Genesis10chapter 10

This chapter is heard inside the second portion of the annual cycle, in the same sitting as the flood and the tower (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). The list of the seventy nations is chanted between the going out of the ark and the scattering at Babel. The card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

The chapter is a genealogy, and the classical comment on it works name by name. Rashi is quoted here from the public domain Rosenbaum and Silbermann edition, and Radak from the CC-BY translation of Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash.

Both read the names as peoples rather than as men alone. Rashi reads Tiras as Persia and the great city of the twelfth verse as Nineveh, taking the second from the words of Jonah (Rashi on Genesis 10:2:1 and 10:12:1, both citing Yoma 10a). Radak reports that "people say" Ashkenaz is the people living in Germany, and he gives the saying as a saying (Radak on Genesis 10:3:1). He reads the islands of the fifth verse as the islands of the Aegean, settled by the sons of Japheth after Babel (Radak on Genesis 10:5:1).

Radak reads the order of the three branches as deliberate. Japheth is named before Ham for his character or for his years. The line of Shem is left to the end so that the account can run on into the lives of the patriarchs (Radak on Genesis 10:6:1). He notes that Rav Saadiah Gaon wrote a commentary on the whole list of names in the seventh verse (Radak on Genesis 10:7:1). On the sons of Canaan he reports a commentator who counted eleven sons, and read the number against the nations of Deuteronomy 32:8 (Radak on Genesis 10:15:1).

Rashi reads Nimrod against the chapter that follows. The might of the eighth verse is might in making the world rebel. The hunting of the ninth verse is the ensnaring of minds by words (Rashi on Genesis 10:8:1 and 10:9:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 23:7 and 37:2). He reads the eleventh verse as Asshur going out from among them, because Asshur would have no part in the tower (Rashi on Genesis 10:11:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 37:4).

Ibn Ezra and Radak carry two comments the corpus holds by reference alone, because the licence Sefaria reports for the English versions keeps the text out. They are Ibn Ezra on Genesis 10:4:1 and Radak on Genesis 10:29:1.

Rashi carries three sayings of the rabbis on this chapter, and each stands here as what they taught.

The first is on Peleg. Rashi reports that Eber named his son for a division that had not yet happened, and that this makes Eber a prophet (Rashi on Genesis 10:25:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 37:7). He adds the reckoning of Seder Olam, that the scattering fell in the last of the days of Peleg.

The second is on the Philistines of the fourteenth verse. Rashi reports the saying that they came of two of the peoples named there together, the Pathrusim and the Casluhim (Rashi on Genesis 10:14:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 37:5). The third is on Hazarmaveth, whose name Rashi reports was taken from his city, in the words of the Aggadah (Rashi on Genesis 10:26:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 37:8). He reads Lehabim as a name given for faces like flame (Rashi on Genesis 10:13:1).

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty nine under Midrash and one under Talmud, which is the lightest Talmud weight of any chapter in these twenty five. It carries the locator for each one with no text.

Bereshit Rabbah runs the length of the list. It reads the second verse at 36:6 and 36:8, the sixth at 36:7, the seventh at 16:2 and 63:7, and the eighth at 23:7 and 26:4. It reads the ninth verse at 37:3, the tenth at 37:4, the twelfth at 75:1 and the thirteenth at 37:5. It reads the fifteenth verse at 37:6, the seventeenth at 44:23, the twenty first at 37:7, the twenty second at 16:3 and 44:7, the twenty fifth at 6:4 and the twenty sixth at 37:8. Bereshit Rabbati reads four verses in Parashat Noah, at 25, 24, 2 and 26.

Bamidbar Rabbah reads the first verse at 2:21, the sixth at 16:13, the seventeenth at 16:25 and the twenty first at 4:8. Sefer HaYashar reads the fourteenth verse at Noach 16, and the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai reads the fifteenth at 13:10. The one Talmud locator is Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 1:9:2, on the eighteenth verse.