These are their generations: The firstborn of Ishmael, Nebaioth; then Kedar, and Adbeel, and Mibsam,

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

1Ch 1:29-31. Sons of Ishmael.

29. These are their generations-the heads of his twelve tribes. The great northern desert of Arabia, including the entire neck, was colonized by these tribes; and if we can recover, in the modern geography of this part of the country, Arab tribes bearing the names of those patriarchs, that is, names corresponding with those preserved in the original catalogue of Scripture, we obtain at once so many evidences, not of mere similarity, but of absolute identification [Forster].

Nebaioth-gave rise to the Nabathæans of the classic, and the Beni Nabat of Oriental writers.

Kedar-the Arab tribe, El Khedeyre, on the coast of Hedgar.

Abdeel-Abdilla, the name of a tribe in Yemen.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

28-54 The genealogy is from hence confined to the posterity of Abraham. Let us take occasion from reading these lists of names, to think of the multitudes that have gone through this world, have done their parts in it, and then quitted it. As one generation, even of sinful men, passes away, another comes. Ec 1:4; Nu 32:14, and will do so while the earth remains. Short is our passage through time into eternity. May we be distinguished as the Lord's people.