Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“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. Shem lived five hundred years after he became the father of Arpachshad, and became the father of more sons and daughters.”
(Genesis 11:10-11)

Shem was 199 years old when God confounded the languages of the people at Babel (the year Peleg was born – Genesis 11:16; 1 Chronicles 1:19). He lived another four hundred years after that. He died 502 years after the Flood, 2,158 years after the Fall. That means Shem was 390 when Abram was born, 490 when Isaac was born, and 550 when Esau and Jacob were born. Seth outlived Abram by thirty-five years!

Looking at the lives of these men (and women), we can see that the nations of the world had no excuse for their pagan ways. They had no excuse in their rejection of the Lord. There were men and women who loved and served God alive all around them. They KNEW the truth and they INTENTIONALLY departed from it. When judgment came, it came deservedly.

The sage Ibn Ezra writes: ‘[[TWO YEARS AFTER THE FLOOD.] I have already explained the meaning of this in the verse the elder brother of Japheth (Gen. 10:21). It is possible that Peleg was given this name on the day of his death, the reason for this being as follows: Shem lived for five hundred years following the flood, Arpachshad lived for four hundred and thirty-eight years, his son Shelah lived four hundred and thirty-three years, and his son Eber four hundred and sixty-four years. Now Peleg lived two hundred and thirty-nine years. Thus Peleg’s life span was half that of his ancestors. Reu, the son of Peleg, similarly lived to the same age as Peleg. Reu’s son Serug also lived about the same number of years as Peleg and Reu. This, then, is the general rule: no one after Peleg, aside from his son, ever lived to be two hundred and thirty-nine years. Some say that those who built the tower numbered seventy and hence were divided into seventy languages upon their dispersion. If you count the sons of Shem, Japheth and Ham you will find them to be seventy. However, they are incorrect. First of all Pathrusim and Casluhim are not the names of two individuals. Furthermore, they neglect to include in the seventy Noah and his sons. According to the Seder Olam the builders of the tower numbered thousands and ten thousands.’

The sage Chizkuni writes: ‘אלה תולדות שם, “These are the descendants of Shem;” whenever a paragraph commences with the word: אלה, this is to alert us that it is not a continuation of what had preceded it. In this instance, the Torah wishes to distinguish between the evil people featured in the previous paragraph and the good people, whose descendants followed their illustrious ancestors.’

The sage Radak writes: ‘אלה תולדות שם שנתים אחר המבול, we already explained this in connection with Genesis 5,32. Even though the Torah, earlier, listed the descendants of Shem together with those of his brothers, the Torah repeated this now in order to demonstrate the direct linkage to Avraham our patriarch. This is why, on this occasion, only a single one of the sons of Shem, Arpachshad, is mentioned. Avraham is descended in a straight line from Arpachshad. The reason why the Torah adds that Arpachshad was born two years after the deluge is that the information the Torah gave us in 10,21 did not tell us when Arpachshad, apparently the third son of Shem was born. (verse 22). We already mentioned that the reason why the Torah provides us with such data is only to enable us to count from the creation of Adam to the deluge, to the birth of Avraham, the year of the Exodus from Egypt, etc. If the Torah had not been interested in reminding us that the earth (universe) was an original product by G’d, all these numbers would have been relatively meaningless.’