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CHAPTER 8: Genealogy of Nations - Babel - Confusion of Tongues
(GENESIS 10-11 :10)
IT was the Divine will, that after the flood the whole earth should be repeopled by the
descendants of Noah. For this purpose they must, of course, have separated and
spread, so as to form the different nations and tribes among whom the world should
be apportioned. Any attempted unity on their part would not only be contrary to the
Divine purpose, but also, considering the universal sinfulness of man, prove
dangerous to themselves, and even be untrue, since their inward separation had
already appeared in the different characters and tendencies of Ham and his brothers.
But before recording the judgment by which the Divine purpose was enforced,
Scripture gives us the genealogy of the different nations, and this with a threefold
object - to show how the earth was all peopled from the descendants of Noah; to
define the relation of Israel towards each nationality; and, best of all, to register, as it
were, their birth in the book of God, thereby indicating, that, however "in time past
He suffered all nations to walk in their own ways," (Acts 14:6) they also were
included in the purposes of mercy, and intended finally to "dwell in the tents of
Shem."
In accordance with the general plan on which Holy Scripture is written, we read after
the prophecy of Noah, which fixed the future of his sons, no more of that patriarch
than that he "lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years," and that he died at
the age of nine hundred and fifty years. Regarding the division of earth among his
three sons, it may be said generally, that Asia was given to Shem, Africa to Ham, and
Europe to Japheth. In the same general manner a modern scholar has traced all
existing languages to three original sources, themselves, no doubt, derived from a
primeval spring, which may have been lost in the "confusion of tongues," though its
existence is attested by constant and striking points of connection between the three
great families of languages. The more we think of the allotment of Europe, Asia, and
Africa among the three sons of Noah, the more clearly do we see the fulfillment of
prophecy regarding them. As we run our eye down the catalogue of nations in
Genesis 10, we have little difficulty in recognizing them; and beginning with the
youngest, Japheth, we find of those known to the general reader, the Cymry of Wales
and Brittany (Gomer), the Scythians (Magog), the Medes (Madai), the Greeks
(Ionians, Javan), and the Thracians (Tiras). Among their descendants, the Germans,
Celts, and Armenians have been traced to the three sons of Gomer. It is not necessary
to follow this table farther, though all will remember Tarshish, or Spain, and the
Kittim, or "inhabitants of the isles."
Passing next to Shem (ver. 21), we notice that he is called "the father of all the
children of Eber," because in Eber the main line divided into that of Peleg, from
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