Arpachshad ( – ʾArpaḵšaḏ; – ''ʾArpaḵšaḏ'', in

pausa In linguistics, pausa (Latin for 'break', from Greek παῦσις, ''pâusis'' 'stopping, ceasing') is the hiatus between prosodic declination units. The concept is somewhat broad, as it is primarily used to refer to allophones that occur in ...

– ''ʾArpaḵšāḏ''; – ''Arphaxád''), alternatively spelled Arphaxad or Arphacsad, is one of the postdiluvian men in the ShemTerah genealogy. The name is recorded in the

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek language, Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its incipit, first word, (In the beginning (phrase), 'In the beginning'). Genesis purpor ...

in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

) and subsequently copied in different biblical books, including the

Gospel of Luke The Gospel of Luke is the third of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It tells of the origins, Nativity of Jesus, birth, Ministry of Jesus, ministry, Crucifixion of Jesus, death, Resurrection of Jesus, resurrection, and Ascension of ...

in the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

Biblical accounts

According to the

he was one of the five sons of

Shem Shem (; ''Šēm''; ) is one of the sons of Noah in the Bible ( Genesis 5–11 and 1 Chronicles 1:4). The children of Shem are Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram, in addition to unnamed daughters. Abraham, the patriarch of Jews, Christ ...

(the son of

Noah Noah (; , also Noach) appears as the last of the Antediluvian Patriarchs (Bible), patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5–9), the Quran and Baháʼí literature, ...

). He is the twelfth name of the Genesis genealogy that traces

Abraham Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrews, Hebrew Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the Covenant (biblical), covenanta ...

s ancestry from Adam to

Terah Terah or Terach ( ''Teraḥ'') is a biblical figure in the Book of Genesis. He is listed as the son of Nahor and father of the patriarch Abraham. As such, he is a descendant of Shem's son Arpachshad. Terah is mentioned in Genesis 11:26–27, ...

(cf. ). Beginning with Adam, nine

Antediluvian The antediluvian (alternatively pre-diluvian or pre-flood) period is the time period chronicled in the Bible between the fall of man and the Genesis flood narrative in biblical cosmology. The term was coined by Thomas Browne (1605–1682). The n ...

names are given that predate Noah and the Flood, and nine postdiluvian, beginning with Noah's eldest son Shem and ending with

. According to the text, Arpachshad's brothers were

Elam Elam () was an ancient civilization centered in the far west and southwest of Iran, stretching from the lowlands of what is now Khuzestan and Ilam Province as well as a small part of modern-day southern Iraq. The modern name ''Elam'' stems fr ...

, Asshur, Lud and Aram. Arpachshad's son is called Selah, except in the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

, where his son is Cainan, Shelah being Arpachshad's grandson. Cainan is also identified as Arpachshad's son in Luke and in the non-canonical book of

Jubilees The Book of Jubilees is an ancient Jewish apocryphal text of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered Biblical canon, canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, as well as by Haymanot, Haymanot Judaism, a denomination observed by membe ...

8:1. The

Book of Jubilees The Book of Jubilees is an ancient Jewish apocryphal text of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, as well as by Haymanot Judaism, a denomination observed by members of Ethiopian Jewish ...

additionally identifies Arpachshad's wife as ''Rasu'aya'', the daughter of ''Susan'', who was the son (or daughter in some versions) of Shem's older son Elam. (Arpachshad's mother is named in this source as ''Sedeqetelebab''; for competing traditions on the name of Shem's wife see wives aboard the Ark.)

Identifications

Some ancient Jewish sources, particularly Jubilees, point to Arpachshad as the immediate progenitor of Ura and Kesed, who allegedly founded the city of ''

Ur Kasdim Ur Kasdim (), commonly translated as Ur of the Chaldees, is a city mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the birthplace of Abraham, the patriarch of the Israelites and the Ishmaelites. In 1862, Henry Rawlinson identified Ur Kaśdim with Tell el-Muq ...

'' (Ur of the Chaldees) on the west bank of the

Euphrates The Euphrates ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of West Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (). Originati ...

(Jubilees 9:4; 11:1–7) – the same bank where Ur, identified by

Leonard Woolley Sir Charles Leonard Woolley (17 April 1880 – 20 February 1960) was a British archaeologist best known for his Excavation (archaeology), excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia. He is recognized as one of the first "modern" archaeologists who excavat ...

in 1927 as Ur of the Chaldees, is located. Until Woolley's identification of Ur, Arpachshad was understood by many Jewish and Muslim scholars to be an area in northern

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

. This led to the identification of Arpachshad with Urfa-Kasid (due to similarities in the names and ) – a land associated with the Khaldis, whom

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

confused with the

Chaldea Chaldea () refers to a region probably located in the marshy land of southern Mesopotamia. It is mentioned, with varying meaning, in Neo-Assyrian cuneiform, the Hebrew Bible, and in classical Greek texts. The Hebrew Bible uses the term (''Ka� ...

ns. Donald B. Redford asserted that Arpachshad is to be identified with

Babylon Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...

Another person with the same name

Another Arpaxad is referenced in the

deuterocanonical The deuterocanonical books, meaning 'of, pertaining to, or constituting a second Biblical canon, canon', collectively known as the Deuterocanon (DC), are certain books and passages considered to be Biblical canon, canonical books of the Old ...

Book of Judith The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic Church, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Christian Old Testament of the Bible but Development of the Hebrew Bible canon, excluded from the ...

as a king of the

Medes The Medes were an Iron Age Iranian peoples, Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media (region), Media between western Iran, western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, they occupied the m ...

, and if this supposed Median king is contemporary with the conquest of the Assyrians, he could be identified with Phraortes ( - 633 BC).

Jerusalem Bible ''The Jerusalem Bible'' (JB or TJB) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd. As a Catholic Bible, it includes 73 books: the 39 books shared with the Hebrew Bible, along with the seven deuterocanonical ...

(1966), footnote c at Judith 1:1 If he is contemporary with

Nebuchadnezzar II Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...

(named as king of the Assyrians in Judith), he might be identified with Cyaxares (r. 625–585 BC).

References

{{Authority control Book of Genesis people Shem Noach (parashah) Book of Jubilees