Arphaxad

Arphaxad (also spelled Arpachshad in the Old Testament narratives) is a son of Shem, born two years after the flood, and a link in the line that runs from Noah to Abraham and onward to Jesus. His name carries no story of its own; he is named only in genealogies, but those genealogies place him at three structural hinges of redemptive history: the post-flood repopulation of the earth, the consolidated chronicler's roster of Israel's ancestors, and the genealogy of Christ in Luke.

Born to Shem after the Flood

Arphaxad enters scripture in the generations of Shem, set explicitly in relation to the flood. "These are the generations of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old, and begot Arpachshad two years after the flood" (Gen 11:10). He is thus the first of Shem's offspring named in the post-flood era, and his birth functions as the chronological anchor for the chain of begettings that follows.

Father of Shelah, and a Long-Lived Patriarch

Arphaxad himself becomes a father at thirty-five and lives long after. "And Arpachshad lived five and thirty years, and begot Shelah" (Gen 11:12). "And Arpachshad lived after he begot Shelah four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters" (Gen 11:13). His total lifespan after the birth of Shelah places him among the long-lived ancestors of the post-flood generations, alongside his father Shem, of whom it is also said, "And Shem lived after he begot Arpachshad five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters" (Gen 11:11).

In the Table of Nations and the Chronicler's Roster

Within the Table of Nations Arphaxad appears among the named sons of Shem: "The sons of Shem: Elam, and Asshur, and Arpachshad, and Lud, and Aram" (Gen 10:22). The chronicler later restates the same family list, expanded with the second-generation names that the Genesis table records elsewhere: "The sons of Shem: Elam, and Asshur, and Arpachshad, and Lud, and Aram, and Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Meshech" (1Ch 1:17). The line is then carried forward one generation at a time: "And Arpachshad begot Shelah, and Shelah begot Eber" (1Ch 1:18). When the chronicler condenses the whole pre-Abrahamic descent to a bare ancestral spine, Arphaxad sits between Shem and Shelah: "Shem, Arpachshad, Shelah" (1Ch 1:24).

In the Genealogy of Christ

Luke carries the same line forward to Jesus. Tracing the ancestry of Christ backward through Joseph, the evangelist names Arphaxad in the post-flood stretch of the chain: "the [son] of Cainan, the [son] of Arphaxad, the [son] of Shem, the [son] of Noah, the [son] of Lamech," (Luke 3:36). Arphaxad's significance in scripture is exactly this — he is one of the unbroken links by which the promise made through Shem and Noah reaches across the generations to the genealogy of Christ.