Genesis 10:1-11:9
Dear RTB’ers,
The whole of chapter 10 might be just a bunch of foreign names to some of you, but it’s surprising how many of these names show up later in the Bible. My own short list (surely forgetting some that show up later): Gomer, Magog, Tubal, Meshech, Tarshish, Kittim, Cush, Egypt, Put, Canaan, Havilah, Sheba, Nimrod, Babel, Shinar, Assyria, Nineveh, Rehoboth, the Philistines, Sidon, Heth, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, Sidon, Gerar, Gaza, Sodom, Gomorrah, Eber, Elam, Asshur, Lud, Aram, Uz, Peleg, Sheba, Ophir, and Havilah. I am only mentioning familiarity. For a few of these I know their Biblical location or their context; others are in there somewhere! Bottom line – the more you read the Bible, the more these connections become alive!
A couple of other items. Notice that Sodom and Gomorrah are descended from Ham, who saw his father’s nakedness (Genesis 9:22). Also, one of Seth’s descendants is Eber (Genesis 10:21, 24, 25), from whom arises the name “Hebrew”. Among Eber’s descendants we find Abram (Genesis 11:14-17, 22-32) – and that story goes on to this day!
My Study Bible in chapter 10 devotes more space to notes than to the Biblical text, in many cases identifying these names with geographical locations in the ancient world. I’ll try to take a photo of these pages from that Bible and post it later.
Finally, one other item. Chronologically, it seems that the first nine verses of chapter 11 actually come before the names in chapter 10. At the beginning of chapter 11 they are one people and one language until God looks down and confuses their language.
Blessings!
Considering Genesis 11:1-9, it’s one thing to look at the story of the Tower of Babel as a bit of ancient history and as an explanation for the diversity of languages and the dispersion of people across the world. It’s another thing to think about ourselves and how this story illustrates our own attitudes. What might be your own personal Tower of Babel? How do you try to “make a name for yourself” or to reach to the heavens apart from God? In what do you trust for your status? Or how about on a larger, national scale? I’m proud to be an American, but do we put too much stock in our status as an economic powerhouse or the world’s greatest military? We should each think long and hard before we blithely assume that we are not likewise building Towers of Babel.