Samlah died, and Shaul of Rehoboth by the River reigned in his place.
As in many of the genealogies of the Bible, the genealogy here is simplified. That is, it does not list the name of every person descended from one ancestor, but selects certain people and certain generations according to the purpose of the writer. In this genealogy the writer is concerned mainly with only one line of descent from Adam.To begin with, the writer records the line of descent from Adam to Noah (1:1-4). Although he records the descendants of Noah’s three sons (5-23), he is particularly concerned with the line through Shem that produced Abraham (24-27). The nation Israel was descended from Abraham through his son Isaac and grandson Jacob, but before dealing with Israel, the writer lists people descended from Abraham’s other children (28-33) and from Isaac’s other son (34-54).