Sons of Shem – Lud and Aram
We have already looked at Lud, but will mention his name once again as the ancestor of the Lydians. Lydia was in what is now Western Turkey. Their capital was Sardis.
Aram is the Hebrew word for Syria. Again, without exception, any time the word Syria appears in the Old Testament it is translated from the word Aram. The Syrians call themselves Aramaens, and their language is called Aramaic. Aramaic, or Syriac, was one of the most prominent languages in the ancient world. Prior to the time of Alexander the Great and the spread of the Greek Empire, Aramaic was the international language. With the conquests of Alexander, Aramaic was replaced by the Greek language, but Aramaic was still the common language in Israel in the time of the apostles. On the cross, when the Lord cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,” he was speaking Aramaic, the language of the common people.
We have only taken the briefest glance at the ancestors of all mankind, but enough has been reproduced to show that they really did live, that they are who the Bible says they were, and that their descendants are identifiable on the pages of history. The Bible not a collection of myths and legends, but it stands alone as the key to the history of the earliest ages of the world.