What Does Genesis 11:16 Mean?

When Eber had lived 34 years, he became the father of Peleg. Eber, whose name is connected to the Hebrew word for "crossing over" and may be the root of the word "Hebrew," holds a position of particular genealogical importance. He is identified in chapter 10 as the specific ancestor in whose name Shem's line is characterized. Yet his own entry in the genealogy is structurally identical to all the others: an age at fatherhood, the named son, additional years, other children, death.

The significance of Eber is entirely positional and relational. He did not receive a divine call. He did not build an altar or receive a promise. He stood in a line and fathered a son who would father a son who would father the son in whose generation the earth was divided. His notable status came from what his descendants would be and become, not from recorded individual achievement. Many of the most genealogically important figures in Scripture are important precisely because of where they sit in the story rather than what they personally did.

To name a people after Eber was a significant choice. The Hebrews, the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are genealogically identified with this man. When Joseph is called a Hebrew in Egypt, when the language of Israel is called the Hebrew tongue, when the New Testament is set against the backdrop of Hebrew Scripture, the name goes back to this genealogical figure whose most notable act was being born in the right line and fathering the right son.