Sunday School Lesson at Lake Marburg Baptist Church this morning - Genesis 10:6-11:4; the lineage of Ham and Shem

Genesis 10:6 ¶  And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan. 7  And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan. 8  And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. 9  He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. 10  And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11  Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, 12  And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city. 13  And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, 14  And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim.

Ham’s sons included Cush. Cush has long been associated with the region of the Sudan and Ethiopia south of Egypt. The word is translated as Ethiopia in a number of places. See Ezekiel 29:10. The kingdom of Cush was located in the area of Nubia in Northern Sudan.

Mizraim lends his name to the Hebrew name for Egypt.

Genesis 50:11  And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abelmizraim, which is beyond Jordan.

Mizraim’s son Casluhim gives birth to the Philistine culture. So, the Philistines were related to the Egyptians.

Phut, eventually lived between Egypt and Canaan, perhaps, but the Jewish historical writer, Josephus, names the people of Phut as the founders of ancient Libya.

Canaan, as we know from extensive writing in the Bible, lived in what we call Palestine and environs.

But, none of these geographical relationships are yet established. Remember, that everyone is still together, still pretty much probably brown-skinned, dark-haired, and brown-eyed, speaking one language moving about in the region of the ancient Near East.

The most notable of Cush’s sons was the first ancient conqueror, a man who brought people together, you might say. His name was Nimrod. He is said to be a mighty one in the earth and a mighty hunter before the Lord. At least one myth I have read details that he led people in defense against the great proliferation of predators, lions and such, after the Flood, therefore justifying the hunter epithet. Whatever the case we will see such a thing again as per Revelation 6:8. Nimrod would represent the first great empire as a type of the end-time Antichrist, the beast of Revelation.

Nimrod founds four cities of note in the land of Shinar, which is where we will soon see that the families of Noah journeyed after leaving the Ark. Shinar is the ancient name for the region of Babylonia. (See Daniel 1:1,2) Think of the area centered on Iraq today. Nimrod, Cush’s son, builds Babel in the south while Asshur, Shem’s son, builds Nineveh, which will become the capital of Assyria, the northern part of the culture that includes Babylon.

Nimrod will live on in various attributes of hunter-gods such as Artemis in Greece. Legends about him and other pre-Babel persons will make them deified over time and they will be viewed as male or female, sometimes both. Call it the memory of the human race, if you will, but these figures will become archetypes in our mythologies, histories, and cultures.

The world of men is one, united in culture, language, and color.

Genesis 10:15 ¶  And Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn, and Heth, 16  And the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, 17  And the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, 18  And the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad. 19  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. 20  These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.

As Canaan is of particular noteworthiness due to the prophecy of him being cursed and the way it plays out in Biblical history this passage is devoted to him. We can see how Israel interacted with some of these families and tribes in the Bible.

Sidon is also called Zidon, both translated from the same word.

1Chronicles 1:13  And Canaan begat Zidon his firstborn…

Sidon/Zidon is known as a city of Phoenicia, whose merchants will spread the alphabet from what is called Proto-Canaanite script, that plays such a part in the Exodus, as in God giving His Law, creating the writing that contrasted with the pictograms of hieroglyphics and cuneiform writing that dominated the ancient world. The basic units of writing, the letters, become symbols for ideas rather than pictures representing things to be worshipped as idols. ‘A’, instead of a symbol for a bull or an ox, is Aleph in Hebrew and Alpha in Greek, and ‘A’ for modern purposes. A good study for this is Marc A. Ouaknin’s Mysteries of the Alphabet.

The Phoenicians spread the alphabet, and their pernicious religious practices even to the sacrificing of 300 babies to Baal in one day in Carthage as a plea to that devil to end a Roman siege, probably started during their sojourn in Babel or Babylon, sailing around the world, trading from England to Somalia to Australia, and perhaps even the Americas based on some limited archaeological evidence of Phoenician coins and other things. Early American Christians believed that the Native Americans of the east coast, at least, were descendants of Canaanites, as some of them wrote.

Isaiah 23:2  Be still, ye inhabitants of the isle; thou whom the merchants of Zidon, that pass over the sea, have replenished.

A descendant of Heth is a Hittite.

Genesis 23:10  And Ephron dwelt among the children of Heth: and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the children of Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying,

2Samuel 11:3  And David sent and enquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?

The Jebusites would eventually inhabit Jerusalem.

Joshua 15:63  As for the Jebusites the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out: but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day.

The Canaanites, in developing their religion that included temple prostitutes called whores, depending on the context, for women and sodomites for men, in practicing bestiality, child sacrifice, and other abominations, will have been condemned in God’s foresight as inheritors of their ancestor, Ham’s, notorious character.

Deuteronomy 23:17  There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel. 18  Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog [slang for a homosexual male prostitute even today], into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy God.

Genesis 10:21 ¶  Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born. 22  The children of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram. 23  And the children of Aram; Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash. 24  And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber. 25  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. 26  And Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah, 27  And Hadoram, and Uzal, and Diklah, 28  And Obal, and Abimael, and Sheba, 29  And Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab: all these were the sons of Joktan. 30  And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar a mount of the east. 31  These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations. 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.

We get the word, “Semites,” from Shem. It has come to refer only to the Jews but it has a much broader application Biblically. Shem is first noted as the father of the line of Eber, his great grandson.

Eber’s son Peleg marks the significant event coming up at Babel that affected all of the rest of the earth’s history and moved forward the repopulation of the earth, possibly the beginning of human races in terms of skin color and that epicanthic fold of skin on the Asiatic’s eyes. We will see this soon. 

Shem’s son, Elam, lends his name to a great, early empire in what is now part of Iran. It was a significant political entity in the ancient Near East after the Babel dispersal. Some of the oldest written records of man are located from there. We must understand that scholars talk about the oldest tablets or parchments they have in hand but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are the oldest in actual date because documents that are found in a later age may be copies of even earlier documents which we don’t have the originals of. For instance, the earliest copies of Homer’s Iliad we have are from the 900’s AD. However, we know that The Iliad was penned over a thousand years earlier. So, don’t be fooled when someone says, “the earliest writing came from Sumeria.” No, the earliest copies of writing we actually can find may be from Sumeria or Elam but that doesn’t mean that the earliest writing comes from there, only that’s the evidence we have. But, all of the spades and shovels of archaeology will never dig up most of history and we must be cautious with absolute statements made from incomplete evidence.

Genesis 14:9  With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five.

Asshur built Nineveh, Assyria’s capital, which we have seen, and lent his name to that great empire of the ancient world. Assyria and Asshur are translated from the same word.

Numbers 24:22  Nevertheless the Kenite shall be wasted, until Asshur shall carry thee away captive.

The scholars of The Enlightenment era denied that Assyria existed other than as a myth in the Bible. The Bible was the only testimony of the empire historically. Then, in the early 1800’s the remains of Nineveh were uncovered in what is today northern Iraq. Information began to be revealed that confirmed the Bible account teaching us not to doubt the Bible. Science may catch up to it but it is never in danger of being wrong.

Aram’s child, Uz, is noteworthy as lending his name to the land where the Bible character, Job, dwelled.

Job 1:1  There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.

Uz was in the area that later became Edom which plays prominently in the Bible.

Lamentations 4:21a  Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz...

Edom was in current day southern Jordan.

Although it is a fascinating study to trace each of these names to their linguistic roots or try to figure out where they wound up after Babel or who they were the ancestor of I doubt it will be helpful in moving the narrative along to the next important step in man’s ‘development’ or rather his ‘devolution’. Nevertheless, these were the nations, or families and tribes, that the world of men was divided into after the Flood and the Babel event.

Genesis, chapter 11

Genesis 11:1 ¶  And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. 2  And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. 3  And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. 4  And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

This entire clan of likely brown-skinned, brown-eyed people spoke one language, which is defined in context as speech. We are now back to their departure from the ark and the early movement of their families. But, they were resisting the command God gave in Genesis 9:1. Disobedience to God is one of mankind’s most dependable character traits.

Just like after Acts 1:8 the early Jewish Christians did not leave Jerusalem after the Holy Ghost was received as they were told to do and had to suffer persecution to get the impulse to obey Christ’s command and go out, these people are afraid of being divided up. They decide to embark on a building project and establish roots where they are in the land of Shinar. The power to name is a power indeed as we saw by Adam’s authority to name the beasts of the earth. It establishes political authority and if you don’t believe that just tell a citizen of Belfast that he lives in Ulster if he’s an Irish Nationalist or Northern Ireland if he’s a Unionist. Depending on the political sentiments of the hearer you might get a bloody nose or worse.

Their goal is, primarily, either to actually reach the abode of God, which may have been understood as a possibility, although that implies a level of stupidity on their part that is not likely, or that may have been a metaphor for just an incredibly tall building as an emblem of their unity. They will also build a city. We have already been told that Nimrod was in charge of building Babel, which is named in the next passage. So, Nimrod, of Ham’s family, is the first great empire builder whose ambitious plans come to God’s attention.

Note here how the metaphor is used in other Scripture.

Deuteronomy 9:1 ¶  Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven,

Daniel 4:22  It is thou, O king, that art grown and become strong: for thy greatness is grown, and reacheth unto heaven, and thy dominion to the end of the earth.

Jeremiah 51:53  Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her, saith the LORD.

Keep in mind that the word, heaven, refers to the atmosphere above us and what we call Outer Space, as per the first chapter of Genesis, and not only the abode of God.

It is possible then that this reference is the majesty of the building project they decided to work on to keep them together. The Inca Empire of South America, for instance, used great government funded road and building projects to assert their authority and keep people occupied under that authority, even building roads to nowhere or multiple roads to the same remote village.

Go to is used three times in a very short space here as an idiom meaning, “let’s go,” which is evident in the context of verse 7 coming next. It states a call for group action, a group being two or more. In 7 it will refer to the three parts of God; the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. In Genesis 38:16 it will refer to Judah speaking to Tamar, thinking that his daughter-in-law is a prostitute.