus Aram Zoba, north of Damascus, etc. It probably receives its name from Lebanon, the conspicuous mountain chain of the region. The Shemitic languages, Syriac and Chaldee, originated in Aram.