Genesis Chapter Ten, Part 4

10:24 and Salah begat Eber
In the lost city of Ebla, a monumental archaeological find of the last century in northern Syria, discoveries have been made that seem to indicate the founder of the city was a man named “Ebrim,” a name that bears remarkable resemblance to the term “Hebrew,” or the name Eber. Tablets in Ebla also make mention of the five cities: Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Zoar; they even name them in biblical order and refer to them as “the cities of the plain.” Secular records confirm the historicity of these five cities that were destroyed by God for their wanton sin and sexual deviance.

10:25 And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided
Seeing as how Peleg lived two generations after Nimrod, it is difficult to accept the explanation that the “division of the earth” that occurred in his day was the confusion of tongues; it seems more probable that it had already happened before Peleg’s birth, which was 197 years after the Flood. Peleg’s name was carefully chosen as a reminder, a marker of what God had wrought on the earth. Eber was apparently a godly man since Scripture speaks well of him, and he named his son as he watched the post-Flood seas slowly filling as a continual repercussion of the deluge. The “isles of the Gentiles” were becoming harder to access during Peleg’s lifetime; and every family or group of animals that strayed to farther lands found that they could not return.

From that point micro (not macro) evolution occurred; that is, minute horizontal changes within a given species to adapt to its environment. These mechanisms were already present within each species, being drawn out by external necessity. Nothing new “evolved” as it were. How did mankind, who is one blood, change superficially one from another? They changed due to where each family settled in accord with their environment (climate conditions, etc). Again, this only sounds illogical to the mind conditioned by evolutionary theory: that man is the chance product of millions of years and an equal amount of slight changes that modified him and turned our species from a primitive primate to homo-sapiens. Truly, it takes a powerful faith to believe that Evolution supplies any answers to mankind’s origins or destiny.

10:32 These are the families of the sons of Noah…and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.
The alternate explanation for Peleg’s name is simply that Eber, having bore witness to the confusion of tongues at Babel, and seeing tribes and families scattering across the earth due to God’s curse, named his child to commemorate the incident. It is true that Peleg’s name is the only one in chapter 10 that has its definition given, implying its importance. The word “divided” in 10:25 literally means, “division”, while in verses 5 and 32 the word means “to be spread out” in Hebrew; this seems to imply a different intention for Peleg’s name and the other usage of the English word for division. When describing the Flood waters, Habakkuk writes, “Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers,” Habakkuk 3:9. “Cleave” in this passage means, “to divide, to split, to burst open or burst forth, to be cracked open.” The Bible stresses that all mankind descended from these three men (the sons of Noah) and Noah before them. Racism with all of its implications is unknown in the Bible; both the Old and New Testament affirm that all men are, humanly speaking, “one blood,” Acts 17:26.