From Shem to Abram
10 This is the history of the generations of Shem: Shem was one hundred years old when he became the father of Arpachshad two years after the flood. 11 Shem lived five hundred years after he became the father of Arpachshad, and became the father of more sons and daughters. 12 Arpachshad lived thirty-five years and became the father of Shelah. 13 Arpachshad lived four hundred three years after he became the father of Shelah, and became the father of more sons and daughters. 14 Shelah lived thirty years, and became the father of Eber. 15 Shelah lived four hundred three years after he became the father of Eber, and became the father of more sons and daughters. 16 Eber lived thirty-four years, and became the father of Peleg. 17 Eber lived four hundred thirty years after he became the father of Peleg, and became the father of more sons and daughters. 18 Peleg lived thirty years, and became the father of Reu. 19 Peleg lived two hundred nine years after he became the father of Reu, and became the father of more sons and daughters. 20 Reu lived thirty-two years, and became the father of Serug. 21 Reu lived two hundred seven years after he became the father of Serug, and became the father of more sons and daughters. 22 Serug lived thirty years, and became the father of Nahor. 23 Serug lived two hundred years after he became the father of Nahor, and became the father of more sons and daughters. 24 Nahor lived twenty-nine years, and became the father of Terah. 25 Nahor lived one hundred nineteen years after he became the father of Terah, and became the father of more sons and daughters. 26 Terah lived seventy years, and became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
A second arithmetical genealogy narrows the world's nations to one household, and the numbers fall by half and half again.
This is the history of the generations of Shem. The section formula opens the book's fifth division, and it does the same work as chapter five: ten generations, each with a figure attached, moving from a known man to the man the rest of the book is about.
The placement is the argument. The chapter has just scattered the human race into nations and languages; the very next paragraph begins narrowing again, and it will not stop until it reaches a single childless couple in Haran. The movement of the whole book is here in miniature — outward to all the families of the earth, then inward to one, so that through the one the outward movement can begin again on different terms.
The list is shorter in its notices than chapter five and it is missing one thing. There is no refrain. The eightfold then he died that tolled through the generations of Adam is not repeated here — each entry gives the age at fatherhood, the years afterward, and the further sons and daughters, and simply stops. The omission is not an oversight in a writer this consistent; the deaths are still implied, but the chapter's rhythm has changed from a verdict being executed to a line being traced.
What the numbers do show is a collapse. Shem lives six hundred years. Two generations later the totals are in the four hundreds, then the two hundreds, and Terah dies at two hundred and five. From the nine centuries of the pre-flood world to Abraham's hundred and seventy-five is a steady decline across ten generations, and it continues afterward to Moses' hundred and twenty and then to the ordinary span. The book records the curve without explaining it, and a curve is not the shape a legend produces; an invented tradition of long-lived ancestors tends to keep them long-lived.
One name in the list carries the note from the previous chapter — Peleg, in whose days the earth was divided Genesis 10:25 — which quietly ties the genealogy to the scattering it follows.
And the last entry is the hinge of the Old Testament: Terah lived seventy years, and became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Eleven chapters have covered the creation of the world, the fall, a murder, a flood and the dispersal of every nation. Everything from here to the end of the book — thirty-nine chapters — concerns this man and three generations after him.
settled What this mark means