Page 296 - Foundations

The noun peleg occurs in Psalm xlvi. 4, and is translated “streams.”

“There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the City of God...”

The translation “streams,” which is represented in the Hebrew by Peleg in the plural, with the third
person singular pronominal suffix, is an example of the figure of metonymy, by which the things
contained (“streams,”) are put for the containers (the divisions or clefts in the ground, through which
streams run). There is another example of the same figure in the next clause - “gladden the City of
God,” where city (the container) is put for the things contained (i.e., the population of the City). It
is obvious that the force of the word “peleg” in this verse harmonizes with the meaning that the verb
“palag” has in Job xxxviii. 25, quoted above.

The above examples, I think, show clearly the difference in meaning between the two verbs. What the
reader should note is that if the popular explanation of Genesis x. 25 were correct (i.e., if the verse
meant merely that in Peleg’s days God apportioned the land to the various companies of people who
were to inhabit it) then we should have had in the text the verb “chalak,” “to divide” by sharing; but
instead we have “palag,” “to divide” by cleavage.

“He called his name Peleg [a cleft or division], because in his days was the earth “niphl gah” [i.e.,
divided by cleavage]...”

What these verses in Genesis xi. tell us is that God first separated the people by confounding their
language, thus causing them to group themselves according to their respective tongues; He then
separated the land - dividing it by cleavage.

No doubt, those who are unbelievers in the God of the Bible will scoff at this account of the division
of the earth into continents. It is taught by many geologists that the division of the surface of the earth
began some 200 million years ago, and it occurred over the course of millions of years. Of course,
these same men would scoff at the idea that the earth we presently inhabit, with all of its plant and
animal life, was formed in six days. They would also decry the suggestion that the various languages
of man all arose in a single moment of time as the Bible declares to have occurred at Babel. Linguists
would argue that the languages of man developed over thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of years.

Man is quite imperfect in his knowledge. Man’s attempts at reconstructing past events has led to such
absurdities as the theory of evolution that would have all life arising without the aid of an intelligent
designer through the all powerful combination of time and chance. Statistical probability refutes any
possibility of such complex organisms as exist today arising through a random combination of
elements. Believing Yahweh to be the all-wise and omnipotent Creator of the universe with all it
contains, I do not find it inconsistent, nor incredible, to accept that Yahweh divided the earth into
continents in the days of Peleg’s life.

In Genesis chapter 11 we are given the genealogy of Shem, one of the three sons of Noah. In this
genealogy we are told that Peleg was born 101 years after the flood and he lived to the age of 239.
Sometime during the nearly two and one half centuries of Peleg’s life, the continents drifted apart.
As they did, the tribes of man found themselves separated by vast distances of oceans and seas. This