The table of the nations
1 Now this is the history of the generations of the sons of Noah and of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood. 2 The sons of Japheth were: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 3 The sons of Gomer were: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. 4 The sons of Javan were: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. 5 Of these were the islands of the nations divided in their lands, everyone after his language, after their families, in their nations. 6 The sons of Ham were: Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. 7 The sons of Cush were: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah were: Sheba and Dedan. 8 Cush became the father of Nimrod. He began to be a mighty one on the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter before Yahweh. Therefore it is said, “like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before Yahweh”. 10 The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11 Out of that land he went into Assyria, and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, 12 and Resen between Nineveh and the great city Calah. 13 Mizraim became the father of Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, 14 Pathrusim, Casluhim (which the Philistines descended from), and Caphtorim. 15 Canaan became the father of Sidon (his firstborn), Heth, 16 the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, 17 the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, 18 the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the families of the Canaanites were spread abroad. 19 The border of the Canaanites was from Sidon—as you go toward Gerar—to Gaza—as you go toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim—to Lasha. 20 These are the sons of Ham, after their families, according to their languages, in their lands and their nations. 21 Children were also born to Shem (the elder brother of Japheth), the father of all the children of Eber. 22 The sons of Shem were: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. 23 The sons of Aram were: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. 24 Arpachshad became the father of Shelah. Shelah became the father of Eber. 25 To Eber were born two sons. The name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided. His brother’s name was Joktan. 26 Joktan became the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan. 30 Their dwelling extended from Mesha, as you go toward Sephar, the mountain of the east. 31 These are the sons of Shem, by their families, according to their languages, lands, and nations. 32 These are the families of the sons of Noah, by their generations, according to their nations. The nations divided from these on the earth after the flood.
Seventy names map the known world onto one family tree, and the point of the list is that there is only one.
A chapter of names is easy to skip and this one is doing something no other ancient document attempts. It takes the peoples of the known world — from the Aegean to the Persian Gulf, from Asia Minor to the Nile — and sets them out as one family, descended from three brothers who came off a ship.
The arrangement is geographical and moves in an arc. Japheth's line runs north and west into Asia Minor and the coastlands; Ham's runs south and west into Egypt, Africa, and the Canaanite seaboard; Shem's runs east into Mesopotamia and Arabia. The list is not a ranking, and the order is reversed at once when the narrative resumes, since it is Shem's line that chapter eleven follows.
The recurring formula is the interesting part: everyone after his language, after their families, in their nations. It appears at the close of each section, and it presupposes the scattering that the next chapter narrates. The table is arranged by subject rather than by chronology, and it is placed first because it shows the outcome — a world of nations and languages — before the account explains how that came about.
One figure gets a paragraph instead of a line. Nimrod began to be a mighty one on the earth and was a mighty hunter before Yahweh, and his kingdom began at Babel, in the land of Shinar, before extending into Assyria and building Nineveh. He is the first person in Scripture described as building an empire, and the two cities associated with him — Babel and Nineveh — become the two great oppressors of Israel in the prophets. A reader coming to Genesis from the rest of the Old Testament finds both capitals named on the first page of world history, in the family of the son who was not blessed.
Canaan's borders are traced with unusual care, from Sidon down the coast and inland toward the cities of the plain. That precision is for readers who are going to that country.
And there is one line that seems to belong to a different kind of book: Eber's son was named Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided. The verb is the ordinary one for splitting, and the note is dropped in and left. Given the chapter's own vocabulary about languages, families and nations, the plainest reading is the division the next chapter describes.
What the table establishes is stated in its final line: The nations divided from these on the earth after the flood. Every nation in it has one origin. Whatever else follows in Scripture about a chosen people, it comes after a chapter in which the whole human race is one family, and the New Testament argues from precisely this — that God made from one blood every nation of men Acts 17:26.
settled What this mark means