Genesis 10 (The Nations Take Form)

The Table of Nations in Genesis 10

All right, so tonight we're looking at Genesis chapter 10. Genesis 10 is one of those chapters that people, I don't know, maybe they don't skip over it, they don't think much about it. It's not one of the major chapters, like chapter three or maybe chapter 12, but there is some important information in Genesis 10.

You know that I'm against, most Bible-believing Christians are against what people call globalism, right? So this idea of a one-world system, and of course, that's gonna be the topic next week with the Tower of Babel, right?

People coming together in a one-world system. But here in Genesis 10, this explains how the nations were formed. So this chapter gives us an inspired record of how the nations came about and how God sovereignly separated mankind into families, which then developed into nations.

And of course, these families or nations would, later on, one of them would be chosen in chapter 12 to bring the Messiah into the world. So we'll play the video and then we'll go over verse by verse and talk about this chapter, which is usually referred to as the Table of Nations.

So let's listen to Genesis chapter 10.

Now this is the genealogy of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And sons were born to them after the flood. The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshach, and Tyrus. The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Ripheth, and Togarmah.

The sons of Javan were Elisha, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. From these, the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.

The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabta, Rehama, and Saptika. And the sons of Rehama were Sheba and Dedan. Cush begot Nimrod. He began to be a mighty one on the earth.

He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, like Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Akkad, and Calna in the land of Shina. From that land, he went to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-ir, Kela, and Resan between Nineveh and Kela.

That is the principal city. Mizraim begot Ludim, Anamim, Lehebim, Naphtunim, Pathrusim, and Castuhim. From whom came the Philistines and Kapturim. Canaan begot Sidon, his firstborn, and Heth, the Jebusite, the Amorite, and the Gergeshite, the Hivite, the Archite, and the Sinite, the Avodite, the Zemurite, and the Hamathite.

Afterward, the families of the Canaanites were dispersed. And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon as you go towards Gera, as far as Gaza. Then, as you go toward Sodom, Gamara, Adma, Zeboiim, and as far as Lesha.

These were the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, in their lands and in their nations. And the children were born also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth, the elder.

The sons of Shem were Elam, Asher, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram. The sons of Aram were Az, Hal, Gepha, and Mash. Arphaxad begot Selah, and Selah begot Eber. To Eber were born two sons. The name of one was Pelech, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan.

Joktan begat Almudad, Sheleph, Hazamepheth, Jirah, Hadoram, Yuzal, Dikla, Obul, Abimeal, Sheba, Ophah, Havilah, and Jobad. All these were the sons of Joktan, and their dwelling place was from Misha, as you go towards Sephah, the mountain of the east.

These were the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their languages, in their lands, according to their nations. These were the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations, in their nations, and from these, the nations were divided on the earth after the flood.

So this is one thing I like about these videos, just playing this, I don't have to try to pronounce all those really difficult names. I definitely wouldn't get them all right. But let's just quickly go through an overview of chapter 10.

I think it's divided, you could say it's divided into three sections. So it's based on Noah's three sons. First, verses one through five would be the descendants of Japheth, six through 20, the descendants of Ham, and then verses 21 through 31 would be the descendants of Shem.

It's been said that the key theme is the dispersion of humanity and the establishment of various nations, peoples, and languages. And again, as I said, in the next chapter, Genesis 11, this is a pretty well-known chapter talking about the Tower of Babel where they did not want to separate into different nations and spread out and fill the earth.

They said, no, we're all gonna stay in one place and make a name for ourselves and create a one world system. And God did not approve of that at all. So here we're getting a picture of where all the nations came from.

So now this is a simple thing. We don't have to do genealogies back to Adam and Eve. We now only have to go back to Noah and his family because everything is starting over with them. So let's just go through this verse by verse.

Genesis 10, one says, now this is the genealogy of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And the sons were born to them after the flood. And then it lists the sons of Japheth. And the first two are Gomer and Magog.

I'm assuming when we went through these names, some of these names sounded familiar to you, right? A lot of them didn't, but some of them do sound familiar. And these two should sound familiar, Gomer and Magog.

Magog, especially because that's mentioned in Ezekiel and in the book of Revelation, remember Gog and Magog. And then there's gonna be this battle, the war, the battle of Gog and Magog. So that's the first thing that jumped out to me because I remember the first study Bible I ever had.

I don't know if it was a prophecy study Bible, but I remember reading this. It said that Gomer was Germany. And it said that Magog was Russia. And it was tied into Ezekiel 38 in this prophecy that Russia and Germany, there'll be this coalition in the end of days, and they're gonna attack Israel.

Who's heard something like that? Yeah, pretty common teaching in Bible prophecy, this idea that Russia is going to attack Israel in the latter days. So my study Bible said that Gomer was Germany and Magog was Russia.

Now, is that really accurate? I don't know, I don't know about that. Here's the thing, this is so long ago and people have children and they spread out and multiple descendants. It's not as simple as saying, this person represents the modern nation of Germany.

It's just not, I don't think it's that simple, but there could be something to it. And I think we'll see that in just a moment. Any comments on Gomer, Magog, some of these other names?

Gomer was Hosea's wife's name.

Yup, yup.

So Magog was a person, okay, we see that originally, but also some of these people, these nations, they're named after people, obviously. So the Old Testament Israelites, this information doesn't seem all that relevant to us.

It's like another one of these genealogies and you probably think, why do I need to know all this? But it would have been very important information for the Israelites, especially when was this written?

In the days of Moses, right? So that was a lot closer to the events and the Jews or the Israelites were learning where their enemies came from. All these nations that surrounded them, they're learning pertinent information.

So it's a lot more important for them than it is for us, but as scripture says, all scripture is profitable for doctrine. So we're just gonna hit the highlights. Look at verse three. It mentions another name that may seem familiar, Ashkenaz.

Okay, what do you think of when you hear Ashkenaz?

There's Jews from, I think it's Spain traced back to Ashkenaz.

Yeah, the Ashkenazi Jews, who's heard of them.

The Sephardic Jews, I heard a name like that.

Right. Somewhere. Right.

Jews are either, they seem to be either Ashkenaz or Sephardic in their ancestry.

Right.

So let me read this. I found this article.

It's very brief.

I'll just read it and it gives some insight because usually any sermon Bible study I hear on Genesis 10, this is one of the main focuses on the Ashkenazi lineage here. So this article says the Ashkenazi Jews comprise a subculture of European Judaism.

In ancient times, as the Jewish people spread out from the land of Israel, many settled in Europe. Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Jews of the middle ages who settled in Germany, Poland, Austria, and Eastern Europe.

Ashkenaz is a traditional Hebrew word for Germany. So make of that what you will. The Ashkenazi Jews are often referred to in distinction to Sephardic Jews who inhabited medieval Spain and Portugal. So there's basically, you'd boil it down to two types of Jews in the world, Sephardic, which would be from Spain and then Ashkenazi.

They're the majority and they're more the European Jews. In the 20th century, the article says, the Holocaust in Germany took a heavy toll on the Ashkenazi population. After the Holocaust, many immigrated to other countries such as France, the United States, and Israel.

When the nation of Israel was established in 1948, Ashkenazi Jews were the largest group of Jews to settle there. Nearly half of all the Jews living in Israel today are Ashkenazi Jews. And it's estimated that 80 of Jews worldwide are Ashkenazi.

So that's the overwhelming majority. Now, some people promote, this is also part of the article, last paragraph. Some people promote a theory that, and this is what I've heard before, that Ashkenazi Jews are not really Jews at all.

So this, again, is a theory that some people promote. Instead, they are Gentiles who converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages. And this politically motivated theory attempts to suggest that the Jews who are now living in Israel have no historical claim to the land.

There are also many other conspiracy theories about them. And what all these theories have in common is a lack of documentation or other credible evidence. So you can tell that the person who wrote this article doesn't think very highly of this theory.

So if you hear this repeated that Ashkenazi Jews are not really Jews, okay, this is being labeled in the article as either a conspiracy theory or at least a theory that has no documentation or credible evidence.

Now, the only reason that it's tied to Genesis 10 is because Ashkenaz is a descendant of who? Or let's back up. Who are the Jews descended from? Which child of?

Shem.

Shem. Okay, so Shem and Eber, the Hebrews. So the Jews descend from Shem. Ashkenaz descends from who? Japheth. So that's the Europeans. So that's what some people will do to say, well, they're Ashkenazi Jews.

Ashkenaz was not descended from Shem.

There you go.

See, that proves it. Now, does that prove it? No, again, I mean, this is so long ago. It's not, again, it's not that simple. It's just like saying Gomer is Germany. I mean, maybe there's some connection with the word, but that's just not the way it works, okay?

So I don't want you to fall for some of these theories, which I don't think you would, but it's something that is common. I've heard it a lot, so I just wanted to bring it up. Any comments or questions on that?

I'm assuming Marcus doesn't think highly of that theory.

Yeah.

But it is, it's politically motivated to say, well, these people have no right to the land because they're not even really Jewish. They're Gentile converts, okay?

I think Moses was Jewish.

All right, so just some information to be on the lookout for. Every time I've heard that brought up, it does tend to be either from someone who's promoting an anti-Semitic point of view or someone who is just against a future for Israel in their eschatology, one of the two, okay.

I'm sure Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were Jewish, and that's far enough back.

Yeah.

Okay, so verse five. So we have the descendants of Japheth, and this information would have mattered, again, to the Israelites living in the days of Moses and Joshua. It says in verse five, from these, the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nation.

So the descendants of Japheth are these Gentile people. Now, that statement about everyone according to his language, did anyone pick up on this? What did you think when you heard this statement? Who wants to give me your thoughts?

The Tower of Babel came to my mind when everybody was talking languages that nobody could understand.

Right, so Genesis 10 seems to be implying multiple languages, but in Genesis 11, we get the story of the Tower of Babel where, you know, in the next chapter, everyone has one language. So it's like, wait a minute, the timeline seems a little off.

And let's just skip to Genesis 11 .1 for a moment because it just flat out says, Genesis 11 .1, now the whole earth had what?

One language.

And one speech.

So if that's the situation in Genesis 11, how can they have multiple languages here in Genesis 10? And there's a very simple reason for that. The Bible is not always in perfect chronological order. Sometimes Moses will, you know, jump ahead in the story or go way back.

So that's all that is. Matter of fact, there's another thing we're gonna run into in chapter 12 when Abraham departs from Ur of the Chaldees, right? There seems to be another discrepancy in chapter 11 where he's already left.

And then you get to chapter 12 and God's telling him to go, but it seems like he had already left in chapter 11. Well, again, it's just the Bible doesn't always follow a strict chronological order. So whenever there's a discrepancy, 99 of the time, there's a pretty simple answer.

So that's my answer for that. Any questions so far?

Keep moving.

All right, verse six. So we covered the descendants of Japheth and at least the significant parts about that. Verses six through 20. Now we're on the descendants of Ham. Verse six says, the sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan.

How would you like to have that name? Put. But you recognize the name Canaan. So this is another very familiar name because we've all heard of the Canaanites. And if you were with us last time in our study from Genesis nine, you would remember the curse that was put on this line of descendants, right?

Because of whatever that happened when Noah got drunk and cursed be Canaan. Let's just skip back to Genesis nine to remind us. Genesis nine, verse 24. Noah says, cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants.

He shall be to his brethren. And then you look at who the descendants of Canaan were. Look at Genesis 10. Genesis 10, 15 tells us that from Canaan came the Sidonians, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Hivites.

And you probably recognize some of these names, right? Because these are some of the tribes that gave Israel problems later on. Some of these were the enemies of the Israelites. So this is all tied into the curse.

Israel was to wipe them out. And whoever was left ended up fulfilling that prophecy. They were servants of the descendants of Shem. So long story short, that statement that Noah gave, it really was a prophecy that was fulfilled.

Then it says in verse 20, these were the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, in their lands and in their nations. So that curse is significant concerning the enemies of Israel.

Now, before we move on, again, I'm just kind of touching on the highlights of these descendants. So the most significant descendant of Ham has to be this man in verse eight, Nimrod. Okay, who's heard of Nimrod?

I think probably everybody. I remember when I was a kid in school, people used to call other kids Nimrod. I don't know why that was a name that you used to pick on kids. I don't think they got it from the Bible, but anyways.

Maybe.

Verse eight, Cush begot Nimrod, and he began to be a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore, it is said, so this is the saying that people repeated, evidently, like Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord.

The Descendants of Japheth and the Dispersion of the Nations

But it says in verse 10, the beginning of his kingdom was what? Okay, Babel. And of course, you think the next chapter, Tower of Babel. So it's generally accepted that Nimrod was the man responsible, the driving force behind the Tower of Babel.

So we'll cover that next time. But just to speak a little bit about Nimrod here, Nimrod is also a foreshadow of the man we call the Antichrist. Well, why is that? Because Babel turned into Babylon, and Babylon was like a world, a great world empire, and they were the enemies of the Jewish people.

And of course, in the book of Revelation, when the Holy Spirit, or Jesus, really, when he refers to the corrupt world system, what does he call it?

Babylon.

And who's the leader of the end times Babylon? The beast, or the Antichrist, and the false prophets. So Nimrod, what Nimrod does, he attempts to do what the Antichrist will do. The Antichrist will build a one world system, and he will be successful.

He'll pull it off. Nimrod tried that. Was he successful?

No.

No, because if you know the story of the Tower of Babel, yeah, God scatters them, confuses their language, all the rest. And part of the one world system is the one world religion. And of course, you remember part of the Tower of Babel, they're building a tower, reaching into the heavens, which could be an indicator there was some religious element to it.

But Larry, you had your hand up.

Well, yeah, I was just, in the next verse 11, you know, he went to Assyria and built Nineveh. And the Assyrians were very wicked people, as that's why Jonah didn't wanna go there.

Right, right.

Yeah, I mean, most people know the city of Nineveh from the book of Jonah, right? So Nimrod, I mean, this guy was, he was a mover and a shaker, or whatever, a world leader, for sure. Not only does he contribute, or the driving force behind the Tower of Babel, which became Babylon.

So again, Babylon destroyed the Southern nation of Judah, right? They took them captive for 70 years, destroyed the temple, all the rest. Well, what about the Northern kingdom of Israel? Who is their great enemy?

So Judah's enemy was Babel, which comes from Nimrod. Who is the enemy of the Northern nation of Israel? Assyria, right? And Nimrod, we see in verse 11, it says, from that land, he went to Assyria and built Nineveh.

So really, he had a hand in both empires, or at least getting them started. So it was the Assyrian empire that destroyed the Northern nation of Israel, and they never came back. So they became known as the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel.

So all of that can be traced back to Nimrod. So both of these empires, the enemy of God's people. So any questions on that before we move on? Again, he's the most significant descendant of Ham. So Ham and Canaan, I mean, this is the worst line, probably.

The worst people came from this line. But now we get to Shem, okay? Shem, I already said, he's the father of the children of Israel. At least you trace their line back through him. This is verses 21 through 31.

Look at verse 21. It says, and children were born also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the Elder. Now that statement, Japheth the Elder, does anyone have something other than that in their Bible?

Verse 21. From what I understand, there's a textual variant here. And I only bring it up because somebody might be following along and they're like, wait, my Bible says the exact opposite. So a textual variant is, well, it's what it sounds like.

There's something in the text that's different. So some Bible translations will say that Japheth was the elder son, and others will say that Shem is the elder son. So the King James and the New King James are saying Japheth is the elder.

He's the older son. Other translations would say Shem is the older son. You know, some people get hung up on that. And to me, that doesn't bother me all that much. But it does tell you that when we say the Bible is inerrant and infallible, that doesn't necessarily apply to every modern Bible translation, right?

There are some translations that have some errors, because both can't be true, right? I mean, either Japheth is older or Shem. They can't both be older. Now, that shouldn't bother you because does this really change anything about the Christian faith at the end of the day?

No, and because it doesn't, I just wouldn't get too hung up on that. But just to point it out in case somebody noticed a discrepancy. So we say that the Bible is inerrant and infallible. That's the original autographs, right?

When they were written, that is what the original copy, when Jeremiah wrote the book of Jeremiah, that scroll was inerrant and infallible. And our modern Bible translations are so good, most of them, they're so accurate, we can say that 99 point whatever, 9%, it's all accurate.

But these one or two little things here and there just doesn't really change anything. So it's important to at least know that. All right, any comments on that? Hopefully I didn't shake anybody's faith tonight.

Okay, good.

Verse 25 says, to Eber were born two sons. The name of one was Peleg, is that how you pronounce it? Okay, for in his days, the earth was divided. And again, that jumps ahead to what happens in the next chapter, which Lord willing, we'll cover that next week.

So Shem to Eber to Peleg. And that line will produce the most significant man in the Old Testament, or at least top three from this line will produce who? Begins with an A. We're gonna read about them in chapter.

Yeah, yeah, Abraham's introduced in chapter 11, but he becomes the main figure of the book of Genesis starting in chapter 12. So once Abraham is introduced, yeah, Genesis, now the story is all about him.

From Abraham, you get Isaac. So this is the line, Shem to Eber to Peleg, then eventually Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob. Jacob gets his name changed to Israel. The rest is history. The children of Israel.

God’s Sovereign Plan, Human Responsibility, and the Future of Israel

So in conclusion, to some people, Genesis chapter 10 seems just like one of these chapters you can just skip over, because it's a boring chapter of names and genealogies. And again, people think what relevance does this have to my life?

Well, I like to find some spiritual application, because I think it's there. It's just about discovering it. I'm willing to listen to you if you think you have a different application or something different that you've learned, but this chapter really does provide a crucial framework for understanding the origins of the nations and the unfolding of God's sovereign plan for the world, which points forward to God's redemptive work through Israel and then ultimately through Christ.

So before we end, what kind of spiritual lessons can we learn? I think going back to that curse, which has such a powerful effects for Canaan and his descendants and how they did end up becoming the servants of the Israelites.

I mean, this just reminds us that the decisions they made during their lives had long lasting consequences to their children and their children's children. So the decisions we make sort of chart the course for future generations, and that can either be a good thing or a bad thing.

So it really does matter what we do and the decisions we make in this life. Humanity started over with just these three families, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Shem and Japheth, they did the right thing concerning their father, right?

What's one of the commandments? And I know it comes later on, but one of the commandments is honor your father and mother. Did Japheth and Shem do that? Did they honor Noah?

Yes, they did.

And there were blessings for them and their descendants after that. Ham and Canaan showed some sort of disrespect and there were consequences later on. So if any kids watch this online or if there's any young people listening, hey, honor your father and mother.

It might end up coming back to bite you or worse, it might come back to bite your children. You definitely don't want that. So honor your parents, honor elders in general. So that's one application I thought of.

But it also speaks to the fact that God, this was a sermon from a couple of weeks ago, God is sovereign. And man's plan, as we'll see next week, was again, stay together in one place. We'll make a name for ourselves, build a tower to heaven, and we're gonna do it on our own.

That is the plan of man. But God had different plans. So already here in chapter 10, God is sovereignly guiding and dividing the human families into nations and it's all gonna work together for the good.

Because one of these nations ends up being the chosen nation and that's the descendant of Shem, Eber, right? Eber, you can sort of hear it in the name. Eber becomes the father of the Hebrews, okay? Hebrew, Eber, and then like I said, Peleg, Abraham, and so on.

So we see that God has a sovereign plan and it's at work here in Genesis 10. And his hand is the hand that is guiding human history. We'll close with verse 32. It says, these were the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations in their nations.

And from these, the nations were divided on the earth after the flood.