Genesis 10 - Noah’s Family Tree - Joktan and his sons
Noah > Shem > Arphaxad > Shelah > Eber > Joktan
There are 6 references to Joktan in the Bible, each pertaining to his lineage and/or life spans…      Â
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- Genesis 10:25 - “Two sons were born to Eber: One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan.”
- Genesis 10:26 - “Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah,”
- Genesis 10:29 - “Ophir, Havilah and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan.“
- 1 Chronicles 1:19 - “Two sons were born to Eber: One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan.”
- 1 Chronicles 1:20 - “Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, ”
- 1 Chronicles 1:23 - “Ophir, Havilah and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan.”
The interesting verse about Joktan however doesn’t even have his name in it, but refers to him, his sons, and their descendents. It is Genesis 10:30. The complete passage starts with verse 26…
 26 Joktan was the father of
   Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan. 30 The region where they lived stretched from Mesha toward Sephar, in the eastern hill country.
Now to see the “eastern hill country” required me to draw a new map that includes it. Also, I have added Mesha and Sephar, and several of Joktan’s sons:
To add Joktan’s sons, I found an excellent article at http://www.bibleorigins.net/joktansonofeber.html. Not only am I impressed by the scholarly references, it is fairly recent as well, dating to October of 2009 (last year while I write this). In that article, the author cites plausible locations for 6 of Joktan’s sons: Uzal, Sheba, Hobab, Havilah, Diklah, Hazarmaveth. In the process, he educates one on how to use old maps, language derivatives, and culture, from ancient to modern, to make truly educated guesses on where Noah’s descendents migrated to.
The region thought to be settled by Almodad is documented by Charles Forster (1844) as being Arabia Felix, Yemen today. Unfortunately, as honed in as Wikipedia would have one think this is, it is in fact quite a wide area, including most of Southern Arabia, including the the Sephar, Hobab, and Hazarmaveth above. I found a very informative article from 50 years ago on Ariaba Felix. It is suprisingly readable, though short in information for identifying Almodad.
Like Almodad, Sheleph has scant information on him on the internet, other than his lineage and documentation that his people lived in Yemen. Similar for Jerah, Hadoram, Obal, and Abimael. Ophir is hypothesized to be in many places.