Genesis 10

Bible Study Lesson for June 17

Usually on Wednesday nights, some in our community get together to share prayer requests, we pray together, and I bring a Bible lesson for them. Last week, we covered Genesis 9:18-29 so I will pick up today where we left off beginning with chapter 10.

First I’d like to talk about prayer requests. Online communication being what it is, I would rather not get into specific requests in this space, and will leave that for the more private communications that the church has with each other. But I do want to remember a few general prayer requests:

-our government, those making decisions on our behalf

-those in the medical community

-those in food service, grocery stores, and other essential businesses

-those in other businesses that are opening and preparing to open

-teachers and students still figuring out what the closures of schools means for them -prisoners and prison guards

-first responders

-those whose life and income has been disrupted by the current crisis.

I also want to remember all of those suffering from Covid-19 and the communities that it is affecting, including our own.

In addition to these, let’s also pray for everyone involved with demonstrations around our country and the world.

-protesters

-police

-government officials

-hospitals

-reconciliation

Take a moment to pray for these folks now before we begin.

Genesis 10

10:1 The Sons of Noah

This is the genealogy of the sons of Noah. The concern in this passage is to set the table for what comes next. Here we have the origins of empires largely in the descendants of Cush (son of Ham). We have one mighty warrior, Nimrod, in Ham’s family. The Canaanite tribes find their first mention here as well. And we have, finally, the lineage of Eber— the father of the Semitic families who would become the Hebrews.

10:2-5 The Sons of Japheth

The Genesis story is least interested in the sons of Japheth. In these four verses, we have little more than a list of names, a few of which become places that will be familiar later in the Bible. The descendants of Japheth are neither ancestors nor competitors for Israel and they become the people who live at the coastlands and the nomadic peoples who live just off the edge of the Biblical map. Two names that may be familiar here are Tarshish (from the story of Jonah) and Magog (from the book of Ezekiel). Tarshish is associated with the naval powers of the day and Magog is the nation of nomadic horsemen that occupy the lands far to the east, stretching out toward India.

10:6-20 The Sons of Ham

Considerably more attention is given to the sons of Ham, the fathers of nations that will be much more important in the Old Testament story. Israel will serve and struggle against the empires from the sons of Cush. The sons of Canaan become the tribal enemies with whom Israel will wrestle for the Promised Land.

10:7-14 Cush

Nimrod appears suddenly in verse 8, much like Enoch’s intrusion in the earlier genealogy. Nimrod becomes the first “mighty warrior” in history. This term is used to identify kings and empire builders. 

Nimrod’s prowess is first explained by his ability as a hunter, but he turns that ability to conquest. His empire included the city of Babel, which will be important in the next chapter. Babel will also become the basis of Babylon, the empire at the center of the most desperate chapters of Israel’s history. A second city, Erech is the homeland of some of the ancestors of the Samaritans in the Gospels. The third city, Accad/Akkad, provides a connection between this story and world history. Sargon of Akkad became the first empire builder that historians can find court records for. Presumably, he would have been a descendant of the Biblical Nimrod, continuing and formalizing his empire building work.

Nimrod next went on to Assyria and built cities there, which again would function as oppressors and threats to Israel’s sovereignty throughout their history. It is ironic that Nimrod is seen as the founder of both Babylonian and Assyrian cities, as those empires would often fight with each other and take each other’s places at the head of the nations. Assyria eventually fell first and Babylon wouldn’t last long afterward.

The name Nimrod likely comes from the Hebrew root mrd (rebel). This may indicate that the use of might to create empires is a rebellion against the purpose of God. Politically, an enforced or humanly created unity undermines the true unity that has its place in the will and movement of God in history. The Bible sees all of humanity as united, because we have our origin in God. Here, in Genesis 10, everyone has their place. Nations are conceived as families and nations therefore take their place as neighbors in strange, interconnected relationships.

Also among the sons of Cush, we have Egypt, from which Israel will emerge as a nation of freed slaves. Egypt here is also shown to be the origin of the Philistines who will be the main threat to Israel in their early history.

10:15-19 Canaan

As we saw in Noah’s curse of Ham last week, Canaan is the most important of Ham’s sons in the Biblical story. The Canaanite tribes will be the main foil for Israel in their claiming the promised land. Behind the Old Testament is a struggle over the land between the Canaanites, the Philistines, and the Israelites. Among the Canaanite tribes, the Jebusites deserve special mention. They will build the city of Jebus, where David will make his capital and rename it Jerusalem. The Jebusites remain in a complicated relationship with the Israelites for a very long time.

The “territory of the Canaanites” will become basically the boundaries of Israel at the height of Solomon’s power. It includes some cities, such as Sodom and Gomorrah, which will be very important in the Genesis story.

10:21-31 The Sons of Shem

Already in verse 21, the story focuses on Eber, Shem’s descendent. We have no real stories of Eber, but he is the person from whom the Hebrews get their name. The name Eber contains the root “to cross over” from several Ancient Near Eastern languages including Hebrew. The destiny of the tribes of Eber is to cross over the river and claim the land of Canaan for themselves.

10:32 Conclusion

The stories we tell are important. In Genesis 10 each nation is able to find its place because they “spread abroad on the earth after the flood” (v. 32). The empty world provided an opportunity for flourishing. Instead of the pre-flood cycles of revenge and violence that started with Cain, the world after the flood is a world with room for everyone. But in the story of Nimrod, we see the quest for unity based on who is “inside” and who is “outside.” This becomes the beginning of the end for this naive new world.

There are at least two ways to seek unity. The way of Nimrod is to make conquest. In conquering and dominating, we can impose unity on other people. We can create unity where it hasn’t exist it before by enforcing conformity on other people. When groups do this, they force other peoples to give up their cultural identities in favor of new values, new stories, new festivals, and a new way of life. 

Another way to seek unity is to search for the things that already unite us. What can we learn from each other? What can we celebrate along with the people we encounter? Some Christian denominations in the last 60 years or so have tried to find unity rather than force it. When Catholics and Lutherans finally began to sit down together and have conversation after 450 years after their split, the result was a joint statement on Justification by Faith. This doctrine had been the very thing that resulted in Martin Luther leaving the Catholic Church. These Christians in the twentieth century began to look for what they could agree on. Now, Lutherans and Catholics have a better relationship of mutual support and affirmation, while also continuing to have differences.

One of the things that set Christianity apart from Judaism in the first century was that Christianity was a religion and not an ethnicity or nationality. To convert to Judaism in the time of Christ and the apostles, men had to be circumcised and everyone had to follow Jewish dietary customs and festival calendars. To become Jewish was to leave behind other cultural and national identities and become a member of Israel. For Christians, it became important that the nations come to faith in Christ, because Christ’s saving work was universal. But the nations did not lose their identity and become dissolved into Israel. The book of Revelation captures this shift perfectly:

“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!””

(Rev. 7:9–10 NRSV)

In this vision from Revelation, we see that those from the nations coming to Jesus remain who they are. They do not find their unity in the music that they worship with or their mode of baptism. Instead they find unity in the God whom they worship, in the place that they look for salvation. 

When we invite people to church, we should expect them to bring themselves—all of themselves—with them. We can’t ask them to leave behind their language, clothing style, musical preferences— in a word, their culture. Removing people from their culture and insisting they act just like us or expecting the next generation of church members to do things the same way we have always done them is creating cheap unity. It makes the cost of being “unified” - giving up your culture and personality - too great. It also hurts our mission of making disciples out of the nations because if we force uniformity, we pull people away from the world, which is their mission field. The God we find in Jesus is bigger than all the things that would divide us. Our unity in Christ is about who we worship together - Jesus Christ. Anything else is an idol.

Looking ahead...

On Sunday, I will be preaching from Luke 5:27-39. In that passage, the Pharisees (good church folks) are appalled because Jesus is eating with “tax collectors and sinners.” Jesus challenges them to see the cause for celebration, that new groups are coming to hear the word of God. In what ways are we skeptical of believers who follow different rules than we do? Who are the “tax collectors and sinners” of our day? What do we expect of people who come to join our church? What should we expect?