The name of Eber's second son was, as we have seen, Joktan, “small,” as distinguished from Peleg whose name, “division,” marked as an epoch the more peaceful dividing of the earth, after the judgment of God necessitated the dispersion of mankind. There is no substantial reason to limit the “division” to the family of Eber himself, when the younger branch migrated into southern Arabia, the elder remaining in Mesopotamia. Had this mere family split been referred to, the younger son would more naturally have borne its name, not the elder who abode where he was. Besides, how can an event so ordinary meet the large terms employed— “in his days was the earth divided?” The Chaldee paraphrase on 1 Chron. 1:19 suggests that Joktan derived his name from the diminution of human life at that time. Certain it is that then longevity sunk one half, judging by the recorded years of Peleg (xi. 18, 19) and of those that succeeded, diminishing by degrees to its ordinary range.
Joktan appears on abundant evidence of varied kinds to answer to the Arabic Kachttin. “Of them [the Beni Sad], and of the Kahtan Arabs,...., Masoudy says in his work entitled ‘The Golden Meadows,' that they are the only remnants of the primitive tribes of Arabia. Most of the other tribes, etc. But the two tribes above mentioned, the Beni Sad and Kahtan, are famed in the most remote antiquity, when Arabian history, for the greater part, is covered with complete darkness” (Burckhardt's Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, 2. 47, 48, London, 1831). We shall see that the traces of his thirteen sons are almost all plain enough also. This had been doubted by some who conceived it to be a Jewish tradition adopted later by Mohammedan writers. Why should any one doubt that the κατανὶται of Cl. Ptolemy (Geog. 6:7) are the Beni Kachtan, or Kahtanys? In Pliny (6:28) and Strabo (16.) they seem spoken of as Catabani, and καταβανεὶς, by an inversion not uncommon among Greeks and Latins. Dionysius Perieg. speaks of the same tribe under a name very slightly changed, of which no account appears in Smith's Dict. of G. and R. Geography. Modern research however has not only vindicated the fact, but explained probably why the change of the name was effected. Of his numerous sons we glance at the four named in the verse before us.
“And Joktan begat Almodad and Sheleph and Hazarmaveth and Serah” (ver. 26).
The first enumerated corresponds with Mudád, or, as the word admits the article, El-Mudád. Bochart in his Phaleg (2:16) long ago connected the name with the αλλονμαιῶται of Cl. Ptolemy (6:7, § 24) who held a central position in Yemen or Arabia Felix. There seems no sufficient ground to heed Gesenius' idea that the name is a variant from Almoram, so as to trace it in the tribe called Morad living in a mountainous region of the same country near Zabid.
Next comes Sheleph or Shaleph. This name has been without reasonable doubt identified with the district of Sulaf or Salif in southern Arabia. The elder Niebuhr gives it as Sitlfie (in his map Selfia) (Descr. 215). More recently Dr. Osiander gives an account of the tribe Shelif or Shulaf, as Yakoot in the Moajam and other Arabic authorities which complete the geographical traces. Indeed Ptolemy (6:7) had of old told us of the Σαλαπηνοὶ or Αλαπηνοί as the Greeks called the people. Here is therefore proof in this case still clearer than in some. Mr. C. Forster (Geog. of Arabia) in both his vols. labors to identify the modern Meteyr tribe with the Salapeni or sons of Σαλέθ as their chief is called by the 70. They were close allies of the Beni Kachtan against the Kedarite BeniCharb or Carbani.
Hazarmaveth plainly answers to the district east of the modern Yemen, called by the Arabs Hadramawt (court of death), also in the south of Arabia, situated on the Indian Sea, and, if unhealthy, no less famous for its rich spices. One of its ports was Zafari, the Sephar of which we read later in this chapter. Here again there is satisfactory evidence that the third in the list of Joktan's sons furnished the name, rendered Σαρμώθ by the 70 and Asarmoeh in the Vulgate.
Jerah or Yerach “the moon” is the fourth, which Michaelis in his Spicileg. ii. 60 finds in the “low land of the moon,” or in the “mount of the moon,” both of which were near Hadramitwt. It is needless and against all probability to follow Bοchart's notion of the Alilaei dwelling near the Red Sea. Mr. E. S. Poole (Smith's Diet. of the Bible, 1. 264) traces the name in a fortress (and probably an old town) mentioned as belonging to the district of the Nijjad, which is in Mareb at the extremity of the Yemen. Indeed Arab tradition, as we may see in Golius (sub voce) is in nothing ancient more unanimous than in styling this son of Joktan “Father of Yemen” (Abu Yemen). His name appears in the LXX. as Ἰαπάχ, and as Jare in the Vulgate. The Arab name may be represented by Jesbit or Serha, giving the “h” its guttural pronunciation of “ch.” C. Ptol. speaks of the Νῆσος Ἰεπάχων on the Arabian gulf, and of the Ἱεπάχων κώμη on a river near the Persian gulf, which appear to point to the same family, wide as they might be apart. Mr. Forster brings many other names under the same reference modified by slight changes of name and sound; just as Ptolemy's river Lar on the east coast seems no other than the Zar of the present day, which the Latin geographers confirm who translate it Flumen Canis—Dog, which the Arabic means. The great region of Karje, he argues, derives its name from Jerah according to an anagram quite common in their proper names.