Genesis 10
McGeeCHAPTER 10THEME: Sons of Japheth; sons of Ham; sons of ShemThis is a chapter of genealogies, of families, which are the origin of the nations of the world. This chapter is far more important than the space I’m giving to it would indicate. If you are interested in ethnology and anthropology and the story of mankind on the earth, you may want a far deeper study than you will find here. H. S. Miller, who has his master’s degree in ethnology, has charted the origin of the nations, using Genesis 10 as a basis for the threefold division of the human family, which is revealed in these three sons of Noah: Ham, Shem, and Japheth. Ethnology makes it evident, by the way, that neither the sons of Japheth nor the sons of Ham ever comprised what some folk call the lost ten tribes of Israel. Here in chapter 10 we have the genealogies of all three sons of Noah.
Genesis 10:1
First we see the genealogy of Japheth (vv. Gen_10:2-5), then the genealogy of Ham (vv. Gen_10:6-20)this was the outstanding people at the very beginningand finally the genealogy of Shem (vv. Gen_10:21-32). Notice that throughout the Bible God follows this same pattern of giving the rejected line first and saying a word about it, then He drops that subject entirely and does not bring it up again. Finally, He gives the accepted line, the line which is leading to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Genesis 10:2
SONS OF JAPHETHAccording to H. S. Miller’s chart, the Scythians, the Slavs, Russians, Bulgarians, Bohemians, Poles, Slovaks, Croatians came from Magog. The Indians and the Iranic racesMedes, Persians, Afghans, Kurdsall came from Madai. From Javan we have the Greeks, Romans, and the Romance nationalities such as French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, etc. Coming from Tiras are the Thracians, the Teutons, the Germans, and then from that we have the east Germanic and the European races, the north Germanic or the Scandinavians and the west Germanic, from which come the High German and the Low German, and then the Angles and the Saxons and the Jutes, the Anglo-Saxon race, the English people. Well, I simply can’t go into the whole chart, but it is an interesting study. You can see that the majority of us in America descended from these lines.
Genesis 10:6
SONS OF HAMAs you can see, Ham had other sons, but the curse was only upon Canaan. Why it was not upon the others, I am not prepared to say. From Canaan came the Phoenicians, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, etc. From Ham’s son Cush came the Africansthe Ethopians, the Egyptians, the Libyans, etc. All of these races are Hamitic, you see. Now we have some detail regarding a son of Cush
Genesis 10:8
“He began to be a mighty one in the earth.” He wanted to become the ruler of a great world empire, and he attempted to do it. “He was a mighty hunter before the LORD.” This doesn’t mean that he was a wild game hunter. Sometimes a little boy is given an air gun, and when he goes out and shoots a sparrow, his folks say, “My, look at that! He’s a little Nimrod. He hit a sparrow!” But Nimrod wasn’t shooting sparrows or hunting wild game in Africa. He was a hunter of men’s soulsthat is the thought in this passage.
Genesis 10:10
He was the founder of those great cities in the land of Shinar. Nimrod has quite a story which you can get from secular history. Alexander Hislop, in his book, The Two Babylons, gives the background which I am not going to repeat here, but it is a fascinating story of how Nimrod was responsible for the Tower of Babel. It was he who attempted to bring together the human race after the Flood in an effort to get them united into a nation of which he could become the great world ruler. He was the rebel, the founder of Babel, the hunter of the souls of men. He was the lawless one, and he is a shadow or a type of the last world ruler, the Antichrist who is yet to appear. The first great civilization, therefore, came out from the sons of Ham. We need to recognize that. It is so easy today to fall into the old patterns that we were taught in school a few years ago. Now the black man is wanting more study of his race. I don’t blame him. He hasn’t been given an opportunity in the past several hundred years. The story of the beginning of the black man is that he headed up the first two great civilizations that appeared on this earth. They were from the sons of Ham. Nimrod was a son of Ham. I’m not going to attempt to develop that line any further. You see, we are following the pattern set by the Holy Spirit in which He gives the rejected line first and then drops it. We are going to turn now to the line that will lead to Abraham and then to the nation Israel and finally to the coming of Christ into this world. It is this line which we will follow through the Old Testament. God is bidding good-bye to the rest of humanity for the time being, but He will be coming back to them later on. Let me give you a quotation from Saphir’s book, The Divine Unity of Scripture: 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.” In chapter 10 seventy nations are listed. Fourteen of them are from Japheth. Thirty of them come from Ham. Don’t forget that. It will give you a different conception of the black man at his beginning. And twenty-six nations come from Shem, making a total of seventy nations listed in this genealogy. It seems to me that God is showing us what He has done with the nations of the world. Why has the white man in our day been so prominent? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because at the beginning it was the black man, the colored races, that were prominent. Then the sons of Shem made a tremendous impact upon this world during the time of David and Solomon. And you will notice that from Shem there came others, such as the Syrians, the Lydians, and the Armenians, also the Arabians from Joktan.
These great nations appeared next. Apparently we are currently in the period in which the white man has come to the front. It seems to me that all three are demonstrating that, regardless of whether they are a son of Ham or a son of Shem or a son of Japheth, they are incapable of ruling this world. I believe that God is demonstrating this to us, and to see this is a tremendous thing.
Genesis 10:25
SONS OF SHEMWhen I went over this verse in a previous Bible study, I received all sorts of weird interpretations of what was meant by “the earth was divided"that it refers to a physical division here in the earth, that the earth had undergone some tremendous physical catastrophe. Well, my friend, all that Moses is simply doing is anticipating the next chapter in which he will give us the account of the Tower of Babel. At that time the earth was divided. May I say that the simple interpretation seems to be the one that a great many folk miss, and we should not miss it. Now let’s just pick up the final verse of this chapter
Genesis 10:32
I want to submit to you that this is one of the great chapters of the Bible although we have given very little space to it. You can see what a rich study this would make for anyone who really wanted a fair appraisal of the human family. A great many have used this remarkable chapter for that purpose.