Genesis

AT first sight this chapter seems quite remote from the spiritual character of the preceding and following sections, but further consideration shows that it is in direct line with the religious purpose of Genesis. In Genesis 5 we have a list of the descendants of Adam ending with Noah, and in this chapter there naturally follows a list of Noah’s descendants, until we reach Terah, the father of Abraham. In Gen 10:1 the sons of Noah are mentioned in the familiar order, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, but in the remainder of the chapter their descendants are taken in the opposite order, Japheth, Ham, Shem. This is an example of the characteristic, already mentioned, of dealing with collateral branches first, and only after that considering the main stream in the descendants of Shem. The religious purpose of the chapter must therefore be continually kept in view. This table of nations shows their kinship with the chosen race, out of which all spiritual blessing is to come. Then the nations are dismissed from the Scripture record, and attention concentrated on the Semitic line. Saphir (The Divine Unity of Scripture) truly says, "The tenth chapter of Genesis is a very remarkable chapter. Before God leaves, as it were, the nations to themselves and begins to deal with Israel, His chosen people from Abraham downward, He takes a loving farewell of all the nations of the earth, as much as to say, "I am going to leave you for a while, but I love you. I have created you: I have ordered all your future"; and their different genealogies are traced."

It is impossible to enter in detail upon the classification of this chapter. It must suffice to call attention to its ethnological, genealogical, geographical, and biographical aspects. The four words (Gen 10:31), families, tongues, lands, nations, show the varied character of the classification. The precise principle of classification must thus include all these elements; the personal aspect is sometimes individual and sometimes tribal.

It is also to be carefully observed that there is no attempt at completeness in the list. Several of the more modern nations which came later into close contact with Israel, as Moab, Ammon, Edom, Amalek, find no mention here, while on the other hand not all the most ancient of the nations are included. The names of seventy nations are found here, fourteen associated with Japheth, thirty with Ham, and twenty-six with Shem. This number seventy is familiar from other parts of Scripture (Gen 46:27; Exo 24:1-9), and is evidently symbolical. Lange rightly speaks of the high antiquity of the chapter, and this is confirmed by Professor Sayce in his Archaeological Commentary on Genesis. There is no reference in the chapter to the time posterior to Abraham. For the purpose of detailed study of the many interesting and important points which arise out of it, reference may be made to Sayce’s Archaeological Commentary on Genesis (Expository Times, vol. viii. p. 82 ff.); Cave (Inspiration of the Old Testament, Lecture iii.); Lange (Commentary on Genesis, p. 346 ff.); Urquhart (The Bible and How to Read It, vol. ii. p. 2ff.). It is only possible to call attention to a few of the outstanding features with special reference to the spiritual meaning of the chapter.

Here it is unnecessary and perhaps impossible to identify the names with those of subsequent races and countries, but attention should certainly be concentrated on Gen 10:5 with its reference to Gentiles. Viewed from the standpoint of the Jews it is clear that the Gentile nations arose from Japheth. This early reference to the nations, to use the Hebrew phrase of later books, is very significant, and shows that amid all the Jewish exclusiveness the Old Testament never loses sight of the great fact of universality and God’s purposes for all the world. It was the crowning sin of the Jews in later ages that they forgot this and concentrated attention upon themselves as the chosen people of God stopping short of the great truth of their revealed religion that they were chosen only for the purpose of being the instrument and channel of God’s mercy and grace to the nations of the whole earth. Even to-day there is a great deal of ignorance among Christian people as to the note of universality that is struck so often in the Old Testament. A study of the Psalms and the Prophets in the Revised Version, with special reference to the phrase in the plural, the nations, would do much to correct this.

II. The Family of Ham (Gen 10:6-20).

The first point that stands out with prominence in regard to the family of Ham is the reference to Nimrod (Gen 10:8-9), and the word mighty in these verses is the same in the Hebrew as that used in Gen 6:4. It would seem as though Nimrod represented a revival of the antediluvian spirit of independence and rebellion with its disregard of God and His authority. Nimrod, however, is specially associated with the founding of Babel, or Babylon, and this first mention of a word which is so familiar elsewhere should be specially noted. Babylon henceforward stands for every thing that is godless, and for the great opponent of the people of God. It was a Babylonish garment (Jos 7:21) that led to the first sin in the promised land, and it was Babylon in one form or another that caused most of the trouble to the nation of Israel. In the Old Testament Babylon is a godless city and empire, in the New Testament it is a godless system and it would form a study of the greatest possible significance and value to look at all the passages where Babylon is mentioned, until at length we come to its destruction as recorded in the Apocalypse (Gen 28). The other point in this section is the prominence given to Canaan and his descendants (Gen 10:15-19). This is doubtless because of the connection of Canaan with Israel in the light of subsequent history. Sayce (ut supra) says, "The age to which the chapter takes us back is indicated by the position given to Canaan. It is a position that was true of it only during the age of the eighteenth and nineteenth Egyptian dynasties. . . . After that age no one would have dreamed of coupling Canaan and Egypt together."

Shem is described as the father of all the children of Eber, and this prominence given to Eber seems to bear out the suggestion that Hebrew comes from Eber.

Eber is also mentioned (Gen 10:25) as having two sons, Peleg and Joktan. It was in the time of the former that the earth was divided, the reference probably being an anticipation of the confusion of Babel recorded in detail in the next chapter.

Thus we have this brief and suggestive account of the families of Noah, and the division of the earth by means of them. The authenticity and genuineness of the chapter may be seen from the simple fact that as late as the date of 1 Chronicles nothing more was known of the origin of the nations, and consequently the writer of Chronicles followed this list, for with only slight variations it is repeated there (1 Chron. 1). Canon Rawlinson remarks that these lists have extorted the admiration of modern ethnologists, who continually find in them anticipations of their greatest discoveries. Up to the present moment ethnology cannot get behind the division of mankind into three primary groups. It remains to be added that archaeological studies have gone to confirm the facts recorded here.

Keeping in view the religious and spiritual purpose of the chapter when read in the light of the entire book of Genesis, we notice several spiritual lessons.

1. All Nations are of one blood.

Or as the R.V. reads, "He made of one every nation of men." This is surely one of the most remarkable facts arising out of this chapter. Such representative critics as

Dillmann, and the Bishop of Winchester, call attention to the spiritual significance of this chapter in the Hebrew Scriptures. "It reminded the Israelite that God had made of one blood all the nations of the earth, and that the heathen who knew not Jehovah were nevertheless brethren of Israel. It reminded him that his own nation was only one among the nations of the earth by origin, and in no way separated from them, but only by the grace of God selected and chosen to be the bearer of His revelation to the world" (Kyle, Early Narratives of Genesis). Dillmann is equally clear as to the uniqueness of this feature. The fundamental idea of the survey is to point out the ultimate relationship of all these peoples. This idea is important . . . not much attention was paid as a rule to foreigners, unless national or trade interests were at stake. Often enough they were despised as mere barbarians, and in no case were they included with the more cultured nations in a higher community. It is otherwise in our text Here, many with whom the Israelites had no sort of actual relationship are taken into consideration…All men and peoples are of the same race, of the same rank, and with the same destiny, brothers and relatives of one another (Dillmann, Genesis, vol. i. p. 314). When it is remembered that no other nation ever taught the brotherhood of man, but on the contrary despised and opposed it, we can surely see marks of divine inspiration in the way in which all nations are mentioned in this chapter. Kanke says of this chapter, It is impossible to read it without seeing that there is something here different from all other history, and that the national pride and separation which we see everywhere else has been entirely subjugated by the religious idea, that all the different tribes of the earth are related to one another by their common descent from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. There is also a practical lesson for ourselves. There is no such thing as foreign missionary work. "All souls are Mine," and no one can say where home missions end and foreign missions begin. Here, then, is our great charter of world-wide evangelization. "Go ye, and teach all nations" (Mat 28:19). "Before Him shall be gathered all nations" (Mat 25:32). "All nations" (Rev 7:9).

2. All Nations have one need.

The thought of sin is clearly implied throughout this chapter, as indeed throughout the book. Common trouble and disease rest upon all. There is no difference, for all have sinned. Amid every variety of race, circumstance, place, and temperament, this one great fact of sin, deep-seated, ineradicable by human means, is experienced by all. It is this thought that gives point to the proclamation of the Gospel everywhere, that it meets one and the same great need.

3. All Nations have one way of salvation.

God’s method of redemption, while working through Shem, is intended to include in its beneficent scope the descendants of Ham and Japheth as well. The Jewish Messiah is the world’s Saviour, and the blessing of Abraham is intended to come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ (Gal 3:7-14). All workers for missions will find not a little of their warrant and inspiration as they ponder this chapter in the light of the subsequent teaching of the Word of God.