Genesis 10--The Record of the Nations

​Genesis 10 English Standard Version (ESV)
LISTEN:  https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/esv/Gen.10

Nations Descended from Noah

10 These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood.

2 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 3 The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. 4 The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. 5 From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations.

6 The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. 7 The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. 8 Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.” 10 The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11 From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and 12 Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. 13 Egypt fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, 14 Pathrusim, Casluhim (from whom the Philistines came), and Caphtorim.

15 Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn and Heth, 16 and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, 17 the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, 18 the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the clans of the Canaanites dispersed. 19 And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. 20 These are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

21 To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. 22 The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. 23 The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. 24 Arpachshad fathered Shelah; and Shelah fathered Eber. 25 To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan. 26 Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. 30 The territory in which they lived extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar to the hill country of the east. 31 These are the sons of Shem, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations.
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32 These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.

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First, I want to point out to everyone that there is an "audio" version for each passage I write about.  Even if you are reading through this in your regular Bible it might be helpful to you to hear these names read by someone else in order to make it easier for you to read through this passage.  While the names would all have great meaning in their original language and would tell a lot about the person they were referring to, we want to notice that these people start clans and nations that are named after them, and we're going to see some of these names for a very long time.

We'll see very little of the names mentioned as the sons of Japheth other than Tarshish (which we know settled in the Iberian peninsula in what is now known as Spain).  We'll see in the book of Jonah that this is a group of people that Jonah felt safe seeking shelter with when he was trying to escape God's calling to go to Nineveh (one of the cities built by Nimrod, a son of Ham).

We're going to recognize a lot of the names under the sons of Ham.  Tribes of people like Cush, Egypt and Canaan are all major players in the Old Testament.  Other names that you may recognize from history would be names like Raamah and Sheba 

One of the biggest names that we should notice in the sons of Ham is Nimrod.  If you don't know his name, already, you will by the end of the next chapter of Genesis.  He is going to be another person who commits a great sin that affects the entire known world.  His issue is one of pride and he is all about making a great name for himself.  We see this in that he had many children building great cities and as we'll see in the next chapter even building great monuments to himself and his success.  He was the progenitor of  ruthless and brutal conquering kingdoms such as Babylon, Assyria and the Philistines that we'll see throughout the Old Testament that are used to bring the Israelite people into bondage when they need break God's law and God uses the wicked nations to bring about remorse, confession and repentance for the sin that was committed individually and as a nation, thought God also will judge these nations for their wickedness and how they mistreated His people while they were slaves in their lands.

The name that I'm sure no one can miss given the prophecy we just saw last chapter and the rest of Old Testament history is that of Canaan and all of the Canaanite clans that came from him--the Jebusites (who David conquered to take the city that is now called Jerusalem), the Amorites and Girgashites and Hivites and we see names of cities that bad things are always associated with--Sidon, Gaza, Sodom and Gommorah.  We'll see even more of these clans form before the children of Israel come out of the land of Egypt, but these will be the very people that God is placing them into slavery in Egypt for 400 years to escape their wickedness and tells Israel to completely destroy every single one of them during the time of Joshua.  Their sin was so great and their heart set so much against God that they would corrupt anyone and anything that they came in contact with and God saw them much like a cancer that needed to be surgically removed.  The failure of the Israelites to obey this command from God still affects us today as many of the practices of the Canaanites and the false gods they worship still exist in world religions today.  I'm going to get political for one second and say that you'll notice there's no such thing a s "Palestinian" on that list or a nation referred to as Palestine because that was a name invented much later--we'll talk about this in detail later when we get to Joshua.  It is true that there were other people groups living in the land long before Abram was called to go to the land that God would show him and promised by God that the very land he walked on and could see and that God marked out for him would be an eternal inheritance for Abraham and his descendants (this will be another covenant we'll study soon).  The people claiming "ancient" ties to that land must be claiming ties to one of these families.  We'll see if that's possible as we go through the Old Testament, but if it is possible, we may understand the perpetual battle a little better as the prophecy we read last chapter says that that Canaan will forever be opposed to the sons of Shem.

Alright, now I'm going to drop a term on you that you may not realize came from this very chapter.  Have you heard the word anti-Semetic before?  It's actually a little bit of a butchering of the name "Shem" because the letter "h" is silent in many languages and it means a person who hates the descendants of Shem, but is specifically used to refer to those that hate the children of Abraham and more specifically than that children of Jacob and the children of Israel.  The people that God blesses, Satan hates and wants to destroy.

We see in this list Uz which is the land that Job lived in (he was a descendant of Shem and chronologically, it may be the oldest book in the Bible), and we see Aram from which the Arameans (ancient Syrians) came.  We'll see them mentioned in various passages in the Old Testament, and this is most likely the people that the language of Aramaic derived from which was the common tongue throughout much of the Old Testament and even through the time of Jesus.  We see that even when Jesus was crucified that the sign above His head was written in three languages-Latin, Greek and Aramaic--the three main languages of the known world at that time.  While you may not know much about this particular people they were extremely influential.

We see one name that has a special comment in the list of sons of Shem and that is "Peleg."  It has some meaning about the nations being divided.  There is some dispute among people whether this refers to, but one thing it certainly seems to be in reference to is the very next chapter in what is called The Tower of Babel (note that location was listed under one of the locations Nimrod built).  So we may seem to have an indication at least in the sons of Shem where that event took place to help us "line up" these genealogies later when we get to the place where the Bible starts to specifically focus in on the descendants of Shem since that is the line that "the seed of the woman" (the Christ) is going to come from.

I know that I probably didn't do this passage justice, but I hope that pointed out at least a few of the main players from each teams roster that you should keep your eye on moving forward.  Remember at this time that no one really knows who God is going to chose and so everyone is watching all of these male descendants very closely to say "Is this the one?"  I'll also make the point that Nimrod seems to be the very first instance of what might be referred to as an anitchrist (not the Antichrist), but one that is in the spirit of antichrist that is set up as a "false Christ" and desires things in opposition to God and would have been ready to make war against the people of God if God had allowed Nimrod to move forward unchallenged.  As you read ahead in preparation for tomorrow's blog, pay attention to how everything about Nimrod is a sinful version of what the Messiah would really be.  We'll study that and more next time, God willing.