Genesis 10:7

10:7 The sons of Cush were Seba, ¹  Havilah, ²  Sabtah, ³  Raamah, ⁴  and Sabteca. ⁵  The sons of Raamah were Sheba ⁶  and Dedan. ⁷ 

Genesis 10:29

10:29 Ophir, ⁸  Havilah, ⁹  and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan.

Genesis 25:18

25:18 His descendants ¹⁰  settled from Havilah to Shur, which runs next ¹¹  to Egypt all the way ¹²  to Asshur. ¹³  They settled ¹⁴  away from all their relatives. ¹⁵ 

Genesis 25:1

The Death of Abraham

25:1 Abraham had taken ¹⁶  another ¹⁷  wife, named Keturah.

Genesis 15:7

15:7 The Lord said ¹⁸  to him, “I am the Lord ¹⁹  who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans ²⁰  to give you this land to possess.”

¹ sn The descendants of Seba settled in Upper Egypt along the Nile.

² sn The Hebrew name Havilah apparently means “stretch of sand” (see HALOT 297 s.v. חֲוִילָה). Havilah’s descendants settled in eastern Arabia.

³ sn The descendants of Sabtah settled near the western shore of the Persian Gulf in ancient Hadhramaut.

⁴ sn The descendants of Raamah settled in southwest Arabia.

⁵ sn The descendants of Sabteca settled in Samudake, east toward the Persian Gulf.

⁶ sn Sheba became the name of a kingdom in southwest Arabia.

⁷ sn The name Dedan is associated with àUla in northern Arabia.

⁸ sn Ophir became the name of a territory in South Arabia. Many of the references to Ophir are connected with gold (e.g., 1 Kgs 9:28, 10:11, 22:48; 1 Chr 29:4; 2 Chr 8:18, 9:10; Job 22:24, 28:16; Ps 45:9; Isa 13:12).

⁹ sn Havilah is listed with Ham in v. 7.

¹⁰ tn Heb “they”; the referent (Ishmael’s descendants) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹¹ tn Heb “which is by the face of,” or near the border. The territory ran along the border of Egypt.

¹² tn Heb “as you go.”

¹³ sn The name Asshur refers here to a tribal area in the Sinai.

¹⁴ tn Heb “he fell.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “upon the face of all his brothers.” This last expression, obviously alluding to the earlier oracle about Ishmael (Gen 16:12), could mean that the descendants of Ishmael lived in hostility to others or that they lived in a territory that was opposite the lands of their relatives. While there is some ambiguity about the meaning, the line probably does give a hint of the Ishmaelite-Israelite conflicts to come.

¹⁶ tn Or “took.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “And Abraham added and took.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “And he said.”

¹⁹ sn I am the Lord. The Lord initiates the covenant-making ceremony with a declaration of who he is and what he has done for Abram. The same form appears at the beginning of the covenant made at Sinai (see Exod 20:1).

²⁰ sn The phrase of the Chaldeans is a later editorial clarification for the readers, designating the location of Ur. From all evidence there would have been no Chaldeans in existence at this early date; they are known in the time of the neo-Babylonian empire in the first millennium b.c.