The Line of Shem: Arpachshad, Ever, Peleg and the Division of the Earth
Two years after the Flood Shem fathers Arpachshad; from him the line runs to Ever and to Peleg, in whose days "the earth was divided".
The Torah keeps a deliberately precise count along Shem's line — the one that leads to Abraham. Arpachshad is born in 1658, "two years after the Flood"; then come Shelach, Ever (1723), Peleg (1757), Reu, Serug, Nahor and Terach. Each name carries the years out of which the whole Seder Olam chronology is built. Ever stands out: one explanation derives the word ivri, Hebrew, "one from the other side," from his name. Together with Shem, a survivor of the Flood, he maintains a house of study — the first yeshiva of tradition — where Jacob will later hide. Ever names his son Peleg, "division," and the Torah explains: "for in his days the earth was divided," referring to the scattering of the generation of the Tower. The name was prophecy: the sages say Ever named his son for an event more than two centuries away. Add up the years and Peleg dies precisely in 1996, the year the languages were confused — which is why Rashi notes that the division came at the end of his days.