And their dwelling was from Mesha, as one goes to Sephar, the eastern mountain.
Genesis 10 lists Noah's descendants and also says where they settled, and this verse maps the land of Joktan's many sons. Two names mark its edges, Mesha and Sephar, so where were they and why record them?
Unlike the names before it, this verse gives no new person. It sets the outer edges of a region already filled in by the preceding list.
The verse we now come to needs close study. It matters, and it is difficult too. It is clearly a general description of the limits within which the many sons of Joktan lived. We have already identified their homes in detail throughout Arabia. The only exception is those who crossed to the western shore of the narrow strait that separates their father's land from Africa.
Sephar, the far marker, still has a name like it in southern Arabia.
A mountainous district, the boundary of the descendants of Joktan. It is probably Dhafar, pronounced Zafar, or Dhafari, pronounced Zafari, in Hadramaut, part of southern Arabia.
Mesha is harder, and the writers differ. Kelly starts from Sephar in the south-west and puts Mesha at the far corner of the peninsula, where a mountain frontier once divided Joktan's sons from hostile tribes.
Trace Sephar to the Dhafàr on the border of Yemen and Hadrámaut, in the south-west of Arabia. That goes far to fix Mesha in the north-east of the peninsula. This best suits the short summary of the Joktanite settlements... There is a mountain chain in the Nedjd. It was the boundary of the sons of Joktan in that very region, and their enemies roamed north of it — the sure mark of a distinct race.
Another writer kept both markers in that same south-western corner. Kelly answers that the space is then far too small:
But he takes Sephar to be the mountain near Saphar, in the hill-country between Yemen and Hadrámaut. Such limits are little more than 200 miles. They clearly cannot fit the wide spread of the sons of Joktan across the southern half of the peninsula.
We can test a verse of geography, and Arabia is good ground for it.
Muslim fanaticism has for long centuries shut Arabia and its many races off from free or friendly contact with the rest of mankind. Even so, the Greek and Latin geographers, before and since the Christian era, give striking help in identifying its places and races with those that existed then... And for our purpose here, nowhere in the world do names survive so well, resisting change or outliving it, as among the peoples of the east.
A boundary implies someone who set it. Mackintosh reads the whole chapter that way:
Israel was, and shall yet be, God's centre on earth. It is a fact of the deepest interest that from the very beginning, as we see in Genesis 10, the Creator and Governor of the world formed the nations and fixed their bounds. He did it according to His own sovereign will, and with direct reference to the seed of Abraham and that narrow strip of land which they are to have, by the everlasting covenant made with their fathers.
That is why a chapter of names carries such weight:
No chapter in the Bible is more important than Genesis 10 for the way God arranged languages, families, and nations. It alone gives the rise of the different races, and where they came from. Who else could have told us how and when the earth was divided like this?... Here man is out of his depth. Yet where men do reach conclusions, all who have given their minds to the study agree on this much: nations fall into three lines, and only three. So it is here... It is just as certain, in the conviction of men worth hearing, that the three lines had one common origin. Scripture states that there was only one such root.
This verse closes Joktan's branch. The next chapter follows Peleg's line instead.
This genealogy of Genesis 11 continues with Reu the son of Peleg, ignoring Joktan and his sons. The reason is clear. Reu's line leads to Nahor, Terah and Abram. God had purposed Abram to be the father of a chosen race, whom He would separate from the rest of the nations.
- Boundary. The verse adds no new name. It fixes the outer edges of the land Joktan's sons filled, from Mesha to Sephar.
- Place. Sephar is most likely Dhafar in southern Arabia. On Mesha the writers differ: some keep it in the south-west, Kelly puts it in the north-east.
- Breadth. The line runs wide. A stretch of only 200 miles cannot hold a family spread across the southern half of the peninsula.
- Proof. Eastern names cling to their places for centuries. Greek and Latin geographers still confirm the map Genesis draws.
- Purpose. God fixed these bounds with Abraham's seed and their land in view. So the record now leaves Joktan and follows Peleg's line to Abram.
These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.
This verse closes Shem's list the same way the chapter closed the lines of Japheth and Ham: by clans, languages, lands and nations. Yet the rest of the Bible grows out of this one line. Why did God map the nations at all, and what was He preparing inside this family?
The three lists in this chapter are not written in the same key:
In the cases of Japheth and of Ham, the Holy Spirit just records names… nothing but the bare fact, without a word of praise or blame. When we come to Shem, we are in a higher atmosphere. We find that God is the Lord God of Shem, and the moral side, the character of things, comes into view — not just names or history.
So the dry detail matters. Behind these families and borders, God Himself is at work:
In Shem, God's history begins. He is Jehovah, the God of Shem. We have dates and set periods, for God governs after all, and the world must follow. Man belongs to God… But God's people have always been the centre of known history.
Noah's words after the flood tied blessing to this line. Where the ESV has "the LORD," these writers use the name "Jehovah." One commentator is careful about how the blessing runs:
Noah's prophecy gave blessing to Shem — or, to be exact, the word was "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem." So it has been. So faith knows now. And so it will be fulfilled in full, when Christ makes the truth undeniable, in glorious results that every eye can see. This is not what God is doing through the gospel or in the church. He keeps it for the age to come.
The blessing did not stay inside Shem's tent:
Shem receives a special blessing: "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem" (Genesis 9:26-27). This came true when Jehovah became the God of Shem's descendants through Abraham. The sons of Japheth — the Gentiles — came into the tents for blessing.
The four markers in this verse — clan, language, land, nation — describe a world that had not existed before. One writer reads them with a sober note:
So both the judgment and the grace of God meet in Shem, and He is the Lord God of Shem. Before this there was only one language. Now the history of nations begins, and men soon learned to hate and fight. It is a solemn thought, as we look round at the many different nations of the earth, that all these nationalities began in sin and judgment. In the eternal state God will wipe out the last trace of this moral ruin. Then the tabernacle of God will be with men, not with nations. National differences will disappear.
The lands in this verse were no accident of migration. One writer sees a plan behind every border:
Israel was, and shall yet be, God's earthly centre. From the very start, as we see in Genesis 10, the Creator and Governor of the world formed the nations and fixed their borders. He did it by His own sovereign will, and with direct reference to the seed of Abraham and to that narrow strip of land they are to have under the everlasting covenant made with their fathers.
A place in Shem's list protected no one. The same corruption reached even the family God would later call:
Ham may lead the way, for the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was certainly Babel. But Asshur soon followed the same path — not only of ambition, but of idolatry. Even the family of the man chosen to be the father of the faithful was corrupted in this way, at the very time when God's call went out to bless him and to make him a blessing to all the families of the earth (Joshua 24:2). So no one can boast in himself or in his ways.
Genesis 11 takes the line up again, and the switch of branches is deliberate:
Genesis 10:21-31 goes as far as Joktan the son of Peleg and stops with his thirteen sons. The genealogy of Genesis 11 continues instead with Reu the son of Peleg, ignoring Joktan and his sons. The reason is clear. Reu's line leads on to Nahor, Terah and Abram, and God had purposed Abram to be the father of a chosen race, whom He would separate from the rest of the nations.
- Judgment. Clans, languages, lands, nations: this verse describes a divided world. One writer traces those divisions to sin and judgment, and expects them to vanish in the eternal state.
- Grace. The same line carries blessing — strictly, blessing on the LORD, the God of Shem. Faith holds it now. Its full display waits for the age to come.
- Government. No nation landed where it did by chance. God fixed every border with Abraham's seed and their land in view.
- Warning. Shem's stock was no safer than Ham's. Asshur turned to idolatry, and so did Abraham's own family at the time God called him — so no one can boast in his ancestry.
- Continuation. The list stops at Joktan. The story moves on through Reu to Terah and Abram, the line God had marked out.
These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations. And from these came the distribution of the nations on the earth after the flood.
Genesis 10 ends by closing the record of Noah's three sons. Where did the peoples of the world come from? And why does one book alone claim to answer it?
The list of names looks dry. Yet one writer ranks this chapter above every other in the Bible on the origin of the nations.
No chapter in the Bible is more important than Genesis 10 for the way God arranged tongues, families, and nations. Only here do we find the rise of the different races, with their sources. Who else could have told us how and when the earth was divided in this way? … This is the divine ethnology. Here man is at sea. But where he does reach conclusions, all who have studied it agree, as far as I know, on one thing at least. The nations branch into three divisions, and only three. So it is here.
Genesis 10 already names nations and their languages. But Babel, where languages began, comes only in the next chapter.
Chapter 10 is not history, but a survey of the whole earth. There were no tongues or nations at all until Babel; if you try to put this chapter into time, you will go entirely astray.
The cause of that division is recorded, but not in this chapter.
It is only in Genesis 11 that we find the cause and occasion that started it. The previous chapter comes in, not following historical time, but as a descriptive parenthesis between Genesis 9 and 11.
Men did not choose to separate. God forced the split on them, and yet it ran along family lines.
So it was that mankind spread everywhere after the flood. It happened after a certain lapse of time, not willingly, but under the constraint of divine power. This confused them thoroughly and at once, so that they might well dread the outcome of any further effort to disobey. So nationalities began, each with its own tongue, in their lands, but with mercy ruling according to their families. There was no confusion in Jehovah's ordering. Genesis 11:1-9 is the key to the previous chapter, the moral account of what was there given as a fact.
The scattering came first. The dividing of the earth came later, in Peleg's day.
So, instead of one vast commonwealth of all mankind, the divine Governor brought about man's dispersion first, and at length, in Peleg's day, the division of the earth. Whatever might come by migration or by decision, the nations, after their families and tongues, occupied their lands down to the apostle's day and to ours. God is not mocked.
The nations named here are not a closed chapter of ancient history.
This part of the history comes before Abram. It shows the earth under government. Here we have the recorded fact of the division of the earth among its various nations and families. We find this in Genesis 10, where the fact is stated, while its origin is explained only in chapter 11. … Take the list of nations gathered under the wilful king in the last days, and under Gog in Ezekiel. It brings us back to the same nations, tongues, and families set before us at the outset. … The rest of the intervening Scripture is the history of calling and grace.
The verse dates all this after the flood. That flood was a judgment, and what followed it was a fresh start for the whole race.
A fresh start for the race began after the flood, which judged the guilty mass. From Noah and his three sons, whom God preserved from destruction, conditions began which continue today. They will continue for their descendants until the Son of man comes with the clouds of heaven. He will be given dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, so that all peoples and languages should serve Him. … Instead of beginning with a single line, we have three heads with their wives, three great families to renew the history of man on earth.
- One root. Every nation traces back to Noah's three sons. No other record tells us how and when the earth was divided.
- One judgment. The nations did not drift apart. Divine power scattered them at Babel, and chapter 11 gives the reason for the fact chapter 10 states.
- One order. The scattering was not chaos. Mercy ruled according to their families, and the division of the earth came in Peleg's day.
- One map. Those lands and tongues held to the apostle's day and to ours. The same names return under Gog and the wilful king at the end.
- One King. These conditions run until the Son of man receives His kingdom, and all peoples and languages serve Him. Everything Scripture records in between is the history of calling and grace.