Genesis 10:1–5

Genesis 2:4 — Genesis 4:26, Generations of heavens and earth. Genesis 5:1 — Genesis 6:8, Generations of Adam. Genesis 6:9 — Genesis 9:29, Generations of Noah. Genesis 10:1 — Genesis 11:9, Generations of sons of Noah. Genesis 11:10 — Genesis 11:26, Generations of Shem.

This chapter is full, instructive, and interesting, and Genesis 11:1-9 that follows it has its own special importance. The chapter describes something new among mankind: its many nations spread out in their lands, each with its own language. Before the flood no such distinctions existed. However large the population was, they were not grouped like this, and they were not marked off from one another... God had not yet set up any government, there was no division into nations, and there was no difference of language.

In the Bible there is no more important chapter than Genesis 10 for how God arranged languages, families, and nations. This is the only place that tells us how the different races arose, and where they came from. Who else could have told us how and when the earth was divided this way?... All men who are worth listening to are convinced of this: these three great lines are clearly separate, and just as clearly they came from one common origin. Scripture says there was only one such root.

This is the right place for such a statement. It comes after Noah's fall and its striking results. In the same way, the family line of Adam's sons came in Genesis 5 after his sin, and the line of Cain led on to the picture God gives us of the world before the flood. Noah lived on for centuries, but the history never mentions him again, just as Adam drops out of sight after his sin... It was well ordered that none of Noah's sons had children until they came out of the ark. So too Adam became a father only after the fall, when God sent him out of paradise.

Genesis 6:10 gives the names of Noah's sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. Genesis 10:1 and 1 Chronicles 1:4 give the same names in the same order. Yet Genesis 9:24 and 10:21 show us that the true order of their birth was Japheth, Shem and Ham. But God in His sovereignty chose Shem, so his name comes first.

Chapters 10 and 11 give us the history of the world after the flood — how it was peopled and set in order... Chapter 10 gives the facts. Chapter 11 shows how they came about, in judgment. The two chapters are not to be read as following one after the other in time. The division into nations and languages came after men tried, in their pride, to hold together at Babel. Then, last of all, we are given the family Jehovah owned, so that we can trace in it the line down to the one who carried the promise.

It looks like nothing more than a list of generations — fathers, sons, and so on. What can be interesting about that? But God does not give history the way men give it... The names of the nations listed here are found all through the Bible, and each keeps its character through its whole history, right to the end. In Ezekiel, and especially in Ezekiel 38 and 39, many of these names come up in connection with the very last days.

Notice that the order of Noah's sons is now changed. Japheth has the first place when we come to the survey of family lines. We learn why when we arrive at the line of Shem (v. 21). For spiritual reasons Shem had always held that place of honour up to now, and Ham was otherwise put before Japheth.

Genesis 10:2, compared with verse 21, plainly shows that Japheth was the eldest, and Ham probably the youngest (Genesis 9:24). Both Shem and Noah owe their place of precedence not to birth, but to the honour God set on them.

No chapter in the Bible matters more than Genesis 10 for the providential arrangement of tongues, families, and nations. This chapter alone gives the rise of the different races, with their sources. Who else could have told us how and when the earth was so divided? This is the divine account of the races. Here man is at sea. But where he does arrive at conclusions, this at least is the common consent, as far as I know, of all who have given their minds to the study: there are three, and only three, divisions into which nations properly diverge… More than that: those worth hearing are just as sure that these three lines had one common origin. Scripture says there was only one such root.

Of Japheth — the Celtic family (Gomer), the tribes to the north of the Caucasus (Magog), Medes, Greeks, Tibareni, Moschi and Thracians — generally the Indo-Europeans.

Magog (compare Ezekiel 38:2) is quite as certainly identified with the land we call Russia. To these we must add Meshech and Tubal, races long known as Moschi and Tibareni: these are the Muskai and the Tuplai of the Assyrian inscriptions, who find their representatives in Moscow and Tobolsk. This is the Slavic branch.

It became evident that Sanskrit, old as it may be, is no more the parent of these tongues than Greek. They were all sisters, derived from a language earlier than any of them. That they had a common source in the east was for the learned a recent discovery. But our verse tells us with full authority that Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech and Tiras were sons of Japheth. So they were all linked together — distinct in dialect, but of common origin.

There remains only Tiras. From the likeness of the name, most have believed it stands for the Thracians… Still the question cannot be said to be settled, like all the others that come before it.

Of the sons of Japheth we get Gomer, Magog, Tubal and Meshech under the same names in Ezekiel 38 as followers of Gog. You will also find Persia there, which was united to Media (Madai)… so only Javan and Tiras remain to be accounted for.

"When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel." Israel was, and shall yet be, God's earthly centre. It is a fact of the deepest interest that from the very outset, as we see in Genesis 10, the Creator and Governor of the world formed the nations and fixed their bounds according to His own sovereign will. He did it with direct reference to Abraham's descendants, and to that narrow strip of land they are to possess.

Only two of Japheth's sons have their descendants listed — Gomer, the head of the Celts, and Javan, from whom came the Greek and Italian peoples.

These were respectively the families which peopled Asia Minor, and Armenia on the east, and the sons of Javan whom we cannot fail to identify with the Greek or Hellenic families, extending to Spain, France, Italy and Sicily, the isles or maritime coasts of the nations.

Jeremiah brings in Ashkenaz as one of three kingdoms called out together with Ararat and Minni against Babylon, when the kings of the Medes also played their decisive part. Ararat and Minni were parts of Armenia, which here as elsewhere comes under Togarmah. So there seems no sound reason to doubt that Ashkenaz and Riphath held the peninsula of Asia Minor at that time. They took their place with Cyrus, the leader of these peoples, during that famous struggle. But this in no way weakens the general fact that Gomer pushed west into Europe, granting that at least Togarmah settled in Armenia.

Scripture says nothing about where Riphath lived. But Jeremiah 51:27 makes it certain that Ashkenaz belongs among the Asiatic kingdoms, and probably in the district between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea… It is a fair and interesting subject to discuss. Still, it is better to hear and weigh the evidence of Scripture before we come to conclusions.

Jewish teachers say that Ashkenaz later moved into the part of Europe afterwards called Germany… But the evidence is far from clear, though all agree that the Germanic peoples descend from Japheth and from Gomer… There is far less ground for applying Riphath to Great Britain, as some have done… But there is no good reason to doubt that those we call Germans came from Gomer, just as the Celts did.

Ezekiel 38 beyond doubt unveils the judgment of Russia at the end of this age. It lets us see its supporters forced to follow it and to share the general ruin. Among the peoples of the north are Gomer and all his hordes, and the house of Togarmah from the far north with all his. The southern peoples of Persia, Cush, and Phut come under the same influence.

"The house of Togarmah" from the northern parts I suppose to be the Armenian people, as they say of themselves. They will follow Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal — that is, the last head of the Russian Empire.

At the time of the scattering at Babel, God caused the various peoples to drop down just where His ways would need them when Israel came into view. So God Himself settled the first map of the world, with the land and people of Israel as His centre.

Verse 2 already showed briefly that Javan represents Greece. Ionia, however, or Ionis, comes closest to the Hebrew name. It was a narrow district in Asia Minor, and Greek colonies are said to have taken it over more than a thousand years before Christ… Ionia was remarkable not only for its success in trade, but for its excellence in art and poetry, in history and philosophy — before the mother country reached any eminence in these pursuits… In fact Greece is so named from Genesis 10 to Zechariah 9.

Eldest son of Javan, the son of Japheth. His descendants seem to have occupied the "isles of Elishah," and supplied the Phoenicians with blue and purple (Ezekiel 27:7). Josephus identifies them with the Aeolians. Others connect Elishah with Elis in the Peloponnese.

Tarshish follows. Here it appears that we need not doubt an original settlement on the south shore of Spain. The Phoenicians later had trading stations there too, and from there their ships brought silver, iron, tin and lead to Tyre, as Ezekiel 27:12 tells us. The ships of Tarshish were the most famous for merchandise in ancient times… There may have been another place of the same name in the south east or the Indian ocean, to which Solomon's ships sailed from Ezion-Geber.

There is no difficulty about Kittim. The term is applied beyond dispute to two of the peninsulas of Europe — first Greece (or Macedon), then Rome or Italy… So in Balaam's prophecy (Numbers 24:24) we learn of a fleet from the west afflicting Asshur, when all man's power comes to destruction. Elsewhere we hear of the "isles" or sea-coasts of Kittim. That can hardly mean Cyprus, as Josephus and many since his day have understood it.

The Old Testament refers to it several times in connection with its "ships." At first it points to Cyprus. But Jeremiah 2:10 and Ezekiel 27:6 speak of the "isles of Chittim," so it is clear that in the Prophets other islands go with Cyprus.

Descendants of Javan, son of Japheth. Genesis 10:4; 1 Chronicles 1:7. In the margin the name is RODANIM, which has some manuscript support.

Javan's firstborn is Elishah, "God has forgotten." That is always the thought in a soul that has forgotten Him. His second son is Tarshish, and… he speaks of one who goes out from the presence of God. He is a seeker on his own account, attracted by everything shining or conspicuous. He is trying to satisfy himself with what has never satisfied anyone. But that helps us understand the energy he puts into it. He is the ideal explorer, and the riches of the earth become his own… Here is the restless spirit of one adrift from God — a prodigal.

"May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant." From Japheth have come all the European nations. They have spread out to the ends of the earth. They have entered into the favour that belonged to Israel — and Israel has been cut out of it for the time being because of their unbelief, as Romans 11 shows.

The word usually translated "isles" also covers coast-lands (such as the Greek, Italian, Spanish and Scandinavian peninsulas), and settlements or homes wider still. Gesenius argues this, and the more learned modern Jews fully agree. Again, four things mark the division: their lands, the tongue spoken, their family descents, and the resulting nation.

There are no islands near to Palestine. Cyprus is the nearest, and that is about seventy miles from the nearest point of Syria, far north. So the term "the isles" may be used at times indefinitely for places or nations far off.

How did all these languages come into existence? They are the result of God's judgment at Babel, when "there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them" (Gen. 11:9). In Genesis 10:5 we read: "From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language …" It is here that the word "tongue" first occurs in the Bible.

It is clear that the order of time is not in question here. The following chapter shows that the difference of tongues was imposed suddenly by a divine act of judgment… The orderly partition followed the confused dispersion.

Yet, contrary to the common purpose of men, each country went to its own race… The memory of the flood would not dispose men to separate. But God meant it to be, and so it was: one race of Adam, yet with all the variety into which the different family lines were to divide and fill the earth.

But the God of creation is the God of providence, and He knows how to give effect to His word. Here we have Europe, though not Europe only, as the destined scene for the line of Japheth. Of all the earth it is the most varied in outline and has the most coastline, since its shores are the most deeply cut. That makes it the easiest to reach through its inland seas, and the most open to contact with other lands. It was exactly suitable for him who was to be enlarged in his activity beyond his brothers.

The principle of government, which God laid on Noah and his sons, was to prove its great practical value. Its control could now reach men far more easily, once nations marked them off from one another… Families of course had existed before, in the middle of an undivided race. From now on, in the new state of things, they take their place in their lands by the lesser relation of their nations. Each nation was welded together by the tongue that set it apart from others of different descent and place.

It is evident from Acts 17:26 that the earth's surface is enough for men to live on, and that God has set the bounds of the nations. If men had respected these God-appointed bounds, and had been content with the "place in the sun" He had given them, there would have been no wars.

The peopling of the earth was in view of the coming of the Heir of all things, He for Whom all things were made.

In the Old Testament prophets we can identify the descendants of the line of Japheth, as well as those to follow of Ham and Shem. In Revelation… we hear of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, out of which the Lamb purchased saints to God by His blood.