Peleg: Time of Division

Alice C. Linsley


To Eber were born two sons: the first was called Peleg, because it was in his time that the earth was divided, and his brother was called Joktan. (Genesis 10:25)

This diagram shows the division. The word earth is "eretz" and should be rendered "territory" instead. It appears that Eber broke his territory into two, assigning separate territories to each royal son.

This verse has perplexed readers for centuries. It is said that the separation of the clans occurs after the Tower of Babel when God confused the languages. However, all of the languages spoken by the peoples listed in Genesis 4-12 are in the Afro-Asiatic family and emerged from a common Proto-Afroasiatic source. When did this happen? The best guess is in the ninth century B.C.

Militarev, who linked proto-Afroasiatic to the Natufian culture, believes the Proto-Afroasiatic language family to be about 10,000 years old. He wrote that the "Proto-Afrasian language, on the verge of a split into daughter languages" (Cushitic, Omotic, Egyptian, Semitic and Chadic-Berber) "should be roughly dated to the ninth millennium B.C."

Another view holds that this division pertains to tectonic activity. The German scholar Alfred Wagener insisted that the division referred to tectonic drift beginning in Peleg's time, but analysis of Genesis 4 and 5 indicates that Peleg lived in the Bronze Age. The tectonic drift interpretation is impossible as humans were not on the surface of the earth until after the separation of the continents. Wagener's interpretation ignores a vast body of data and important details in Genesis about Noah and his descendants.

Wagener was correct, however, in thinking that the word "Peleg" has to do with separation by waterways. Genesis reveals that after the time of Peleg there was a separation of the ruler-priests lines who controlled separate water systems of the ancient Afro-Asiatic world. The line of Ramaah, Nimrod's brother, was estbalished in northern Arabia. These are the Afro-Arabians whose language was old Arabic. The line of Nimrod settled and established cities in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley. These are the ancestors of those who spoke Aramaic. So, there was a geographical and linguistic separation of priestly lines. However, the priestly lines continued to intermarry exclusively. They did not change the marriage pattern of their Horite ancestors.

The evidence for ruler-priests exercising control over water systems is found as early as Noah whose homeland was in Bor-No (Land of Noah), in the region of Lake Chad. He lived during the late Holocene Wet Period 8-7,000 years ago. Though Genesis doesn't explicitly state that Noah lived in Africa, it is evident from analysis of the Genesis genealogies that he and Abraham's ancestors were Nilotic peoples. DNA studies have demonstrated that Noah's descendents moved out of Africa into the Arabah. This was the first time of division. The time of Peleg would be the second, when the Kushite migration continued into Mesopotamia.

It is not entirely clear at what point the clans became geographically separated, but it is clear that their kinship pattern did not change.

Further, written records already existed in the time of Nimrod, Noah's great great grandson. Those records indicate that "the earth" refers is the Afro-Asiatic Dominion which extended west into central Africa and east into Mesopotamia. This is why Genesis contains eastern and western accounts of the creation and of the flood. In In the eastern/Nilotic account, Noah takes only one pair of animals on board and releases a dove.  In the western/Asiatic account, he takes seven pairs of clean animals and releases a raven. Africa is not a habitat for ravens, but there are many varieties of doves.


The Clue of Two Sons

Genesis tells us that Eber had "two sons" and this is the clue we need for understanding how the clans of Joktan and Peleg became separated. The text is speaking of separate territories. Two sons always involves the question of who will rule over the father's land holding. According to the Horite Hebrew marriage and ascendancy pattern, the first born son of the first wife was heir to the father's kingdom. Other sons are sent away to establish territories of their own. This pattern drove the Kushite expansion out of the Nile Valley.

The division of Peleg's time had to do with a separation or parting of ways between two sons and two lines of descendants. The question is which son was sent away? To answer that we must look more closely at the genealogical information.

Note that the name "Peleg" doesn’t appear in the lines from which Abraham descends. As far as we know Peleg had no offspring. The lack of information about Peleg's offspring suggests that a separation of clans had taken place at this time. Or it could mean:

a. a loss of information (not likely)

b. a change in kinship pattern (not supported by the evidence), or

c. a veiling of Abraham's Horite blood.


Analysis of the data reveals that critical information is missing about the chiefs who were contemporaries of Reu, Serug and Nahor. (See chart at right.)

The information that is missing pertains to Abraham's mother's people. It appears that they controlled a region between Mt. Hor (northeast of Kadesh-barnea) and Mt. Harun?Mt Aaron (near Petra). Genesis 10:30 tells us that these were the clans whose dwelling place extended from Mesha "all the way to Sephar, the eastern mountain range." They are called Horites (Egyptian Khar) in Genesis 14:6, 36:20 and in Deuteronomy 2:12. Numbers 33:27-28 mentions Terah as a place near Mount Harun (Mount of Aaron in Jordan).

Besides being the name of Abraham's father, Terah is also the name of an Arabian tribe (Terabin) that dwells chiefly between Gaza and Beersheba. This information links Terah to the clans of Joktan and Sheba. It explains why Abraham made Keturah his second wife. She was from the clan of Sheba. It suggests that Terah's mother, that is, Abraham's paternal grandmother, was a daughter of a Horite chief named Terah. She named her first-born son by Terah after her father, according to the cousin bride's naming prerogative.

With this information, we are able to list the rulers whose names do not appear in Genesis 10 and 11. The reconstructed chart (below) shows the intermarriage between the lines of Eber and Sheba and reveals Abraham's connections to the Horites of Canaan through his father and his mother. As bloodline was figured through the mother, Abraham would have been regarded as Horite.



Conclusion

After Joktan the Elder married a daughter of Sheba, the Arameans and the Afro-Arabians became established in geographically distant regions. However, their kinship pattern remained unchanged. The lines of Eber and Sheba continued to intermarry, which means that wives were chosen from kin of distant territories (as did Jacob when he married his patrilineal cousin). Their pattern of intermarriage parallels the pattern of intermarriage between the lines of Cain and Seth, the lines of Ham and Shem and the lines of Abraham and Nahor. Apparently, the territorial division began about five generations before Abraham, but can only be understood as geographical separation, not social separation.

Though the clans of Peleg, Joktan and Sheba became geographically separated, they continued to intermarry according to a long-standing kinship pattern. It is interesting to speculate why preservation of the bloodline was so important to these rulers. Could it be that they knew themselves to be direct heirs of God's promise that the Son of God would be born to their bloodlines?  Indeed that is exactly what happened when Jesus was born to Mary, the daughter of a priest and the patrilineal cousin of Joseph of the priestly line of Mattai.


Related reading:  Noah's Homeland; The Christ in Nilotic Mythology; Noah's Sons and Their Descendants; Nimrod: Afro-Asiatic Kingdom Builder; God's Word Never Fails