What's in a Name?

 Genesis 10:21 To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. 22 The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. 23 The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. 24 Arpachshad fathered Shelah; and Shelah fathered Eber. 25 To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan. 26 Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. 

Often we come upon these lists of genealogies and think "oh no..." It's not just the pronunciation (the list above is not as bad as many), but also what we are to do with them?  In the list above we have the immediate descendants of Shem, whom we talked about yesterday.  He was the one blessed by Noah after the flood and his descendants became whom we call the Semitic peoples (as in antisemitism). They include the Jews. Since we are so busy stumbling over the pronunciation, we can easily miss what happens in verse 26 and following: Joktan had a LOT of sons. They became a lot of nations with a lot of languages, all going back to this blessed man, Shem. We'll see more of Shem tomorrow, but for today, remember this: there is a lot of hope in these names.