Genesis Chapter Ten

Synopsis: This chapter shows more particularly what was

said in general (Ge 9:19), concerning the three sons of

Noah, that "of them was the whole earth overspread;" and

the fruit of that blessing (Ge 9:1,7), "replenish the earth." Is

is the only certain account extant of the origin of nations; and

yet perhaps there is no nation but that of the Jews that can

be confident from which of these seventy fountains (for so

many there are here) it derives its streams. Through the

want of early records, the mixtures of people, the revolutions

of nations, and distance of time, the knowledge of the lineal

descent of the present inhabitants of the earth is lost; nor

were any genealogies preserved but those of the Jews, for

the sake of the Messiah, only in this chapter we have a brief

account, I. Of the posterity of Japheth, Ge 10:2-5. II. The

posterity of Ham (Ge 10:6-20), and in this particular notice is

taken of Nimrod, Ge 10:8-10. III. The posterity of Shem, Ge

10:21-32, &c. Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Genesis 10:1-5 Now these are the generations of the sons

of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons

born after the flood. The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and

Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and

Tiras. And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and

Togarmah. And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish,

Kittim, and Dodanim. By these were the isles of the Gentiles

divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their

families, in their nations.

The first genealogy mentioned here is that of Japheth,

Noah’s middle son. This is the line from which the isles of

the Gentiles divided in their lands. Many of the

descendants of Japheth settled along the sea coasts, and it

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follows, they would be among the first people of the earth to

be seafarers, but the word isles can mean simply, habitable,

dry land, or island. One of the isles settled by the ancestors

of Japheth was the British Isles.

One thing is certain, the sons of Japheth were not part of

what would later be called the ten lost tribes of Israel. The

so called ten lost tribes were taken out of their land by the

Assyrians (2Kings 15:29), but were never lost. They

matriculated back into Israel over time, or they maintained

their identity in the countries to which they were dispersed.

James 1:1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord

Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered

abroad, greeting.

God would say by His prophets: Deuteronomy 32:9 For

the LORD'S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his

inheritance.

They are not lost to God, and Jesus said He would gather

them to Himself in the last days. He told His disciles:

Matthew 19:28 ….. Verily I say unto you, That ye which

have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of

man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit

upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

One thing is certain from scripture, by the time of the

disciples, there were Jews of every tribe living in Israel and

they were all called Jews, meaning they acknowledged that

they were under the rule and authority of the House of

David, who was of the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10), and

were under the Levitical Law to remain separate from the

Gentiles (Ezra 9:12).

Acts 2:5 And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews,

devout men, out of every nation under heaven.

Genesis Chapter Ten

Genesis 10: 6-20 And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim,

and Phut, and Canaan. And the sons of Cush; Seba, and

Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha: and the

sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan. And Cush begat

Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a

mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as

Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. And the

beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad,

and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth

Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and

Calah, And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a

great city. And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and

Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out

of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim. And Canaan begat

Sidon his firstborn, and Heth, And the Jebusite, and the

Amorite, and the Girgasite, And the Hivite, and the Arkite,

and the Sinite, And the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the

Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanites

spread abroad. And the border of the Canaanites was from

Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest,

unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even

unto Lasha. These are the sons of Ham, after their families,

after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.

The first great civilizations were Hamitic. The great

kingdoms of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia came from the

descendants of Ham. In the past, some have said that the

curse pronounced against Ham by his father Noah was

illustrated by God’s turning the skin of Ham black. First off,

Ham was not cursed by Noah. His son Canaan received the

curse. The name, Cush, means blackness, but Cush is not

Canaan. The curse against Canaan had nothing to do with

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skin pigmentation. Judging by where Cush and his

ancestors settled, the darker skin would have been a

blessing and not a curse at all.

And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in

the earth.

Some have interpreted this passage as meaning, a hunter of

men’s souls.

In Rabbinical Literature, Nimrod was not wicked in his youth.

On the contrary, when a young man he used to sacrifice to

Yhwh the animals which he caught while hunting ("Sefer ha-

Yashar," section "Noaḥ," pp. 9a et seq., Leghorn, 1870). His

great success in hunting (comp. Gen. x. 9) was due to the

fact that he wore the coats of skin which God made for

Adam and Eve (Gen. iii. 21). These coats were handed

down from father to son, and thus came into the possession

of Noah, who took them with him into the ark, whence they

were stolen by Ham. The latter gave them to his son Cush,

who in turn gave them to Nimrod, and when the animals saw

the latter clad in them, they crouched before him so that he

had no difficulty in catching them. The people, however,

thought that these feats were due to his extraordinary

strength, so that they made him their king (Pirḳe R. El. xxiv.;

"Sefer ha-Yashar," l.c.; comp. Gen. R. lxv. 12).

According to another account, when Nimrod was eighteen

years old, war broke out between the Hamites, his kinsmen,

and the Japhethites. The latter were at first victorious, but

Nimrod, at the head of a small army of Cushites, attacked

and defeated them, after which he was made king over all

the people on earth, appointing Terah his minister. It was

then, elated by so much glory, that Nimrod changed his

behavior toward Yhwh and became the most flagrant

idolater. When informed of Abraham's birth he requested

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Terah to sell him the new-born child in order that he might

kill it (see Jew. Encyc. i. 86a, s.v. Abraham in Rabbinical

Literature). Terah hid Abraham and in his stead brought to

Nimrod the child of a slave, which Nimrod dashed to pieces

("Sefer ha-Yashar," l.c.). Jewish Encyclopedia

The few things that can be gleaned from these ancient

Jewish writings are that Nimrod was a lawless man, an

idolater, and a type of antichrist. These writings are certainly

not a part of the canon of scripture, and, therefore, cannot be

taken as proof text of anything about Nimrod, but, these and

other secular writings of him, paint him in a very

contravening light.

Genesis 10:21-32 Unto Shem also, the father of all the

children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to

him were children born. The children of Shem; Elam, and

Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram. And the children

of Aram; Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash. And Arphaxad

begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber. And unto Eber were born

two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the

earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan. And

Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and

Jerah, And Hadoram, and Uzal, and Diklah, And Obal, and

Abimael, and Sheba, And Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab: all

these were the sons of Joktan. And their dwelling was from

Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar a mount of the east. These

are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues,

in their lands, after their nations.

In the line of Shem, Eber, or Heber, is listed. He is, most

probably, the one from whom the name and language of

Hebrew came. The first person in scripture called a Hebrew

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is Abraham. The language was Semitic and was probably

spoken by everyone on the earth at the time of Noah’s

grandsons. We will see in the next chapter that the

language was confounded by God (Genesis 11:7). That

means the people of the earth no longer spoke the same

language, nor could they understand each-others speech.

God intends to separate the people of the world from His

people, and to keep the lineage that leads to Christ pure.

Some believe Hebrew will be the spoken language of the

Kingdom of Heaven.

Eber: Occurs in the genealogies (Ge 10:21,25; 11:14 ff) as

the great-grandson of Shem and father of Peleg and Joktan.

The word means "the other side," "across," and the form

"Hebrew," which is derived from it, is intended to denote the

people or tribe who came "from the other, side of the river"

(i.e. the Euphrates), from Haran (Ge 11:31), whence

Abraham and his dependents migrated to Canaan. International

Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Peleg: (division, part), son of Eber and brother of Joktan. Smith’s Bible Dictionary Not much is said of Peleg in this chapter except, in his days

was the earth divided. Most Biblical scholars think this

means, the division that came as a result of the confusing of

the tongues, or confounding of the languages (Genesis

11:7). Some say it means the land was divided between him

and his brother Joktan. Peleg stayed at Mesopotamia and

Joktan went to southern Arabia.

There are those who believe, at the time of Peleg, the earth,

that is the dry land portion of it, was just one large land mass

surrounded by sea. If you look at some of the maps that

have been created to illustrate this, you see the continents

seem to fit together like puzzle pieces, if it were possible to

shove them together. Some scientist and non-scientists

Genesis Chapter Ten

have looked at this and theorized about the reason they

were separated and now stand as they are today. One

theory is called Continental Drift. This idea has morphed

into the theory of Plate Tectonics.

Geophysicist Jack Oliver is credited with providing

seismologic evidence supporting plate tectonics which

encompassed and superseded continental drift with the

article "Seismology and the New Global Tectonics",

published in 1968, using data collected from seismologic

stations, including those he set up in the South Pacific.[34][35]It

is now known that there are two kinds of crust: continental

crust and oceanic crust. Continental crust is inherently lighter

and its composition is different from oceanic crust, but both

kinds reside above a much deeper "plastic" mantle. Oceanic

crust is created at spreading centers, and this, along with

subduction, drives the system of plates in a chaotic manner,

resulting in continuous orogeny and areas of isostatic

imbalance. The theory of plate tectonics explains all this,

including the movement of the continents, better than Alfred

Wegener's theory of Continental Drift. Wikipedia

All this may have happened as a result of the earth heating

up and expanding from its magmatic center outward. This

would explain a lot of things, like, how did people get across

vast ocean and come to live in the Americas and other

remote areas? All the scripture tells us is the earth was

divided, and it has not been brought back together since

then.

This illustration shows what the earth might have looked like

in the early days of Noah. You can Ctrl+click to see how the

earth might have divided.

Genesis Chapter Ten

The continental drift

Genesis 10:32 These are the families of the sons of Noah,

after their generations, in their nations: and by these were

the nations divided in the earth after the flood.

Shem the oldest son is given last in this chapter. Shem is in

the line that leads to Jesus Christ. Before God’s Word

leaves the other nations to follow the line of Shem, He gives

us this brief listing of what will become the Gentile nations. It

seems cursory at first glance, but it does show that God has

not, and will not forget them. There are seventy nations that

are listed here. This is a laconic ethnological study of the

origin of all the varied tribes of the earth. Ethnology (from

the Greek ἔθνος, ethnos meaning "nation"[1]) is the branch of

anthropology that compares and analyzes the characteristics

of different peoples and the relationship between them (cf.

cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). Wikipedia

The progenies of Ham, then Shem, then Japheth, at different

points in history, have established nations that, if not world

rulers, were definitely world super powers. None could

handle it, because the men that established them were

mortal. They lived and died just like other men, but God will

establish His kingdom on the earth, and it will swallow up all

the other kingdoms, and it will be eternal in its longevity.

Genesis Chapter Ten

Revelation 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and

there were great voices in heaven, saying, The

kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our

Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and

ever.

Attached are some things I found that show how the families

of the earth are divided out by their genealogies.

Dr. Freeman, Return to Glory

The Grandsons of Noah

Four Sons of Ham (see map below):

1. Mizraim (Egypt)

2. Cush (Sudan, Ethiopia)

3. Put (Lybia)

4. Canaan (Hivites, Jebusite, Arvadites, Girgashites, Amorites,

Arkites, Sinites, Hittites, Sidonians, Perizzites, Zemarites)

Five Sons of Shem (see map below):

1. Elam (Arabia)

2. Asshur (Assyria)

3. Lud (Lydians)

4. Aram (Aramaic, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria)

5. Arphaxad (From which Abraham descended)

Seven Sons of Japheth (see map below):

1. Javan (Greece, Romans, Romance -- French, Italians,

Spanish, Portuguese)

2. Magog (Scythians, Slavs, Russians, Bulgarians, Bohemians,

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Poles, Slovaks, Croatians)

3. Madai (Indians & Iranic: Medes, Persians, Afghans, Kurds)

4. Tubal (South of Black Sea)

5. Tiras (Thracians, Teutons, Germans, Scandinavian, Anglo-

Saxon, Jutes)

6. Meshech (Russia)

7. Gomer (Celtic)

When Noah and his family stepped out of the Ark, they were the

only people on Earth. It fell to Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham,

and Japheth, and their wives, to repopulate the Earth through the

children that were born to them after the Flood. Of Noah’s

grandchildren, 16 grandsons are named in Genesis chapter 10.

God has left us ample evidence to confirm that these 16

grandsons of Noah really lived, that the names the Bible gives

were their exact names, and that after the Babel dispersion

Genesis Chapter Ten

(Genesis 11) their descendants fanned out over the earth and

established the various nations of the ancient world.

The first generations after the Flood lived to be very old, with

some men outliving their children, grandchildren, and great-

grandchildren. This set them apart. The 16 grandsons of Noah

were the heads of their family clans, which became large

populations in their respective areas. Several things happened:

1. People in various areas called themselves by the name of the

man who was their common ancestor.

2. They called their land, and often their major city and major

river, by his name.

3. Sometimes the various nations fell off into ancestor worship.

When this happened, it was natural for them to name their

god after the man who was ancestor of all of them, or to claim

their long-living ancestor as their god.

All of this means that the evidence has been preserved in a way

that can never be lost, and all the ingenuity of man cannot erase.

We will now examine it.

The seven sons of Japheth

Genesis 10:1–2 reads: ‘Now these are the generations of the

sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were

sons born after the flood. The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and

Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and

Tiras.’

The first of Noah’s grandsons mentioned is Gomer. Ezekiel

locates the early descendants of Gomer, along with Togarmah (a

son of Gomer), in the north quarters (Ezekiel 38:6). In modern

Turkey is an area which in New Testament times was called

Galatia. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus records that the

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people who were called Galatians or Gauls in his day (c. AD 93)

were previously called Gomerites.1

They migrated westward to what are now called France and

Spain. For many centuries France was called Gaul, after the

descendants of Gomer. North-west Spain is called Galicia to this

day.

Some of the Gomerites migrated further to what is now called

Wales. The Welsh historian, Davis, records a traditional Welsh

belief that the descendants of Gomer ‘landed on the Isle of Britain

from France, about three hundred years after the flood’.2 He also

records that the Welsh language is called Gomeraeg (after their

ancestor Gomer).Other members of their clan settled along the

way, including in Armenia. The sons of Gomer were ‘Ashkenaz,

and Riphath, and Togarmah’ (Genesis 10:3). Encyclopaedia

Britannica says that the Armenians traditionally claim to be

descended from Togarmah and Ashkenaz.3 Ancient Armenia

reached into Turkey. The name Turkey probably comes from

Togarmah. Others of them migrated to Germany. Ashkenaz is the

Hebrew word for Germany.

The next grandson mentioned is Magog. According to Ezekiel,

Magog lived in the north parts (Ezekiel 38:15, 39:2). Josephus

records that those whom he called Magogites, the Greeks called

Scythians.1 According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, the ancient

name for the region which now includes part of Romania and the

Ukraine was Scythia.4

The next grandson is Madai. Along with Shem’s son Elam, Madai

is the ancestor of our modern-day Iranians. Josephus says that

the descendants of Madai were called Medes by the Greeks.1

Every time the Medes are mentioned in the Old Testament, the

word used is the Hebrew word Madai (maday). After the time of

Cyrus, the Medes are always (with one exception) mentioned

along with the Persians. They became one kingdom with one

law—‘the law of the Medes and Persians’ (Daniel 6:8, 12, 15).

Genesis Chapter Ten

Later they were simply called Persians. Since 1935 they have

called their country Iran. The Medes also ‘settled India’.5

The name of the next grandson, Javan, is the Hebrew word for

Greece. Greece, Grecia, or Grecians appears five times in the

Old Testament, and is always the Hebrew word Javan. Daniel

refers to ‘the king of Grecia’ (Daniel 8:21), literally ‘the king of

Javan’. Javan’s sons were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim

(Genesis 10:4), all of whom have connections with the Greek

people. The Elysians (an ancient Greek people) obviously

received their name from Elishah. Tarshish or Tarsus was located

in the region of Cilicia (modern Turkey).

Encyclopaedia Britannica says that Kittim is the biblical name for

Cyprus.6 The people who initially settled around the area of Troy

worshipped Jupiter under the name of Jupiter Dodonaeus,

possibly a reference to the fourth son of Javan, with Jupiter a

derivative of Japheth. His oracle was at Dodena. The Greeks

worshipped this god but called him Zeus.

Next is Tubal. Ezekiel mentions him along with Gog and Meshech

(Ezekiel 39:1). Tiglath-pileser I, king of Assyria in about 1100 BC,

refers to the descendants of Tubal as the Tabali. Josephus

recorded their name as the Thobelites, who were later known as

Iberes.1

‘Their land, in Josephus’ day, was called by the Romans Iberia,

and covered what is now (the former Soviet State of) Georgia

whose capital to this day bears the name Tubal as Tbilisi. From

here, having crossed the Caucasus mountains, this people

migrated due north-east, giving their tribal name to the river

Tobol, and hence to the famous city of Tobolsk.’7

Meshech, the name of the next grandson, is the ancient name for

Moscow. Moscow is both the capital of Russia, and the region

that surrounds the city. To this day, one section, the Meshchera

Lowland, still carries the name of Meshech, virtually unchanged

by the ages.

Genesis Chapter Ten

According to Josephus, the descendants of grandson Tiras were

called Thirasians. The Greeks changed their name to Thracians.1

Thrace reached from Macedonia on the south to the Danube

River on the north to the Black Sea on the east. It took in much of

what became Yugoslavia. World Book Encyclopaedia says: ‘The

people of Thrace were savage Indo-Europeans, who liked warfare

and looting.’8 Tiras was worshipped by his descendants as

Thuras, or Thor, the god of thunder.

The four sons of Ham

Next we come to the sons of Ham: Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and

Canaan (Genesis 10:6).

The descendants of Ham live mainly in south-west Asia and

Africa. The Bible often refers to Africa as the land of Ham

(Psalms 105:23,27; 106:22). The name of Noah’s grandson Cush

is the Hebrew word for old Ethiopia (from Aswan south to

Khartoum). Without exception, the word Ethiopia in the English

Bible is always a translation of the Hebrew word Cush. Josephus

rendered the name as Chus, and says that the Ethiopians ‘are

even at this day, both by themselves and by all men in Asia,

called Chusites’.9

Noah’s next grandson mentioned was Mizraim. Mizraim is the

Hebrew word for Egypt. The name Egypt appears hundreds of

times in the Old Testament and (with one exception) is always a

translation of the word Mizraim. E.g. at the burial of Jacob, the

Canaanites observed the mourning of the Egyptians and so called

the place Abel Mizraim (Genesis 50:11).

Phut, the name of Noah’s next grandson is the Hebrew name for

Libya. It is so translated three times in the Old Testament. The

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ancient river Phut was in Libya. By Daniel’s day, the name had

been changed to Libya (Daniel 11:43). Josephus says, ‘Phut also

was the founder of Libia [sic], and called the inhabitants Phutites,

from himself’.9

Canaan, the name of Noah’s next grandson, is the Hebrew name

for the general region later called by the Romans Palestine, i.e.

modern Israel and Jordan. Here we should look briefly at a few of

the descendants of Ham (Genesis 10:14–18). There is Philistim,

obviously the ancestor of the Philistines (clearly giving rise to the

name Palestine [ed. note: but see Origins of the word “Palestine”,

2011]), and Sidon, the founder of the ancient city that bears his

name, and Heth, the patriarch of the ancient Hittite empire. Also,

this descendant is listed in Genesis 10:15–18 as being the

ancestor of the Jebusites (Jebus was the ancient name for

Jerusalem—Judges 19:10), the Amorites, the Girgasites, the

Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and

the Hamathites, ancient peoples who lived in the land of Canaan.

The most prominent descendant of Ham was Nimrod, the founder

of Babel (Babylon), as well as of Erech, Accad and Calneh in

Shinar (Babylonia).

The five sons of Shem

Last we come to the sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud,

and Aram (Genesis 10:22).

Elam is the ancient name for Persia, which is itself the ancient

name for Iran. Until the time of Cyrus the people here were called

Elamites, and they were still often called that even in New

Testament times. In Acts 2:9, the Jews from Persia who were

present at Pentecost were called Elamites. The Persians are thus

descended from both Elam, the son of Shem, and from Madai, the

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son of Japheth (see above). Since the 1930s they have called

their country Iran.

It is interesting to note that the word ‘Aryan’, which so fascinated

Adolf Hitler, is a form of the word ‘Iran’. Hitler wanted to produce a

pure Aryan ‘race’ of supermen. But the very term ‘Aryan’ signifies

a mixed line of Semites and Japhethites!

Asshur is the Hebrew word for Assyria. Assyria was one of the

great ancient empires. Every time the words Assyria or Assyrian

appear in the Old Testament, they are translated from the word

Asshur. He was worshipped by his descendants.

‘Indeed, as long as Assyria lasted, that is until 612 BC, accounts

of battles, diplomatic affairs and foreign bulletins were daily read

out to his image; and every Assyrian king held that he wore the

crown only with the express permission of Asshur’s deified

ghost.’10

Arphaxad was the progenitor of the Chaldeans. This ‘is confirmed

by the Hurrian (Nuzi) tablets, which render the name as Arip-

hurra—the founder of Chaldea.’11 His descendant, Eber, gave his

name to the Hebrew people via the line of Eber-Peleg-Reu-

Serug-Nahor-Terah-Abram (Genesis 11:16–26). Eber’s other son,

Joktan, had 13 sons (Genesis 10:26–30), all of whom appear to

have settled in Arabia.12

Lud was the ancestor of the Lydians. Lydia was in what is now

Western Turkey. Their capital was Sardis—one of the seven

churches of Asia was at Sardis (Revelation 3:1).

Aram is the Hebrew word for Syria. Whenever the word Syria

appears in the Old Testament it is a translation of the word Aram.

The Syrians call themselves Arameans, and their language is

called Aramaic. Before the spread of the Greek Empire, Aramaic

was the international language (2 Kings 18:26 ff). On the cross,

when Jesus cried out, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani’ (Mark

15:34),13 He was speaking Aramaic, the language of the common

people.