S. Michael Houdmann Supporter Got Questions Ministries

In 1 Chronicles 1:19 it is noted that the earth was divided in the days of Peleg: "Two sons were born to Eber: One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named ...

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August 14 2015 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report

John Appelt Supporter

After the flood something happened that is mentioned in Genesis 10:25 and I Chronicles 1:19. Peleg was born in about the 100th year or about five generations after the Flood. 

Peleg’s name means ‘divided.’ In Genesis 10:5, 25, and 32, the verb ‘divided’ is found in slightly different forms. Verses 5 and 32 have a form of ‘parad’ and verse 25 has ‘palag.’ 

‘Parad’ means ‘divided’ or ‘separated.’ Genesis 10:5 says, “according to his language.” Genesis 11 expands on this with the dispersion of the people from Babel. Then Genesis 10:32 says, “the nations were divided on the earth.” Moses describes this in Deuteronomy 32:8. God divided the world ‘their inheritance’ separating them into 70 nations, the same number as the 70 descendants of Israel. This seems to be an intentional parceling of the lands of the world. This explains the spontaneous rise of Babylon, Egypt, and Greece, as hinted about Egypt in Exodus 9:18 and 24. 

In verse 25, the noun form of ‘palag’ is ‘peleg’ which most of the time is translated ‘river,’ but it can mean ‘sea’ as in ‘pelagic.’ According to Bernard Northrup, a professor, ‘Peleg’ originally meant ‘division by water.’ In an article, “Rightly ‘Dividing’ the Word about Peleg,” John D. Morris and James J. Scofield Johnson, suggested that after the flood, super-hurricanes or hypercanes were caused by much magma heat released from the oceans. With the melting huge ice sheets, it produced catastrophic waterflows and mudflows, creating canyons and river channels. In his book, “After the Flood,” Bill Cooper wrote, that the Assyrian word, ‘palgu,’ refers to the dividing up of land by canals and irrigation systems. He noted this is the sense of the Hebrew word ‘peleg’ in Job 38:25. The world may have been divided up using rivers and bodies of water as boundaries. 

Two intriguing publications give credence to the Scripture record. In their work, ‘The Nazca Great Circle Map Hypothesis’ Frank Maglione Nicholson, Ken Phungrasamee, and David Grimason proposed the long lines and giant geoglyphs carved into the Peruvian Nazca plateau, 37 miles long and 1 mile wide, is a map of the earth. They showed that various figures called geoglyphs, represent known regions. Great circles around the earth connect these geoglyphs, monuments, volcanoes, and impact craters. This highly suggests the world was surveyed and divided into regions and assigned to the various nations. 

The other research is based on “On the Origins of the Alphabet: New Evidence,” by Brian R. Pellar. He noted that a number of alphabets of ancient civilizations are linked to the constellations. Each pair or couplet of letters is a constellation. Using Hebrew as an example, ‘aleph' and 'beth’ make up Taurus the bull, etc. He said the very close correlation of the different alphabets to astronomical elements “appear to be beyond coincidence.” The dispersed people had a Zodiac-based alphabet.

In Peleg’s time, the families of the earth were divided according to their languages (and alphabets) into nations bordered by rivers and bodies of water.

January 11 2022 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report