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1 Chronicles1:19

✦ Public-domain source — quoted & attributed⚙ AI synthesis — generated, verify

1 Chronicles 1:19 — . Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

19

Two sons were born to Eber: One was named Peleg, because in his days the earth was divided, and his brother was named Joktan.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

šə·nê ḇā·nîm yul·laḏ ū·lə·‘ê·ḇer hā·’e·ḥāḏ šêm pe·leḡ kî ḇə·yā·māw hā·’ā·reṣ nip̄·lə·ḡāh ’ā·ḥîw wə·šêm yā·qə·ṭān

Word by word14 · parsed
שְׁנֵ֣יšə·nêTwoH8147
√ shᵉnayim — twoNumbermasculine dual construct
shᵉnayim: two Masculine dual construct; the count, not a flourish.
בָנִ֑יםḇā·nîmsonsH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine plural
bên: a son H1121 covers son, grandson, subject, nation. The register's whole ambiguity sits in this one word: these names are men, and they are also the peoples that came of them.
יֻלַּ֖דyul·laḏwere bornH3205
√ yâlad — to bear youngVerbQalPassPerfectthird person masculine singular
yâlad: to bear young (Qal passive) The Chronicler switches verbs deliberately at this point in the list. K&D observe that the sections are joined by ûḇᵉnê through 1 Chronicles 1:9, by yālaḏ from 1 Chronicles 1:10, and here at 1 Chronicles 1:19 by the passive yullaḏ, exactly as Genesis 10:24 and Genesis 10:25 do. The seam in the Hebrew is copied, not invented.
וּלְעֵ֥בֶרū·lə·‘ê·ḇerto EberH5677
√ ʻÊbêr — Eber, the name of two patriarchs and four IsraelitesConjunctive waw, Preposition-lNounpropermasculine singular
ʻÊbêr: Eber H5677, the name behind the word Hebrew. The line narrows here: everything after this verse in the chapter is either Peleg's branch, which runs to Abraham, or Joktan's, which runs into Arabia.
הָאֶחָ֞דhā·’e·ḥāḏOneH259
√ ʼechâd — properly, united, iArticleNumbermasculine singular
ʼechâd: one, united Article plus the number: "the one," the first of the pair. Light word, load-bearing only as a counter.
שֵׁ֣םšêmwas namedH8034
√ shêm — an appellation, as amark or memorial of individualityNounmasculine singular construct
shêm: an appellation, a memorial of individuality Construct: "the name of." In this chapter a name is the smallest unit of memory God keeps. Seventy-odd of them are preserved with no story attached, and the Chronicler, writing to a returned and shrunken people, is arguing by the list itself that being named is not nothing.
פֶּ֗לֶגpe·leḡPelegH6389
√ Peleg — Peleg, a son of ShemNounpropermasculine singular
Peleg: Peleg, a son of Shem H6389, "Division" or "Separation" (Cambridge). A rare name, in only 7 verses of the canon, and every one of them is genealogical: Genesis 10:25, Genesis 11:16 to 11:19, this verse, and 1 Chronicles 1:25. The man is nothing but a hinge between two lines and a memorial of one event.
כִּ֤יkîbecauseH3588
√ kîy — (by implication) very widely used as a relative conjunction or adverb (as below)Conjunction
kîy: because The etymological conjunction. It turns the register, for one clause only, into narrative: the name is given a cause. This is the sole editorial reason given for any name in the whole chapter.
בְיָמָיו֙ḇə·yā·māwin his daysH3117
√ yôwm — a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverb)Preposition-bNounmasculine plural constructthird person masculine singular
yôwm: a day Plural construct with a third person masculine singular suffix: "in his days." H3117 can mean a bounded stretch of time defined by its associated term, and that is its force here: the splitting is dated by a man's lifetime rather than by a year, because the Chronicler has no calendar before Israel, only a chain of fathers.
הָאָ֔רֶץhā·’ā·reṣthe earthH776
√ ʼerets — the earth (at large, or partitively a land)ArticleNounfeminine singular
ʼerets: the earth, or a land H776 covers the whole earth and a single territory. The reading of the verse turns on which is meant. Cambridge takes it of the population ("a great dispersion of the population of the earth"); Poole takes it of languages and habitation together. Neither reads it of the ground itself, and the Hebrew does not decide the question.
נִפְלְגָ֣הnip̄·lə·ḡāhwas dividedH6385
√ pâlag — to split (literally or figuratively)VerbNifalPerfectthird person feminine singular
pâlag: to split (Nifal) H6385 is rare: 4 verses in the whole canon. The other three are Genesis 10:25, where this clause is first written; Job 38:25, where God splits a channel for the torrent; and Psalm 55:9, where David asks the Lord to split the tongues of a violent city. In every case the splitting is done to something that was whole, and in two of the four the splitter is God. The Chronicler declines to say so here, and that silence is the verse.
אָחִ֖יו’ā·ḥîwand his brotherH251
√ ʼâch — a brother (used in the widest sense of literal relationship and metaphorical affinity or resemblance (like father))Nounmasculine singular constructthird person masculine singular
ʼâch: a brother H251, construct with the suffix: "his brother." The word holds the two halves of the human race together in the same breath that records their splitting. Joktan is not a rival line, he is a brother.
וְשֵׁ֥םwə·šêmwas namedH8034
√ shêm — an appellation, as amark or memorial of individualityConjunctive wawNounmasculine singular construct
shêm: an appellation Waw plus construct, repeating word 5. The doubled formula gives the two brothers exactly equal weight in the sentence, whatever the rest of Scripture does with them.
יָקְטָֽן׃yā·qə·ṭānJoktanH3355
√ Yoqṭân — Joktan, an Arabian patriarchNounpropermasculine singular
Yoqṭân: Joktan, an Arabian patriarch H3355, in 6 verses: Genesis 10:25, Genesis 10:26, Genesis 10:29, this verse, 1 Chronicles 1:20, 1 Chronicles 1:23. Thirteen sons are listed for him in the verses that follow, against Peleg's bare succession. The genealogy spends more ink on the brother it is about to drop than on the brother it is following.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. A list that stops to explain itself — 1 Chronicles 1:19

For eighteen verses the Chronicler has given bare names. Here, once, he gives a reason: כִּ֤י (kî, because). The clause is not his own invention. K&D show that the whole register is taken from Genesis 10, down to the connecting formulas, and that 1 Chronicles 1:19 is joined by yullaḏ exactly as Genesis 10:25 is; the divergences K&D can find in the chapter are orthographic or scribal, not editorial. So the one explanatory clause in the list is a quotation. ⚙ What the Chronicler chose was not what to say about Peleg but that, out of everything he could have carried over from Genesis 10, he would carry this.

ii. What was split, and by whom — 1 Chronicles 1:19

The verb נִפְלְגָ֣ה (pâlag, H6385) is Nifal: split, with no agent. Cambridge supplies the sense that the splitting was of people, calling it a great dispersion of the population of the earth, and glosses the name Peleg as Separation or Division. Poole supplies the occasion, taking it of languages and habitation together and sending the reader to Genesis 11:7, which is Babel. ⚙ Both are reading in, honestly and in opposite directions: Cambridge reads the noun הָאָ֔רֶץ (H776, which can mean either the earth or its inhabitants), and Poole reads the wider canon. The Hebrew itself names neither the cause nor the splitter. Of the four verses in the canon that use this rare root, two put the splitting in God's hand (Job 38:25, Psalm 55:9), and this verse is not one of them.

iii. The brother who gets the longer list — 1 Chronicles 1:19

Joktan (H3355) is given thirteen sons in the verses that follow; Peleg is given a son and dropped into a chain. Gill states plainly why the chain is the one that matters: Shem's posterity are placed last because from him, in the line of Eber, sprang Abraham, and of Abraham the Messiah was to come, for whose sake, Gill says, this genealogy is given. K&D, arguing against Bertheau, insists that Peleg and Joktan are persons and not personified peoples. ⚙ Hold both and the verse's shape appears: two brothers of one father, equal in the sentence, split apart in history, one of them carrying a promise neither of them is told about.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested. The verse is a name with a wound in it. Eber's son is called Split because the world split while he was alive, and he could do nothing about it; he is remembered for what happened to everyone during his lifetime. Scripture gives him no words, no acts, no faith, no failure. If a man can be preserved in the memory of God with nothing to his name but the date of a catastrophe he did not cause, then the register itself is an argument: being kept is not a reward for a story. The Chronicler wrote this for people who had come back from exile to a small city and a thin genealogy, people whose own generation was known chiefly for a disaster. He does not tell them the splitting was undone. He tells them it was written down, with the brother's name beside it, and that the line kept running.

A man named for the year the world came apart, and the line ran on through him anyway. (This line is commentary, not Scripture.)

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The clause the Chronicler copied out of Genesis verbal / quotation: confirmed

1 Chronicles 1:19 reproduces Genesis 10:25 almost word for word, including the etymological kî clause. The Verifier records three shared lexemes, two of them rare: H6385 pâlag (4 verses in the canon), H3355 Yoqṭân (6 verses), H6389 Peleg (7 verses). K&D reach the same conclusion from the form of the register, noting that 1 Chronicles 1:18 is joined by yālaḏ and 1 Chronicles 1:19 by yullaḏ, as in Genesis 10:24 and Genesis 10:25, and concluding that the dependence on Genesis 10 is placed beyond doubt.

Genesis 10:25

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6385 pâlag (in 4 vv), H3355 Yoqṭân (in 6 vv), H6389 Peleg (in 7 vv). Two are rare, and the clause order matches; K&D independently identify 1 Chronicles 1 as taken from Genesis 10.

The splitter the verse will not name structural / thematic: confirmed

The rare root פלג (H6385) occurs in only four verses. At Job 38:25 God asks who split a channel for the torrent; at Psalm 55:9 David asks the Lord to split the tongues of a violent city, the one place in the canon where splitting tongues is prayed for rather than reported. ⚙ Set beside them, the Nifal here reads as a deliberate reticence: the Chronicler records the split and leaves the hand unnamed. No quotation is claimed in either direction; these are three independent uses of one uncommon verb.

Job 38:25 · Psalm 55:9

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H6385 pâlag (in 4 vv) with each reference. The lexeme is rare, but there is no citation or borrowing between these texts, only a shared motif of splitting what was whole, so the tier is downgraded from verbal.

Peleg inside the chain to Abraham structural / thematic: confirmed

The Genesis 11 register carries Peleg from Eber toward Terah and Abram, and 1 Chronicles 1:25 repeats the same succession a few verses after ours. Gill gives the reason the Chronicler follows this branch at all: Shem's posterity are listed last because from him, in the line of Eber, sprang Abraham, for whose sake, Gill says, the genealogy is given.

Genesis 11:16 · Genesis 11:17 · 1 Chronicles 1:25

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6389 Peleg (in 7 vv) and H5677 ʻÊbêr (in 15 vv) with each reference. Shared names in a continuing succession, not a quotation.

The dropped brother: Joktan's thirteen sons structural / thematic: confirmed

The name Joktan (H3355) appears in only six verses, and four of them are the Arabian son-lists that immediately follow this verse in both registers. ⚙ The structure is the same both times: the branch that is about to be abandoned is described in the most detail, and the branch that is kept is reduced to a single name per generation. The Chronicler inherits that shape from Genesis along with the words.

Genesis 10:26 · Genesis 10:29 · 1 Chronicles 1:20 · 1 Chronicles 1:23

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H3355 Yoqṭân (in 6 vv) with each reference. A shared name and a shared list structure; no quotation claimed.

Was the splitting Babel? The cross reference is editorial flagged: verify source

Poole glosses the verse by saying the earth was divided in their languages and habitation, and sends the reader to Genesis 11:7. Cambridge speaks only of a great dispersion of the population, without naming Babel. ⚙ The identification is very old and may well be right, but it is not in this verse: the Verifier finds no shared lexeme between 1 Chronicles 1:19 and Genesis 11:7, and the only computed links to Genesis 11 are through the names Peleg and Eber in the succession list (Genesis 11:14 to 11:19), not through the Babel narrative. Readers should treat the Babel reading as a commentator's inference, well attested but unstated by the text.

Genesis 11:7 · Genesis 11:9

basis: No shared Strong's lexeme is computed between 1 Chronicles 1:19 and Genesis 11:7 or Genesis 11:9; the link rests on Poole's editorial cross reference and on the traditional dating of Babel to Peleg's lifetime. Provenance is a commentator's inference, so the thread is flagged rather than confirmed.

Boundaries set for the nations structural / thematic: confirmed

Paul at Athens tells the Greeks that God made every nation of one man and fixed the appointed times and the boundaries of their dwelling. Henry reaches for the same point on this chapter, saying that God has created of one blood all nations of men and that they are all descended from one Adam, one Noah. ⚙ The Chronicler's Nifal leaves the splitter unnamed; Acts names him. This is a cross-Testament link between Greek and Hebrew texts, so no shared lexeme can exist and no verbal tier is possible: the connection is a shared structure, one humanity divided into bounded nations by a hand the genealogy does not identify.

Acts 17:26 · Deuteronomy 32:8

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew for Acts 17:26), so shared Strong's numbers are impossible by definition and a verbal tier is excluded. The basis is a shared structure, one stock divided into nations with set boundaries, attested in the Hebrew of Deuteronomy 32:8 and named explicitly by Paul. The Verifier lists neither reference as a lexical candidate.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The line kept for the sake of one descendant ancient/widely-held

Gill states the redemptive logic of the whole chapter without hedging: Shem's posterity are placed last because from him, in the line of Eber, sprang Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish nation, of whom the Messiah was to come, for whose sake, he says, this genealogy is given. Luke's genealogy runs the same chain backward through Peleg and Eber to Shem and Adam, which is the apostolic warrant for reading these names as anything more than an archive. ⚙ Peleg is remembered because the earth split in his days; he is preserved because a promise was travelling through his household while it happened.

Luke 3:35 · Genesis 11:16 · Romans 9:5

The splitting answered ancient/widely-held

The verse reports a division and names no one who will heal it. ⚙ The canon later does: at Pentecost the tongues that Babel scattered are crossed by a speech every nation present hears in its own language, and Paul says that Christ has broken down the dividing wall between the two humanities that mattered most to his readers. The reading that Pentecost answers Babel is ancient and widely held. The further step, reading Peleg's own name as a standing title for the wound that Christ closes, is my inference from the etymology and should be weighed as that. John's word for the gathering is the plainest: the scattered children of God gathered into one.

Acts 2:6 · Ephesians 2:14 · John 11:52 · Revelation 7:9

The brother not followed novel

Joktan's thirteen sons are named and then left. ⚙ Scripture keeps naming the lines it does not follow, and the pattern has an end: the Arabian peoples listed in the verses after this one stand in Revelation's crowd out of every tribe and tongue, and the promise made to Abraham was that in his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed, Joktan's among them. Read this way the genealogy's selectivity is provisional, not final. I mark this as my own reading; none of the commentators in this unit draw the line from Joktan's sons to the nations gathered in Christ.

Genesis 12:3 · Galatians 3:8 · Revelation 7:9

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Keil & Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1860s)
  • Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)

Text: BSB (CC0), with the Berean interlinear and Strong's numbers for all fourteen words of the verse. This unit is a single verse.

What is uncertain. (1) הָאָ֔רֶץ (H776) can mean the earth or its inhabitants or a single land; the commentators in this unit split on it, Cambridge taking it of the population and Poole of languages and habitation, and the Hebrew does not decide. (2) The verb נִפְלְגָ֣ה is Nifal and names no agent; any statement about who divided the earth is supplied from elsewhere, not read out of this verse. (3) The identification of the division with Babel comes from Poole's cross reference to Genesis 11:7 and from tradition, not from a lexical link; the corresponding thread is flagged accordingly. (4) Whether Peleg and Joktan are persons or personified peoples is an old dispute; K&D argue for persons against Bertheau, and this synthesis follows K&D while recording that the question is contested.

Sources. The commentary quoted here is public domain and verbatim: Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, Matthew Poole, John Gill, Keil and Delitzsch, with Matthew Henry cited by name in a thread. Henry's and Gill's entries at this verse comment on the chapter as a whole rather than on verse 19 alone, and Barnes's entry at this location concerns the sons of Shem in 1 Chronicles 1:17; JFB's entire note is a cross reference to Genesis 10:25. Thread bases are the Verifier's computed shared Strong's lexemes; where no lexeme exists, the basis says so. Everything marked ⚙ is this tool's fallible synthesis and carries no authority.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)