The Fallible Study Bible

The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible

1 Chronicles1:20–23

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

1 Chronicles 1:20–23 — . 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.

20

And Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah,

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wə·yā·qə·ṭān yā·laḏ ’eṯ- ’al·mō·w·ḏāḏ wə·’eṯ- šā·lep̄ wə·’eṯ- ḥă·ṣar·mā·weṯ wə·’eṯ- yā·raḥ

Word by word10 · parsed
וְיָקְטָ֣ןwə·yā·qə·ṭānAnd JoktanH3355
√ Yoqṭân — Joktan, an Arabian patriarchConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular
Yoqṭân: Joktan, an Arabian patriarch The conjunctive waw carries the sentence over from the previous verse, where Joktan was named as one of Eber's two sons. The Verifier records H3355 in only six verses in the whole canon, and two of them are the twin notices at Genesis 10:25 and 1 Chronicles 1:19. This is the branch of Eber that the narrative will not follow.
יָלַ֔דyā·laḏwas the father ofH3205
√ yâlad — to bear youngVerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
yâlad: to bear young (Qal perfect 3ms) The generative verb of the Table of Nations. K&D observes that the Chronicler's register switches connectives exactly where Genesis 10 does, using yālaḏ where Genesis 10:8, 10:24 and 10:25 use it, and the plural construct "sons of" where Genesis uses that. The verb is therefore not decoration; it is the seam by which one document was copied into another.
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
Untranslated object marker; it recurs at indices 4, 6 and 8.
אַלְמוֹדָ֖ד’al·mō·w·ḏāḏAlmodadH486
√ ʼAlmôwdâd — Almodad, a son of JoktanNounpropermasculine singular
וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker
שָׁ֑לֶףšā·lep̄ShelephH8026
√ sheleph — Sheleph, a son of JokthanNounpropermasculine singular
וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker
חֲצַרְמָ֖וֶתḥă·ṣar·mā·weṯHazarmavethH2700
√ Chătsarmâveth — Chatsarmaveth, a place in ArabiaNounpropermasculine singular
Chătsarmâveth: a place in Arabia One of four names in this verse; the lexicon treats it as geography rather than biography, which is precisely Cambridge's point about the Joktanite list as a whole.
וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker
יָֽרַח׃yā·raḥJerahH3392
√ Yerach — Jerach, an Arabian patriarchNounpropermasculine singular
Yerach: Jerach, an Arabian patriarch The Verifier finds H3392 in only two verses in the canon, here and at Genesis 10:26. A name this rare, shared by exactly two texts, is the hardest kind of evidence that one list stands behind the other.
21

Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah,

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wə·’eṯ- hă·ḏō·w·rām wə·’eṯ- ’ū·zāl wə·’eṯ- diq·lāh

Word by word6 · parsed
וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker
Waw plus the object marker; the same pair repeats at indices 2 and 4, binding this verse to verse 20's verb.
הֲדוֹרָ֥םhă·ḏō·w·rāmHadoramH1913
√ Hădôwrâm — Hadoram, a son of Joktan, and the tribe descended from himNounpropermasculine singular
Hădôwrâm: Hadoram, a son of Joktan, and the tribe descended from him The Verifier finds H1913 in only four verses. The other three are not Joktanites at all: 1 Chronicles 18:10 has a Hadoram sent by Tou of Hamath, and 2 Chronicles 10:18 a Hadoram over the forced labor who is stoned to death. One rare name, three unrelated men, which is a useful warning against reading a shared Strong's number as a shared person.
וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker
אוּזָ֖ל’ū·zālUzalH187
√ ʼÛwzâl — Uzal, a son of JoktanNounpropermasculine singular
ʼÛwzâl: Uzal, a son of Joktan H187 occurs in only three verses. The one outside this pair of genealogies is Ezekiel 27:19, inside the tally of Tyre's trading partners, which sets this Arabian name in a commercial rather than a genealogical frame.
וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker
דִּקְלָֽה׃diq·lāhDiklahH1853
√ Diqlâh — Diklah, a region of ArabiaNounpropermasculine singular
Diqlâh: Diklah, a region of Arabia Two verses in the entire canon carry H1853: this one and Genesis 10:27. Together with Almodad, Sheleph, Jerah and Abimael, it belongs to a cluster of names so rare that they exist nowhere else in Scripture.
22

Obal, Abimael, Sheba,

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wə·’eṯ- ‘ê·ḇāl wə·’eṯ- ’ă·ḇî·mā·’êl wə·’eṯ- šə·ḇā

Word by word6 · parsed
וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker
עֵיבָ֥ל‘ê·ḇālObalH5858
√ ʻÊybâl — Ebal, a mountain of PalestineNounpropermasculine singular
ʻÊybâl: Ebal, a mountain of Palestine The Strong's gloss itself is arresting: the lexicon's headword for this Joktanite son is the mountain where Deuteronomy 27 stations the tribes of the curse and where Joshua 8 records an altar built to the LORD. The Verifier accordingly links this verse to Deuteronomy 27:13 and Joshua 8:30 on H5858. The shared lexeme is genuine and the referents are not; the son of Joktan is not a mountain in Samaria, and nothing in the text connects them.
וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker
אֲבִימָאֵ֖ל’ă·ḇî·mā·’êlAbimaelH39
√ ʼĂbîymâʼêl — Abimael, a son of JoktanNounpropermasculine singular
ʼĂbîymâʼêl: Abimael, a son of Joktan H39 occurs in exactly two verses, here and Genesis 10:28. The name is transparently theophoric in form, but the brief's lexicon offers no etymology, and this synthesis will not supply one.
וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker
שְׁבָֽא׃šə·ḇāShebaH7614
√ Shᵉbâʼ — Sheba, the name of three early progenitors of tribes and of an Ethiopian districtNounpropermasculine singular
Shᵉbâʼ: the name of three early progenitors of tribes The commonest name in this unit, in twenty-three verses. The Verifier links this verse both to Genesis 10:28 and, on the same lexeme, back to 1 Chronicles 1:9 and Genesis 10:7, where Sheba is a son of Raamah in the line of Cush. Barnes's observation about Hamites and Semites intermingled in Arabia is the standard explanation of that doubling.
23

Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wə·’eṯ- ’ō·w·p̄îr wə·’eṯ- ḥă·wî·lāh wə·’eṯ- yō·w·ḇāḇ kāl- ’êl·leh bə·nê yā·qə·ṭān

Word by word10 · parsed
וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker
אוֹפִ֥יר’ō·w·p̄îrOphirH211
√ ʼÔwphîyr — Ophir, the name of a son of Joktan, and of a gold region in the EastNounpropermasculine singular
ʼÔwphîyr: a son of Joktan, and of a gold region in the East The lexicon fuses the two senses in a single gloss, person and gold country together. H211 stands in twelve verses, far more than its neighbours in this list, because Ophir became a place Israel sailed to rather than a man it remembered.
וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker
חֲוִילָ֖הḥă·wî·lāhHavilahH2341
√ Chăvîylâh — Chavilah, the name of two or three eastern regionsNounproperfeminine singular
Chăvîylâh: the name of two or three eastern regions The Verifier finds H2341 in seven verses, among them Genesis 2:11, where Havilah is the land the river of Eden encircles and where there is gold. The same lexeme recurs at 1 Chronicles 1:9 in the Hamite line and, as a boundary of Ishmaelite territory, at Genesis 25:18 and 1 Samuel 15:7. One name, several lands, and the lexicon says so.
וְאֶת־wə·’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker
יוֹבָ֑בyō·w·ḇāḇand JobabH3103
√ Yôwbâb — Jobab, the name of two Israelites and of three foreignersNounpropermasculine singular
Yôwbâb: the name of two Israelites and of three foreigners Nine verses. The gloss is a reminder that the Chronicler's names circulate widely and rarely belong to one man.
כָּל־kāl-AllH3605
√ kôl — properly, the wholeNounmasculine singular construct
kôl: properly, the whole The summarizing particle that closes the Joktanite section.
אֵ֖לֶּה’êl·lehtheseH428
√ ʼêl-leh — these or thosePronouncommon plural
ʼêl-leh: these or those Common plural pronoun, gathering the thirteen names of verses 20 to 23 into one subject.
בְּנֵ֥יbə·nêwere sonsH1121
√ 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 construct
bên: a son, as a builder of the family name The lexicon's own definition carries the theology of the whole chapter: a son is what builds the name. Its range is explicitly wide, covering grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, which is why these thirteen "sons" can be at once men, tribes and territories without the text contradicting itself.
יָקְטָֽן׃סyā·qə·ṭānof JoktanH3355
√ Yoqṭân — Joktan, an Arabian patriarchNounpropermasculine singular
Yoqṭân: Joktan, an Arabian patriarch The name closes the list it opened at verse 20, an inclusio, and then the setumah falls. Joktan is Eber's second son; Gill notes that the Chronicler's whole design runs through the other one, in the line of Heber to Abraham.

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 is openly a copy — 1:20-23

⚙ These four verses contain one verb. יָלַ֔ד stands in 1:20 and then governs, through a chain of waw plus אֶת־, every name down to Jobab. K&D states the case for dependence at length: the register of Shem, Ham and Japheth is taken from Genesis 10, placed beyond doubt by exact correspondence of names and by identity of plan and form, with the Chronicler switching connectives at precisely the points Genesis does. The Verifier's own arithmetic says the same from the other side. Almodad, Sheleph and Jerah (1:20) stand in exactly two verses of Scripture apiece, Diklah and Abimael likewise, and in each case the second verse is Genesis 10:26-29. This is not allusion; it is transcription, and the Chronicler does not disguise it.

ii. Names that will not stay men — 1:20-23

⚙ Read as biography the list is opaque. Read against the brief's own lexicon it is a map. Hazarmaveth (1:20) is glossed a place in Arabia; Diklah (1:21) a region of Arabia; Ophir (1:23) a son and a gold region in the East at once; Havilah (1:23) the name of two or three eastern regions, and it alone is parsed feminine. Cambridge, commenting on 1:20, says the identified names represent peoples of southern Arabia and the western coast of the Red Sea, and he is careful to add the qualifier "so far as they have been identified." Barnes, annotating the Shemite section, supplies the mechanism: Hamites and Semites were intermingled in Arabia. That is why Sheba and Havilah can stand both here in Joktan's line and, on the identical lexemes H7614 and H2341, in the Hamite line at 1 Chronicles 1:9. The apparent doubling is a fact of the text, not an error in it.

iii. A branch written down and left behind — 1:23

⚙ The unit ends with כָּל־אֵ֖לֶּה בְּנֵ֥י יָקְטָֽן, a verbless summary, and then the Masoretic setumah. Nothing further is said of these thirteen. Gill states the Chronicler's design plainly: Shem's posterity is placed last because from him, in the line of Heber, sprang Abraham, of whom the Messiah was to come, for whose sake the genealogy is given. Joktan is Eber's other son. JFB's one-line note on this stretch simply refers the reader to Genesis 10:25, where Peleg is named for the earth's division and Joktan is his brother. Poole's single contribution is textual, that Ebal and Obal are the same name written differently in different times and by different writers. Henry, commenting on the chapter as a whole, refuses to let the differences between parallel lists become a stumbling block, and lands instead on one blood and one Noah. The four voices together describe the same shape: an exhaustive record, a chosen line, and a branch named in full before it is set down.

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

⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested. Thirteen names, one verb, no promise, no command, no judgment. By every measure of usefulness this passage is inert, and the Chronicler copied it anyway from a list his readers already had. That is the argument. A genealogy of the line God did not choose is still Scripture, and it is written with the same care as the line he did choose: the object marker set before each name, the rare lexemes preserved even where the spelling had drifted, the scribes marking the paragraph's end. The text declines to abbreviate the unchosen. Election here is not erasure; Joktan's sons are named at full length, in the same ink, by the same hand that is on its way to Abraham. And the names themselves keep dissolving into countries, as the lexicon shows at Hazarmaveth, Diklah, Ophir and Havilah, so that the list of one man's children is already a list of the nations. If Genesis 10 is the map of the world after the flood, 1 Chronicles 1 is that map redrawn in front of a people returned from exile who needed to know where they stood in it. The answer the list gives them, before it gives them anything else, is that they stand among brothers.

The branch God does not follow is still written down by name, at full length, in the same ink. (This line is synthesis, not a verse.)

⚙

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 Joktanite list and its source in the Table of Nations verbal / quotation: confirmed

⚙ The Verifier's top four candidates are Genesis 10:26, 10:27, 10:29 and 10:28, in that order of strength, and the shared lexemes are the rarest names in the canon: H486 Almodad and H8026 Sheleph and H3392 Jerah occur in two verses each, H1853 Diklah and H39 Abimael in two verses each, H187 Uzal in three. A name that exists in exactly two verses of Scripture, repeated in the same sequence across a run of four, is verbal dependence in the strict sense. K&D argues the same conclusion from plan and form rather than from frequency.

Genesis 10:26 · Genesis 10:27 · Genesis 10:28 · Genesis 10:29

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H486 ʼAlmôwdâd (in 2 vv), H8026 sheleph (in 2 vv), H3392 Yerach (in 2 vv), H1853 Diqlâh (in 2 vv), H39 ʼĂbîymâʼêl (in 2 vv), H187 ʼÛwzâl (in 3 vv). Each of these lexemes occurs in only two or three verses in the whole canon, and the partner verse is always Genesis 10:26-29. Hebrew to Hebrew, same order, same governing verb yâlad.

Joktan and the brother he is measured against structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ The verb that governs this unit was set in 1 Chronicles 1:19, where Eber's two sons are named and Peleg is given the notice of the divided earth. The Verifier links this unit to 1 Chronicles 1:19 and Genesis 10:25 on H3355, a lexeme found in only six verses. JFB's note across this stretch does nothing but send the reader to Genesis 10:25. The pattern is the Chronicler's standing habit: name both sons, then follow one. The Chronicler repeats it a few verses on with Abraham's sons, where Ishmael's twelve are set down in full at 1 Chronicles 1:29-31 and Keturah's at 1:32-33 before the text turns back to Isaac at 1:34.

1 Chronicles 1:19 · Genesis 10:25

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H3355 Yoqṭân (in 6 vv) with both 1 Chronicles 1:19 and Genesis 10:25. The lexeme link is real and rare; the claim made here is about the recurring two-sons-one-line pattern, not about a quotation.

Uzal among the merchants of Tyre structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ Of the three verses in Scripture that carry H187 Uzal, two are the twin genealogies and the third is Ezekiel 27:19, inside the roll of nations that traded with Tyre. Ophir and Sheba and Havilah in 1:23 belong to the same commercial geography, which is why Cambridge places these peoples on the Red Sea coast. The Chronicler lists them as kin; Ezekiel meets them as suppliers. The link is a rare shared name set in two different frames, and this synthesis claims nothing more than that.

Ezekiel 27:19

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H187 ʼÛwzâl (in 3 vv). The lexeme is rare enough to be a real link, but Ezekiel is not quoting the genealogy and the genealogy is not quoting Ezekiel, so the tier is deliberately held below verbal.

Havilah, the gold country at the edge of the map structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ H2341 stands in seven verses. It names the land the Eden river encircles, where there is gold (Genesis 2:11); a son of Cush in the Hamite line (1 Chronicles 1:9, Genesis 10:7); a son of Joktan in the Shemite line (here); and a limit of Ishmaelite range (Genesis 25:18, 1 Samuel 15:7). The lexicon settles nothing, glossing it as the name of two or three eastern regions. Barnes's note that Hamites and Semites were intermingled in Arabia is the standard reconciliation of the two genealogical placements. What the recurrence establishes is a motif, not an identification: a gold country on the far edge of the known world, named from Eden onward.

Genesis 2:11 · Genesis 10:7 · 1 Chronicles 1:9 · Genesis 25:18 · 1 Samuel 15:7

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2341 Chăvîylâh (in 7 vv), plus H7614 Shᵉbâʼ (in 23 vv) on the 1 Chronicles 1:9 and Genesis 10:7 pair. The shared lexeme is certain; whether the bearers are one region is disputed, so no identity is asserted.

Ebal the son and Ebal the mountain: one lexeme, two referents flagged: verify source

⚙ The Verifier links 1 Chronicles 1:22 to Deuteronomy 27:13 and Joshua 8:30 because Strong's assigns the son of Joktan and the mountain of the curse the same number, H5858, and the lexicon's own headword gloss for this verse's name reads "Ebal, a mountain of Palestine." The shared form is factual. The connection is not. Nothing in either text joins an Arabian son of Joktan to a hill in Samaria, and the spelling here is itself contested: BSB prints Obal, while Poole, JFB and the Geneva text print Ebal, and K&D lists the pair among divergences he attributes to transcription without deciding which form is original. This thread is recorded so that the lexical coincidence is visible and so that no reader mistakes it for a typological link. It is flagged, not affirmed.

Deuteronomy 27:13 · Joshua 8:30 · Genesis 10:28

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H5858 ʻÊybâl (in 8 vv) with Deuteronomy 27:13 and Joshua 8:30. The lexeme match is a homonym, not a referential link, and the underlying consonantal text is disputed between Obal and Ebal (K&D). Flagged for that reason; no thematic claim is made.

Hadoram, one rare name and three different men structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ H1913 occurs in four verses. One is this genealogy, one is Genesis 10:27, one is 1 Chronicles 18:10 where Hadoram son of Tou is sent to greet David, and one is 2 Chronicles 10:18 where Hadoram over the forced labor is stoned by Israel. The Verifier registers all of them as shared-lexeme candidates, and they are; but they are three unrelated bearers of a scarce name. The thread is kept for the discipline it enforces: within a genealogy, a matching Strong's number is evidence of a shared word and nothing else until something else is shown.

1 Chronicles 18:10 · 2 Chronicles 10:18

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H1913 Hădôwrâm (in 4 vv). The link is onomastic only; the synthesis states explicitly that the bearers are distinct persons and makes no referential claim.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The line that is not followed, and the line that is ancient/widely-held

⚙ Gill states the Chronicler's purpose for these chapters without hedging: Shem's posterity is set last because from him, in the line of Heber, sprang Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish nation, of whom the Messiah was to come, and for whose sake this genealogy is given. Joktan is Eber's second son; Peleg is the first, and it is Peleg's line that Genesis 11 carries to Abram and that Luke's genealogy of Jesus retraces in reverse through Peleg and Eber. So the thirteen names of 1:20-23 mark the exact point where the record splits. The reading is not novel. It is the ordinary Christian construal of the Chronicler's design, and Gill puts it in the plainest terms in his note on this very stretch. What the text itself supplies is the restraint: it does not say Joktan was rejected, only that after 1:23 it says no more about him.

1 Chronicles 1:19 · Genesis 11:16-26 · Luke 3:35-36

Sheba and Ophir come back carrying gold ancient/widely-held

⚙ Three of Joktan's sons are gold names: Ophir, which the lexicon glosses as both a son and a gold region in the East; Havilah, which Genesis 2:11 sets in the land where there is gold; and Sheba. Scripture keeps sending these places back toward Israel's king with tribute in their hands, in Psalm 72, where kings of Sheba bring gifts and the gold of Sheba is given, and in Isaiah 60, where the wealth of the nations and the gold and frankincense of Sheba arrive at a city lit without a sun. The Gospels record a queen of the South who came from the ends of the earth to Solomon and is set against those who will not hear one greater, and gold among the gifts brought to the child at Bethlehem. This is the widely-held messianic reading of Psalm 72 and Isaiah 60. Two honest limits: the biblical Sheba is ambiguous, appearing in both the Hamite and Shemite lines on the same lexeme H7614, and no cross-Testament verbal link can be claimed here, since Greek and Hebrew share no Strong's numbers. The connection is figural, and it is the figure Scripture itself develops.

Psalm 72:10-15 · Isaiah 60:6 · Matthew 12:42 · Matthew 2:11

One blood, and the census that is never closed novel

⚙ Henry, commenting on this chapter as a whole, insists that God has created of one blood all nations of men, all descended from one Adam and one Noah, and closes with Malachi's question whether we have not all one father. Paul says the same thing to Athens, that God made from one man every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth. The Chronicler's exhaustive naming of the Arabian branch is the narrative form of that doctrine: the chosen line is traced through a world whose other branches are recorded, not deleted. Revelation ends with a list of the same shape, every nation and tribe and people and tongue standing before the Lamb. ⚙ The step from a genealogy of the unchosen to a choir of the redeemed is this tool's own synthesis, offered to be tested; the doctrine of one blood beneath it is Henry's and Paul's.

Acts 17:26 · Malachi 2:10 · 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:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Keil & Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1860s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)

Text: BSB (CC0) with the Berean interlinear and Strong's numbering; parses and glosses as supplied in the unit brief. Nothing here about the Hebrew has been supplied from memory.

Sources, honestly described. Four of the eight commentators in this brief are not commenting on these verses at all. Henry's entry is his single block note on 1:1-27, reprinted identically under each of the four verses. Barnes's entry is his note on 1:17 about the sons of Shem and Meshech, likewise reprinted. Gill's entry is his note on 1:5 about the sons of Japheth, again reprinted, and it breaks off mid-sentence at "the same with the account in" because the source text is capped. K&D's entry is one long essay on the whole register, identical under all four verses. Only Cambridge (on 1:20), Poole (on 1:22) and JFB (on 1:22 and 1:23) are actually annotating the verses in hand, and JFB's contribution is a single line. Every voice in this unit has been anchored inside the entry as the brief supplies it, and the editorial notes say where a commentator is speaking to the chapter rather than to the verse. The Geneva entries for all four verses contain only the KJV wording of the verse plus the heading "EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)," that is, no gloss at all, so Geneva is deliberately not quoted here. Seven of the eight authors present are used.

What is uncertain. (1) The name at 1:22: BSB prints Obal, the Hebrew consonants printed in this brief read עֵיבָ֥ל, Ebal, and Genesis 10:28 has the other form. Poole calls it the same name differently written; JFB records the variant without deciding; K&D groups it with divergences he ascribes to transcription and says of several such cases that the original form cannot be determined with certainty. This synthesis does not decide it either. (2) Identification of the peoples: Cambridge's placement in southern Arabia is explicitly limited to names "so far as they have been identified," and several are not. (3) The same-lexeme links to Mount Ebal (Deuteronomy 27:13, Joshua 8:30) are homonyms and are badged flagged for that reason. (4) Whether the Sheba of Psalm 72 and Isaiah 60 is the Joktanite Sheba of this verse or the Hamite Sheba of 1 Chronicles 1:9 is not determined by any text; the christ note says so. (5) Bertheau's count of seventy nations is reported by K&D and then rejected by him, and is cited here only as a reported figure. (6) The setumah after Joktan at the end of 1:23 is read from the surface form יָקְטָֽן׃ס as the brief prints it; it is a Masoretic scribal mark, not part of the consonantal text.

⚙ marks this tool's synthesis throughout. It is fallible and is offered to be tested against the Word and against the named voices above.

✦ = 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)