From the Start - Part 20 | The Root of the Nations (A Genesis Sermon Series Part 21)

Turn, if you would, to Genesis chapter 10.

Genesis 10 · chapter mention

I feel like we're flying now, right?

We're moving a bit quicker than we were.

Genesis chapter 10 will cover all of chapter 10, more or less

Genesis 10 · chapter mention

this morning. I'm grateful to Pastor Ed for

filling in last week to preach on such wonderful subjects,

interesting topics. To be honest, I was kind of

bummed that I had to miss talking about what what did

happen in the tent? What was it that that Ham saw or

did? Yeah, these are just these

things that that people ask questions about What, what

happened there? What happened?

Truth is we don't fully know, but that's OK.

So Genesis chapter 10 is where we will be this morning.

Genesis 10 · chapter mention

Now here this morning we have the most tedious section of text

that that we've yet to come across.

Sure, we had a couple little genealogies back in chapters

4:00 and 5:00, but here in chapter 10 it's a bit more

extensive and and drawn out. These genealogies serve to

remind us of God's continuing faithfulness to fulfill His

promise to defeat the serpent's. In this chapter we see God's

provision for the line that would one day give rise to the

Messiah. Humanity hasn't been completely

destroyed in this remnant of people signifies hope for the

coming nations of the world. This morning's text is often

referred to as the table of nations and it details how the

descendants of Noah's three sons reproduced and they began to

spread across the earth, providing the roots for each

people group of verse one reads. These are the generations of the

sons of Noah. Shem, Ham and Japheth sons were

born to them after the flood, so this is a a continuing lineage.

God's God promised to save Noah and his family in the flood and

and he did so. Now those same people are the

roots of God's restart for humanity.

You may recall that a few weeks back I drew our attention to the

special formula or word called the Tolidoth section.

This name is taken from the Hebrew word for descendants.

That is Tolidoth, the phrase that we'll see.

These are the generations. That phrase occurs 10/10 times

in 10 different parts of of Genesis.

To draw our attention to the fact that this is a new section

of the narrative. It's essentially a way to

outline the important divisions in Genesis.

There was creation and Adam, Noah, Noah's sons, Shem, Tara,

Tara is Abraham's father, Ishmael, Isaac, Esau, and Jacob.

These all are various Tolidoth sections that we'll continue to

see throughout this book. Now, this new Tolidoth section

draws the reader's attention to the reality that life continued

when Noah and company got off the ark.

They continue to have babies, they continue to multiply, and

they began to spread across the earth, and everybody in the

world is connected back to the three sons of Noah.

Now, we're not going to read all of the texts this morning, but

what I want to do is draw our attention to various peoples and

nations, peoples of No 10 and who figure in the remaining

narrative of Genesis and the greater meta narrative of

Scripture. Even the first list we get is

found in verses 2 through 5, and it details the the sons of

Japheth. And Pastor Ed mentioned some of

the things that that I'm going to talk about this morning.

The sons of Japheth. Only 14 of Japheth's descendants

are mentioned. I know that may sound like a

lot, but in a list of 70 names, 14 is pretty small.

Now these, these sons, these descendants extend only to the

third generation. Here in the text, Japheth's

grandchildren. And the first name I want to

point out is Gomer. Of course not to be confused

with Gomer who comes later and who Hosea married Gomer.

This is a guy. First of all, the family of

Japheth is generally thought to be the foundation of those of us

who are more lacking in melanin, if you know what I mean.

They they filled parts of Europe and Asia Minor.

Gomer's descendants initially occupied the region north of the

Black Sea and what we would now know as Ukraine.

Over the years they began to shift S towards Asia Minor and

Turkey, and then then they later spread W into Western Europe,

filling in places like Germany, Denmark and Sweden, even the

British Isles. I know it's weird for us to be

talking about Bible and talking about Western Europe, but that

is where it seems that these people landed.

Their ancestors eventually formed the foundations of what

have come to be known as the Celtic people.

Today. There is even a group of Jews

who who call themselves the Ashkenazi, taken from the name

Ashkenaz, Gomer's son. Very interesting stuff, by the

way. I might add.

A few weeks ago I said, oh, that was a research paper that I was

basically writing for that week's sermon when we were

talking about the Nephilim and stuff like that.

There is so much stuff. Every name, you start

researching names, you're going down all sorts of rabbit trails.

There are 70 rabbit trails to chase down here in preparation

for this message, so I've tried to distill it down to the most

significant ones. The next person will consider in

Japheth's line is Magog. Magog will be familiar to us.

Magog has largely been associated with Eastern Europe

and the region of the Black Sea, similar to his brother Gomer.

Now Magog or Gog for short, is common commonly associated with

two of his brothers, Tubal and Meshech.

Meshech's people became the Mushku and lived near the

Mosquian mountains. Then later generations of the

Mushku seem to have moved farther NA significant ways and

they became what is now Moscow. So the Mushku people became

Moscow. I find this all very intriguing.

Then there's Tarshish. Tarshish is 1 of JFS grandsons.

There's a bit of debate as to as to where Tarshish is.

If I asked you where is Tarshish, tell me where is it?

That's that's that's what we naturally think of, right?

We first think of Spain. The southern portion of Spain

garners the most attention. But then others say, well, what

about Sardinia, the island of Sardinia, West of Italy?

Well, no, actually, maybe it's Tarsus where where Paul is from

that that might be what Tarshish is.

So we can't make any committed decisions on on where Tarshish

actually is. It could be Spain, it could be

Sardinia, and it could even be Tarsus.

So a lot of these there's a there's conjecture, there's

guessing trying to figure out where these people landed and

you will find arguments for and against various locations.

We do know Japheth's kin settled in parts of Asia Minor, the

northern Mediterranean and Europe, and they were the

forerunners of light skinned peoples.

Verse five said from these the coastland peoples spread in

their lands, each with his own language by their clans in their

nations. We'll see this formula reference

to languages, clans and nations three times in this chapter,

once for each sun. And, and this draws our

attention to the fact that each of these was a distinct people

group. They spread out.

These people spread out over the face of the earth.

Now I suspect that it wasn't so much out of obedience.

Perhaps for some it was out of obedience.

God said to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.

And so maybe some of them filled the earth and spread out out of

obedience. But I suspect there's a lot of

just pragmatism involved here as as people began to multiply and

and become more numerous, there comes a point where, hey, we

need more space. So they go farther and farther

simply because they need space and spread out into these

various regions of the world, the well they're known world,

and then ultimately throughout the rest of the world.

The next section, from verses 6 through 20, outlines Ham's kin.

Verse 6 tells us who Ham's sons are.

There's Kush, Egypt, Poops, and Canaan.

Now, I suspect some of you already know that Ham's

descendants largely head down into Africa.

First of all, we know where Egypt is.

There is no disputing where Egypt is.

Egypt, however, isn't the only one here who would become an

enemy to the people of God. Verses 13 and 14 tell us Egypt

fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, naftuhim, path through SIM cast

cast, Ludhim from whom the Philistines came, and Katharine.

I've been told all you need to do is just sound confident and

people will think you know what you're saying and you're

pronouncing it correctly. Sometimes I attempt to pronounce

them the way that the Hebrew would, but sometimes we just go

with whatever. So a number, this is a number of

different people groups that that are pointed out here.

When you hear eem as it said ludem anamim le habim, when you

hear eem on the end of the word, that means the word is plural.

That means these are this list. Here is a group of people that

that Egypt fathered. Notice what it says of Kas

Luhim. It says of Kas Luhim from whom

the Philistines came. This is the first time in

scripture that we see the Philistines mentioned and and

these descendants from Ham's son Egypt of course become arch

enemies of Israel. Look at verses 8 through 12 in

your Bible if you would Speaking of Ham's son, it reads Kush

fathered Nimrod. He was the first on earth to be

a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before

the Lord. Therefore it is said, like

Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord, the beginning of his

Kingdom was Babel, Erek, Akkad and Kaunay in the land of

Shinar. From that land he went into

Assyria and built Nineveh, Reha, both ear Kala and resin.

Between Nineveh and Kala that is the great city.

So this tells us Nimrod built Babylon and Assyria.

Nimrod built Babylon and Assyria.

Now Nimrod is a very intriguing character.

Who was he? Can we pinpoint him in history?

Is is Nimrod a name or is it a title?

He's associated with some bad places, but was he actually

evil? And what was his relationship to

Yahweh? Since it says he was a mighty

hunter before the Lord, what does that mean?

So many questions, so few answers.

Here's what we do know. First of all, the name Nimrod

means rebel. It means rebel.

He was a powerful leader and hunter, the first of his type.

It said in in verse 8 he was a man of influence and power as

evidenced by the fact that he built a number of cities.

The first first city he built was was Babel or or Babylon

along with three other cities in the land of Shinar.

Now Shinar is largely located in in modern day Iraq as you can

see on the map. I think we have a map.

Yes. Then then verse 11 told us

Nimrod went into Assyria and built four other cities, of

which Nineveh is 1. And you see Nineveh is located

there in the very northern part of Iraq, in what is now Mosul.

We don't know more than what the text says, but it seems probable

that Nimrod either organized the building of Babel and its tower

or had it done. Nimrod symbolizes someone who

who had become proud and because of his his pride he had no need

for God and he gloried in his own strength and capabilities.

He single handedly created the two dynasties who many, many

years later would carry the Israelites off into exile, the

Babylonians and the Assyrians. Now Babel is the namesake of

Babylon and it symbolizes the worst of humanity.

The Babylonians are bad people, and so this empire becomes the

the archetype for man's sinful pride and all that's bad in the

world. Next the text turns to Canaan.

Ham was the was the one who had sinned, we learned about last

week, but it was his son Canaan whom Noah cursed.

Now was God not being fair to Canaan?

Was he being judged for his father's sin?

No, he's not being judged for his father's sin, and the text

will instead show us that the apple doesn't fall far from the

tree. This was actually more of a

prophecy indicating what Canaan's family would be like.

And and Canaanites will certainly be shown to live

sinful, wicked lives. So Canaan's family settled

places like Jibus, and Jibus is now Jerusalem.

They also settled Gaza, Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as further

north of the Dead Sea all throughout Palestine.

Now this was the the promised land and the Canaanites

repeatedly proved to be a problem, right?

You can see in this map that we have here that that Ham's

relatives lived throughout Palestine as as well as in parts

of the Arabian Peninsula and a little bit of Africa.

Everything that you see here, the green, the the tan, all, all

those different highlighted sections, those are all Hams

descendants. So you can see that they settled

in in part of Africa there on the northeastern side of Africa,

then in what is Saudi Arabia on the western side of Saudi Arabia

over into Iraq and of course all through Palestine is where Ham's

descendants settled. Lastly, verses 21 through 31

reveal Shems lineage to us. Now Shem.

Shem should have been listed first.

He's the oldest of the of the three sons.

All the other times when the brothers are listed, they're

listed as Shem, Ham, and Japheth, possibly pointing to

their birth order. Now when Noah issued the

blessing in Chapter 9, Shem was the one who received the greater

blessing. As Noah said, Japheth would

dwell in Shem's tents. This this infers that that Shem

is going to be so great that that Japheth would come dwell

alongside him. There's a concept often seen in

Scripture called primogeniture. I know this is a new word for

many of you, but primogeniture means that the oldest receives

the greater blessing. This is we find primogeniture

all throughout the ancient world as well as in the Near and

Middle East as the oldest Shem received the greater blessing.

He received the blessing. Primogeniture often means that

the oldest is listed first. But now in this list, the order

is reversed kind of in a oh, let's save the best for last

kind of way. So let's look at verse 21.

Verse 21 says to Shem, also the father of all the children of a

bear, the elder brother of Japheth children were born Now

it's so easy if we're we're not stopping to to really dig into

the text. It's so easy to just breathe

that and say, OK, children were born great move on to the next

verse. Some scholars and commentators

maintain that we that we can't be sure that Shem is the oldest,

and they speculate Japheth might actually be the oldest, but.

I don't agree with that with that assessment based on first

of all the concept of primogeniture.

Also, Scripture makes it clear that when primogeniture is being

upended, it is upended. Sometimes in the text it calls

that out. It makes that obvious that that

the the order of primogeniture is being upended and a younger

sibling instead is receiving the blessing.

Now lastly, this verse certainly seems to tell us that Shem was

the oldest. The basic statement, the first

clause in the last clause is that children are born to Shem

so that that's what it means. And then the middle 2 clauses,

the second and third phrase, clarify who Shem is.

It says he's the father of all the children of a bear, and he's

the elder brother of Japheth. So I think that means Shem is

the oldest. So this is ample proof for him

being the eldest. And I think the text bears that

out even more as we'll continue to look at it.

Now here Moses breaks stride. And instead of listing numerous

family members of each of Shem's sons, he chose to only address

our Pakshod. What then follows our Parkshod's

descendants? So.

So why are we drilling down on this particular son's progeny?

I imagine if I'd asked you who our Pakshod was before this

message, you would say I have absolutely no idea, right, If

we're being honest. So why are we examining him?

Well, verse 24 says our Pakshad fathered shala, and shala

fathered a bear. This is important because a bear

is where the word Hebrew comes from.

A bear is the first Hebrew person, if you will.

He's the father of the Hebrew people.

And interestingly, there are two lines of Hebrew people here, 2

lines that that come from him. There's the line of Peleg, which

is of significance, and we'll look at that more.

And then there's also the line of Jock 10.

The descendants of both sons are drawn out in this passage.

Now, of course, only one becomes the chosen.

Jock. Tan's descendants are said to

have settled towards the Hill Country of the east, and some

have argued they primarily settled in Saudi Arabia, which

is actually South, and then others argue that they settled

towards Asia, possibly Afghanistan or maybe even

further E. Again, we don't know exactly, we

can just only go on. The text tells us.

I'm inclined to think they went more E because Saudi Arabia is

South and not east of where they were now.

Jock Tan's brother was Peleg. The comment on Peleg is that in

his days the earth was divided. There are varying viewpoints on

on what this means, but a number of commentators believe this

points to consequences received from the experiments of the

Tower of Babel. This points to the consequences

received from the Tower of Babel.

In the Old Testament, the verb palag, which sounds like peleg

palag, is used to describe division of languages.

So it makes sense that that the division in view here, plague,

means division. The division in view here is the

Babble event occurring 5 generations after the flood.

It's interesting because because I think in my mind, perhaps in

yours as well, we tend to think, OK, got off the ark and then

Babble happened. But no, a bunch of time went by

before the Tower of Babel happened, and we'll examine that

in a few weeks. Now let's jump ahead.

Thousands of years from Peleg in Luke three.

You don't need to turn there, but Luke 3 we have the genealogy

of Jesus. This is a list that says to the

reader, this Jesus that that you have heard of here is his

lineage. We know exactly who He is.

We know where He comes from. We know that He is able to sit

on the throne of David and we know he's the one the Old

Testament was looking forward to.

Now I won't read all of the genealogy in Luke 3, but I want

to read this section that begins with the patriarchs.

You'll find it here on the screen.

Verse 34 picks up with Judah. Judah, the son of Jacob the son

of Isaac the son of Abraham the son of Terra, the son of Nahor

the son of Seru, the son of Rue, the son of Peleg, the son of

Ebert the son of Shala the son of Canaan.

Kainan that is the son of Arpashad, the son of Shem, the

son of Noah, the son of Lamech, the son of Methuselah the son of

Enoch, the son of Jared the son of Mahalalel the son of Kainan

the son of Anos the son of Seth the son of Adam the son of God.

I know this is fairly tedious but there in Luke 3 verse 35 a

Luke 3:35

bear and Peleg are listed as Jesus far descendants.

So Jesus is the Messiah that Adam and Eve and their offspring

had been looking forward to. So this morning's passage has

shown us all the peoples of the world, and you can see in this

map here you can see where they generally spread out to.

I hope I put Yep. OK, so you can see who they came

from and where they spread the the green is Ham's descendants,

the yellow is Shem's descendants, and then the orange

orangish red is Japhis descendants.

Now this doesn't necessarily jive with everything I just said

because there is a lot of debate about about where these people

went, but generally this is this is generally correct.

Now here I want to give us three final takeaways.

This is all fun. This is interesting.

I love to geek out on stuff like this and just learn weird and

novel things, but I don't want this to just be information.

Information doesn't do anything specifically for us if we don't

get to the heart. SO3 takeaways.

First of all, this list, as I said, included 70 names.

It is not a coincidence that there are 70 names listed here.

This means a couple things. First of all, this genealogy

should not be taken as comprehensive, rather it is

representative. Some names only go a couple

generations while others go to the 3rd, 4th, 5th and even the

6th generation. Not to mention Nimrod we we

don't know for sure where he sits in which generation.

Some of the some of the lists showed a true genealogy and then

then some of it switches over to people groups like the

Canaanites of course. So these 70 names represent

totality or completion. This is the first instance in

Scripture of the number 70 being used.

This represents completion, but it's but it's used in other

places as well. There are there are 70

descendants of Jacob in Exodus 170, elders of Israel in Exodus

24. Then in Luke 10, Jesus sends out

the 70 disciples. Here the number 70 is used to

represent the entirety of the world's population, coming from

Noah's sons. Furthermore, we could say the

the the three main races that that sociologists sometimes talk

about. The three main races of the

earth all come from this moment, and scholars often point to the

fact that some settled in Europe, some settled in Asia,

and then some settled in Africa. Next, in this genealogy we see

God working at both the macro and micro levels.

We see God working at both the macro level and the micro level.

I love this. The opening and closing verses

are at a macro, a high level. Verse one said these are the

generations of the sons of Noah Shem, Ham and Japheth sons were

born to them after the flood and then the chapter concluded these

are the clans of the sons of Noah according to their

genealogies in their nations and from and from those the nation

spread abroad on the earth after the flood chapter opens and

closes with a with a 30,000 foot perspective on humanity.

It's very high level. Noah and his family got off the

ark. They began to to spread abroad

on the earth as they multiplied. And in a sense it's a fulfilling

of the cultural mandates to be fruitful and multiply and fill

the earth. However, this passage isn't just

communicating information to us. In this genealogy, we see Yahweh

working at a more personal or or micro level as well.

First of all, God's concern for humanity is demonstrated with

each name that's mentioned. 2nd, the text shows God working at

both the the cosmic and and personal levels to accomplish

His plan for redemption. He's overseeing the course of

human history while simultaneously attending to the

lineage and and the future of the promised Messiah.

Think about this for a moment. Moses wrote this history of of

the human race and, and he, he's focusing specifically on the

line of Shem because he was teaching his contemporaries, He

was teaching the Israelites about their personal family

history, where they came from. The Holy Spirit guided him to

write these things because he, the Holy Spirit, knew what Moses

didn't know, that the Messiah would eventually arrive on

earth. Through that same genealogical

line, Moses knew practically nothing of the Messiah.

He only knew of Yahweh's promise to someday send someone who

would strike the serpent's head. This passage then continues to

unfold the story of the Creator's desire to not only

redeem this particular family line, but also people from every

tribe and tongue and nation. So how awesome is that?

God was working through all of it to accomplish His purposes.

And lastly, the gospel transcends cultures and borders.

The gospel transcends cultures and borders.

As we look at the list of peoples and nations, we see a

number of them who would later become Israel's enemies.

Yet from these same peoples, God has claimed the people for his

own possession. You see, God was always making a

way for the outsider, for the foreigner to be part of the

Kingdom. He'd made provisions in the law.

And this was this was first seen when Israel entered the promised

land. Rahab, she was the unlikeliest

of women to be brought into the fold, but Rahab was faithful in

the revelation that she received when when she met the spies and

and she responded to that revelation.

She responded in faith and obedience and eventually is

brought into Jesus own lineage. She's also mentioned in the hall

of faith in Hebrews Chapter 11. So the gospel does isn't

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

confined by borders and cultures.

It is for everyone. And Rahab is a marvelous picture

of the Gospels transformation. And because of the gospel's

great power, we have scenes like like the one spelled out in

Revelation 7, Revelation 7, You'll see it there on the

screen. Verse 9 says after this I looked

and behold a great multitude that no one could number from

every nation, from all the tribes and peoples and languages

standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in

white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out

with a loud voice. Salvation belongs to our God who

sits on the throne and to the Lamb.

Just how? Imagine how amazing it'll be to

one day worship God with Christians from all of history,

even Jews, Iranians and Arabs all worshipping God around the

throne side by side. God promised that one day the

woman's seed would strike the head of the serpent.

He promised it so he can be trusted to keep his promise.

From the perspective of Noah's sons, fulfillment of the promise

may have seemed very slow in coming.

Noah was named rest. Perhaps this one will give up

best. Perhaps this will be the one

that brings change. But no, it was many, many years

later. God doesn't always work in the

timing we desire. He works in the right timing.

In Galatians 4 tells us that that when the fullness of time

had come, so in the right timing, God sent his Son Jesus

down into the world. The time was right, God was

shown to be faithful and keeping that promise.

And someday, at the end of time, the serpent will receive his

final blow and be locked away forever.

Until then, we wait, trusting that God is faithful and in

control of both the big picture and our own personal lives.

You know, it could be so easy to gloss over a chapter like this

since since it's a genealogy, I don't know how many times I've

read this chapter in my life and I've missed so many of these

things that we've talked about this morning.

But here we've seen the sovereignty and grace of God

revealed in these names. Humans filled the earth, but in

the midst of it all, God was paving the way for one

particular family to be the conduit through which He would

send salvation into the world. This.

This isn't a boring genealogy. This is God's grace being

demonstrated. Let's bow our heads and close

our eyes. God, this morning the major take

away from what we've learned, what we've examined is just to

be in awe of your working, that you were working at A at a macro

level to fill the earth from these three Suns.

But not only that you were working at the personal at the

micro level in each of these names, but also to to work

through the descendants of the bear and specifically through

Peleg. And then eventually this leads

us to the chosen family, the patriarchs of our faith.

How awesome it is. How you have always been

working. You have not taken a break, but

you've always been working your will and providing the way for

Jesus Christ to come into the world.

How awesome that is. What wonderful grace.

So God, may we be ever thankful for your grace that was

demonstrated all the way back then, even in this genealogy,

since Jesus name we pray, Amen.