Genesis (Pt. 20) The Post Flood Nations
Text: Genesis 10:1-32
By: Ken McKinley
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We’ve come to the point in our study of Genesis where things begin to get a bit more complicated. Noah has died, and so Moses, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, begins a new section in history where the revelation of God’s will and God’s Word is going to be limited to the descendants of Shem, who would later become the Hebrew people. But before Moses does that, He’s going to tell us a little bit about the descendants of Ham and Japheth. Now it’s interesting here (at least it is to me) that if you count up all the names of the descendants of Noah’s children, you come up with 70 names that form distinct people groups (30 nations come from Ham, 26 come from Shem and 14 come from Japheth), and when we get to the NT, in Luke chapter 10, we see Jesus send out 70 disciples. Now the NIV translates it as 72 and the reason for that is because the NIV was translated from the Septuagint, which was a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. The NKJV is translated from the Masoretic Text. So it’s not an error on the part of our modern translators, but whether it's 70 or 72, the point is; that Jesus clearly had in mind that His followers should be reaching all the nations. Now granted, there are thousands of people groups now days, but all of those groups originated from Noah and his 3 sons.
So first we see Japheth, and for much of the OT we don’t actually hear a lot about Japheth, or his descendants. Just once in a while… not until we get to the NT when we start hearing about the Greeks and the Romans. Next we see the descendants of Ham, and this is basically a list of “Biblical bad guys.” In the descendants of Ham, you’ve got Egypt, and Canaan, and a few other peoples. And basically much of the remaining OT is going to be about the enmity we see between Shem and Ham, with Japheth off to the side. And again, about the only time we see the descendants of Japheth in the OT is when they are being used as instruments of judgment on the descendants of Ham. And again; that’s a pattern we see over and over again in the Old Testament. Now when we get to verse 8 there’s sort of a pause in the genealogy list and we read about this guy Nimrod. We see that Nimrod is a descendant of Ham and in verse 9 we’re told that he was a mighty hunter before the LORD. Now the English language doesn’t do justice to the Hebrew here. It’s not like Nimrod managed to get himself a couple of trophy bucks and some big game. There’s more to it than that. The Holy Spirit is the One who inspired Moses to write this, and when God inspires someone to write that a person was a “mighty one on the earth…” we might want to take notice. That terminology implies that not only was Nimrod physically strong, but that he had a great influence upon man, and on those he was around. If we read on, we see that Nimrod was a kingdom builder, and people followed him. The name “Nimrod” in Hebrew means, “Let us rebel,” and we’re told here that he was the one who was responsible for the city of Babel and also Nineveh. And we’ll talk more about him next week (Lord willing), but for now I want you to understand that Nimrod wasn’t a godly man.
He was a rebel, he was in rebellion against God, and he was leading people astray. Now I don’t know about you; but that sounds like someone else we’ve read about in the Bible, earlier in Genesis.
So Nimrod was in rebellion against God, but remember; he’s also very influential, and he’s very wealthy and powerful. So the 1st lesson we can learn from that is that wealth and power aren’t always a good indicator of how good a relationship a person has with God. Power, wealth, and influence can all be found in abundance in the world, or within the Church. God causes it to rain on the just and the unjust alike. That’s why we look and see if there is evidence of the Holy Spirit working in a person’s life, and when it comes to a person in leadership – whether it’s a king, or a politician, or a pastor or priest, we need to examine their actual relationship with the Lord, we need to examine the words they are saying in light of Scripture, we need to look at their walk. Often times we just look at how charismatic or likeable a person is and what they are saying or their actual character comes second, when it should be what we look at first.
Now in verse 15 we see that Moses is going to expound on Canaan, and this text tells us the borders of Canaan. Historians and archaeologists tell us that this land of Canaan was fertile, it was perfect for raising crops and grazing herds of animals. And I want you to remember that it was Canaan that was cursed… It was back in chapter 9, verse 25 Ham sinned against Noah and the result of that sin was a curse against Canaan. But, here they are; and Canaan has a better land than either Shem or Japheth, and people say, “That doesn’t seem like much of a curse.” – But Shem and Japheth have a better lot so to speak. I like the way Matthew Henry said it in his commentaries; he said, “Even those under the curse of God may yet prosper and thrive in this world; for we cannot know love or hatred, the blessing or the curse by what is before us, but by what is IN US… sometimes it’s a curse to the soul.” And that’s an issue we read about over and over again in the Bible.
Sometimes we look at the world around us and it seems like it’s only the good people who are suffering and going through hardship, but we see wicked men, evil men, corrupt men who don’t have a care in the world, and they’re the ones prospering and don’t seem to have a care in the world. And we see people suffering and we say, “Why? Why them?” Well turn with me to Psalm 73 and we’re going to look at this for a minute… (Read Psalm 73:1-20)
You see what the psalmist is saying here? A godly person attempting to live for God and he feels like the world is crashing down around his ears, while the wicked men seem to be going through life without any problems and getting rich off of everyone else’s misery. But then in verses 15 – 20 he sees the truth of the matter. You see what he’s saying here? He went to church. He spent time with the Lord. He contemplated God’s Word, and he realized that earthly prosperity was not the same as spending eternity with the Lord. That the good and bad we see here during our time on earth is only temporary. It’s only for a moment. In the NT; the apostle Paul said it like this, in 2nd Corinthians 4:16 – 18 he said, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
That doesn’t mean we ignore what’s going on around us, or that we ignore reality… it means that we need to understand that even though we don’t understand why things happen the way they do, and why we go through things here on earth, and why there is suffering and sorrow and sin… eternity is coming. There is a far better kingdom, and a far better existence, and a far better reality, and it lasts for ever and ever and ever, where there will be no more suffering, and no more sorrow, & no more sickness, & no more sin! And that’s the lesson we learn from Genesis chapter 10, when we look at the story of Nimrod. Nimrod had his good things while he was here on earth, but in eternity he is eternally suffering.
The 2nd lesson here is that goodness is better than greatness – that grace is better than gold – that eternal pleasure is better than earthly pleasure – and it’s all worth it. Your walk with the Lord is worth it. No matter what comes your way, and no matter what the devil or the world throws at you, knowing Christ and walking with Him is worth it. He will work all things out. So Lord… I’ll walk through that valley if you want me to, I’ll go through that fire if you want me too… because we can know it’s worth it in the end.
Now let’s go on, or I won’t get finished. In verses 21 through 32 we see the line of Shem, and we learn more about God’s grace… You see; even the line of Shem wasn’t without sin. When we get to Abraham we’ll see that he came from a line of idol worshipers. We’ll see that Abraham wasn’t righteous because of anything he did… he was righteous because God declares him to be righteous… Abraham was righteous because God has grace on him. And that’s what we’ll see with the line of Shem.
Now there’s two important things in those last verses (21 – 32) that I want you to see. First of all, in verse 21, Shem is again linked to Japheth, and we see that Japheth was probably the oldest of the brothers… but this linking them together is almost like a forecast when the Gentiles will once again be grafted into the vine and be part of the seed of Abraham through Jesus Christ. The 2nd thing is there in verse 25 where we see this guy “Peleg” mentioned and we’re told that in his days, “The earth was divided.” Now some have said that’s when continental drift took place, and that may be. Some say that this is when the first ice age ended and the land bridges were covered with water. Personally I think this has to do with the division of peoples at the Tower of Babel. The ancient Chaldeans said that Babylon began about 2234 B.C., that would’ve been about 13 years or so after the birth of Peleg and about a hundred years or so after the flood. Ancient Byzantine historians tell us that Egypt began about 2188 B.C. (or about 60 years after the birth of Peleg) (Taken from the Answers in Genesis website), and Greece was settled about 2089 (160 years after the birth of Peleg) What that means is that after the Tower of Babel, during the life of Peleg, it took Ham’s descendants about 46 years to migrate from Iraq to Egypt, and it took Japheth’s descendants about 145 years to migrate to Greece, and they did it according to language, because we know that they all spoke different languages. There were some similarities but they were different enough that they would not be able to understand one another or cooperate in the building of the tower. Now Peleg’s father was Eber, and that’s the root word for the word Hebrew, which literally means “to wander” (that’s wander with an “A” not wonder with an “O”). And… this is the line from which Abraham comes from.
So in Genesis 10 we have a recounting of the nations of the earth.
So… we might read this and have more questions than when we first began, but I want you to remember that this is written for our edification. That’s it’s given to us not only as a historical account of what happened and how the nations began, but it is the very word of God, and it shows us that we can trust Him… no matter what, and that He has a plan, and that we have a place in that plan. It shows us that God cares about all peoples, even those who are far away from us… it should cause us to think about missions and our need to share the Gospel to every nation, tribe and tongue. And I hope that it helps us to remember that goodness is better than greatness, grace is better than gold, and eternity with Christ is our ultimate goal.
LET’S PRAY
