Page Content (OCR)
294 Fig. 98 It was a family that not only could claim descent from Shem but which kept family records tracing its lineage through generations of firstborn sons: Arpakhshad and Shelach and Eber; Peleg, Re'u, and Serug: Nahor and Terah and Abraham; taking the family's re- corded history back for no less than three centuries! What do the epithet-names signify? If Shelach ("Sword") was born, as chapter 11 of Genesis states, 258 years before Abraham, he was born in 2381 B.C. That indeed was the time of the strife that brought Sargon to the throne in the new capital Agade ("United"), symbolizing the unification of the lands and a new era. Sixty-four years later the family named its firstborn descendant Peleg ("Divi- sion"), "for in his days the land divided." It was the time, in fact, when Sumer and Akkad were torn apart after Sargon's attempt to remove the sacred soil from Babylon and his consequent death. But of greatest interest, to this very day, has been the meaning of the name Eber and the reason for bestowing it upon the firstborn in 2351 B.C. and from which has stemmed the biblical term Ibri ("Hebrew") by which Abraham and his family identified them- selves. It clearly stems from the root word meaning "to cross," THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN