1 Chronicles 1:24–27

1 Chronicles 1:24 — Shem, Arpachshad, Shelah The Chronicler opens this sub-list at Shem, not at Noah, because the larger genealogical architecture of 1 Chronicles 1 has already treated Noah's three sons (vv. 4–23). Now the camera zooms in: of the three sons, it is through Shem that the salvific story will run. The name Shem means "name" or "renown," and Noah's blessing in Genesis 9:26 — "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem" — already marks this line as the locus of divine covenant presence. Arpachshad is Shem's third son (Gen 10:22), and his selection over his older brothers Elam and Asshur continues the biblical pattern of the younger or unexpected heir carrying the promise forward. Shelah, Arpachshad's son, appears without remark, yet his very inclusion is theologically loaded: each name confirms that divine providence did not abandon its purpose across the generations between the Flood and Abram.

1 Chronicles 1:25 — Eber, Peleg, Reu Eber is a figure of quiet but enormous significance. Many ancient Jewish and Christian commentators identified the word Hebrew (עִבְרִי, ʿibrî) as derived from his name, making him the eponymous ancestor of "the Hebrews." Jerome, following this tradition, saw Eber as the one who preserved the original sacred language — Hebrew — when the nations at Babel dispersed into linguistic confusion. Peleg's name means "division" (Gen 10:25: "in his days the earth was divided"), an allusion almost certainly to the Babel event. The Chronicler does not pause to explain this; he trusts his audience to feel the weight. Reu, "friend" or "shepherd," continues the line without incident, but his very ordinariness is the point: the covenant thread runs through the everyday and the undramatic just as surely as through moments of great crisis.

1 Chronicles 1:26 — Serug, Nahor, Terah These three names bring us into historically warmer territory. Nahor is also the name of Abraham's brother (Gen 11:26–27), suggesting the Chronicler's list has now reached living memory within the patriarchal narratives. Terah, Abraham's father, is the figure who initiated the journey toward Canaan (Gen 11:31) — he set out from Ur of the Chaldeans — but he stopped in Haran and died there. Terah represents the incomplete call: the movement toward the promised land that requires a new act of divine initiative to complete. The Church Fathers saw in Terah's arrested journey a figure of the soul that begins conversion but stops short of full surrender.

1 Chronicles 1:27 — Abram (also called Abraham) The entire genealogical corridor — ten generations from Shem, recapitulating the ten generations from Adam to Noah (1 Chr 1:1–4) — terminates here in a single name presented with extraordinary care. The Chronicler uses the double name: Abram, the birth name meaning "exalted father," and Abraham, the covenant name given by God in Genesis 17:5, meaning "father of a multitude of nations." This is the only place in the genealogies where the Chronicler halts to record a name-change, and the editorial choice is deliberate: it is not merely a new individual who appears, but a new reality in salvation history. The ten-generation structure (Shem to Abraham) mirrors the ten-generation structure (Adam to Noah), signaling to the reader that God is, once again, making a new beginning with humanity — not through universal catastrophe this time, but through the singular election of one man from whom all nations will eventually be blessed (Gen 12:3).

Catholic tradition reads these verses within the framework of what the Catechism calls the "stages of Revelation" (CCC 54–58). God's covenant with Noah established a universal covenant with all humanity; but the Chronicler's genealogy shows that providence then concentrated its saving purpose, moving from the universal to the particular — from all nations to the family of Shem, and from Shem's broad descendants to the single person of Abraham. This is not divine favoritism but divine pedagogy: God chooses one to reach all (CCC 59). St. Augustine, in The City of God (Book XVI), traces precisely this line from Shem to Abraham as the earthly itinerary of the City of God, the community that lives by faith across history. He notes that the ten generations from Shem to Abraham are not incidental; they demonstrate that God's patience sustains his purpose even across long silences. St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on Genesis) highlights the name "Eber" and the Hebrew language as a providential preservation of divine speech amid Babel's chaos, seeing in it a type of the Church's preservation of sacred Scripture through all ages of confusion. The Second Vatican Council's Dei Verbum (§14) echoes this when it affirms that God elected Israel and prepared the way for the Gospel through the patriarchs, beginning with Abraham. The double name "Abram/Abraham" holds particular weight in Catholic sacramental theology: it anticipates the name-changes that mark covenant initiation throughout Scripture (Jacob/Israel, Simon/Peter), and by extension the new name given in Baptism, by which the Christian enters the covenant family that Abraham's faith established (CCC 1819; Gal 3:7–9).

A contemporary Catholic reader, encountering this list of largely unfamiliar names, might be tempted to skip past it. But these verses carry a quietly radical message for modern life: God works through long, unspectacular sequences of fidelity. Between Shem and Abraham are nine generations of men whose names we barely know, yet each one was necessary. Their ordinary lives — their marriages, their children, their deaths in faith — were the infrastructure of salvation. For Catholics today, this is a profound affirmation of vocation in the everyday. The parent who raises children in the faith, the grandparent who passes on prayer, the ordinary believer who perseveres without visible drama — each is a "link in the chain" of the covenant just as surely as Peleg or Reu. The Church's practice of tracing one's baptismal and confirmation lineage (godparents, sponsors, catechists) reflects this same logic. Ask yourself: Who are the "Shem to Abraham" figures in your own faith history? And for whom might you be that unnamed, essential link?