Arpachshad
Arpachshad or Arphaxad or Arphacsad (אַרְפַּכְשַׁד / אַרְפַּכְשָׁד "Healer; releaser", Standard Hebrew Arpaḫšad, Tiberian Hebrew ʾArpaḵšaḏ / ʾArpaḵšāḏ) was one of the five sons of Shem, the son of Noah (Genesis 10:22,24;11:12,13; 1 Chronicles 1:17,18). His brothers were Elam, Asshur, Lud and Aram; he is an ancestor of Abraham. Donald B. Redford (Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, p. 405) has asserted that Arpachsad is to be identified with Babylon. Until the identification of a site in southern Iraq as Ur of the Chaldees by Sir Charles Woolley in 1927, Arpachshad was understood by Jewish scholars to be an area of northern Mesopotamia, which led to the identification of Arpachshad (due to similarities in the names ארפ־כשד and כשדים) with Urfa-Kasid, a land associated with the Khaldis (or Kasidim, whom Josephus confused with the Chaldeans, and the possible source of the Kasidim mentioned in Daniel). Arpachshad's son is called Shelah, except in the Septuagint, where his son is Cainan (קינן), Shelah being Arpachshad's grandson.
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