The God of The Nations | Genesis 10:1-20
In our modern culture we love genealogies. We like to play detective and figure out where we stand in the history of the world. It helps us find our identity, helps us figure out how we belong in this world and its human history. Millions of people use popular websites such as ancestry.com, ancestorrecords.org, myheritage.com, 23andMe, and Family Search. This is a booming business because people are fascinated with learning their history, their heritage.
You don’t need any of those websites to understand the ancient history of the world because we have Genesis 10. The bible includes these genealogies to remind God’s people where they stand in history and where they stand during God’s redeeming plan, His blessing. We see a repeat of this genealogy in 1 Chronicles 1. The difference between the two is that Genesis 10 is pre-Abraham whereas Chronicles 1 is post-Abraham. God is consistently building on this lineage to clearly show is plan, His glory, through Jesus Christ.
- Humanity has come from Noah. There isn’t such thing as race as we all came from the common ancestor of Noah.
Genesis 10 is all our family history since we all have come from the patriarch Noah. God truthfully preserved and revealed the true history of the world to show the world that He is real, He is true, and that He is God, the God of Nations, the God of the world.
God never intended humanity to be broken up into race. The table of nations shows us that humanity isn’t divided by race/ skin color rather humanity is divided by ethnicity, region and location of their tribe.
“Now these are the records of the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and sons were born to them after the flood.”
--Genesis 10:1
“…nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God,”
--Acts 17:25-27
The sons of Japheth: He was the father of the Indo-European peoples, those stretching from India to the shores of Western Europe. They are each linked by linguistic similarities that often aren’t noticed by the layman but are much more obvious to the linguist
Gomer: From this son of Japheth came the Germanic peoples, from whom came most of the original peoples of Western Europe. These include the original French, Spanish, and Celtic settlers.
Magog…Tubal, Meshech: These settled in the far north of Europe and became the Russian and related peoples.
Madai: From this son of Japheth came the ancient Medes and they populated what are now Iran and Iraq. The peoples of India also came from this branch of Japheth’s family.
Javan: From this son of Japheth came the ancient Greeks, whose sea-faring ways are described in Genesis 10:5.
“These more realistic models estimate that the most recent common ancestor of mankind lived as recently as about 3,000 years ago, and the identical ancestors point was as recent as several thousand years ago. The paper suggests, ‘No matter the languages we speak or the color of our skin, we share ancestors who planted rice on the banks of the Yangtze, who first domesticated horses on the steppes of the Ukraine, who hunted giant sloths in the forests of North and South America, and who labored to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu.
--Joseph Chang, Yale University (supported by Douglas L.T. Rhode of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Steve Olson of Bethesda, MD. The National Institutes of Health supported this research.)
- God is sovereign. He is the one-true God of all nations—He rules over this world, its kings and its kingdoms.
God allows humanity to be fruitful and multiply—even the nations that will reject Him because of his love and grace. This also shows the just nature of God.
“Thus says the Lord, ‘Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house, you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest? ‘For My hand made all these things, thus all these things came into being,’ declares the Lord.”
--Isaiah 66:1-2
God’s attributes are Omniscience (All-Knowing), omnipotent (All-Powerful), omnipresent (present everywhere), God is love, good, merciful, Holy, faithful, and just. God’s attributes don’t exist apart from one another—everything God is who He is and they all work together in the work God fulfills.
Noah had a specific genealogy; Adam to Seth, Seth to Enoch, Enoch to Methuselah, Methuselah to Lamech, Lamech to Noah. Humanity before Noah was destroyed, wiped off the face of the earth because of God’s wrath. This is all apart of God’s sovereign work and plan for humanity, His creation.
“And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.’”
--Genesis 9:1
God’s grace is allowing humanity to continue. This is the great reset. This is our history, our lineage. You can say that we all survived the flood! Two types of communities emerge and even splinter further! Thos who follow God and those who rebel and follow their own ways—The fruit of both Shem and Ham.
The Structure of this Table:
-70 descendants in total. 14 from Japheth. 30 from Ham. 26 from Shem.
-“Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth and let him dwell in the tents of Shem.” -- Genesis 9:26-27
-70 is a complete number in scripture. It represents totality in completion. We see this in the full prophecy of the different ages of time in Daniel 9, when Daniel is given the 70-week prophecy
“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness…”
--Daniel 9:24
“The multiple of ‘seven,’ and ‘ten,’ numerical figures indicating ‘completeness’ indicates that the whole of the worlds families are under the eye of God.”
--Kenneth Matthews
This table explains the various people and people groups found it he world—these are the seventy that repopulated the world.
This genealogy is not exhaustive as it is selective. Remember, Moses wrote Genesis at a time when the Israelites were being brought out of Egypt. The goal with Genesis 10 is to teach them their godly identity and heritage, as sons and daughters of Noah, then Abraham. God is making Himself known to His people through Genesis 10. Many nations are listed once without us knowing their descendants.
- The Rotten Fruit of Sin Continues through Nimrod and Canaan.
Nimrod is the great grandson to Ham, to Cush, to Nimrod. There are great legends swirling around him. He was an influential figure—this is why Moses describes Nimrod in greater detail from Genesis 10:8-12.
“Now, Cush became the father of Nimrod; he became a mighty one on the earth.”
--Genesis 10:8
Jewish Commentaries: “Nimrod promoted the worship of many gods and a sworn enemy of Abraham.”
Josephus (Roman-Jewish historian):
“Nimrod said he would be revenged on God if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to reach—he would avenge God for destroying their forefathers.”
--Antiquities of the Jews, Book 1, Chapter 4.
Genesis 10 is split into two sections/ parts. 10:1-21 is the fruit of Noah’s curse on Ham. 21-32 is the blessing from Noah to Shem. Ham’s Canaan was first cursed (Gen. 9:18-25). Shem’s nation was then blessed (Gen. 9:26-29). We see the same structure here. God allows humanity to live both in the cursed generations coming from Ham and in the blessed generations coming from Shem.
God is the one true God; even if whole nations and groups don’t believe or worship Him. Every lesser god is demonic or satan trying to take people away from God. God is still God even if people rebel and don’t believe in Him.
“They will shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword, the land of Nimrod at its entrances…”
--Micah 5:6
Through Nimrod comes these nations and people groups. Assyrians, Philistines, Babylonians, Canaanites all of whom are enemies of God’s people.
“but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name. For it is time for judgement to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the Godless man and the sinner?”
--1 Peter 4:16-18
- God is setting the stage for His great plan of salvation to call the nations to Him through Jesus Christ.
God is setting the stage for His plan to unfold throughout the generations, throughout the ages of the world, pointing to one distinct redemptive plan for humanity to be saved from their sin.
There are 70 nations from Noah
“From these the coastlands of the nations were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.”
--Genesis 10:5
There are 70 families of the Israelites
“…and the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt were two; all the persons of the house of Jacob, who came to Egypt, were seventy.”
--Genesis 46:27
“These families are given distinct boundaries for where they will live, given to them by God.
‘When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, When He separated the sons of man,
He set the boundaries of the peoples. According to the number of the sons of Israel.’”
--Deuteronomy 32:8
These boundaries are set by God, these nations are birthed by God, all pointing to God’s redemptive plan for His people. These are not coincidences, they are not random, they are not even determined by the kings/ rulers of these nations rather God is at work behind everything.
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.”
--Colossians 1:15-16
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
--Ephesians 6:10-12
“Fear arises when we imagine that everything depends on us.”
--Elizabeth Elliot