Genesis10chapter 10

Genesis 10:1

This is the fourth of the eleven headings that carve Genesis into sections, after the heavens and the earth at 2:4, Adam at 5:1 and Noah at 6:9. Each heading narrows the field, and this one opens the widest list in the book, covering every nation the writer knew. It stands before the Babel story rather than after it, so the reader meets the scattering first and the reason for it second.

Genesis 10:2-4

Japheth's line is taken first although he is named last in verse 1, which Gill calls a chiasm and which clears the outer nations out of the way before the story narrows. Gomer, Madai, Javan, Tubal and Meshech stand behind peoples later known to Greek and Persian history, and Ezekiel names several of them again in his oracle against Gog. Noah had said that God shall enlarge Japheth, and this list is that enlargement counted out.

Genesis 10:5

The nations are already divided by tongue here, one chapter before the tongues are confused at Babel. Clarke reads the verse as written from the far side of that event, looking back on it, which is why the same formula about families, tongues, lands and nations closes each of the three lists. Isles of the Gentiles means the coastlands, the places a Hebrew reader would reach by sea.

Genesis 10:6-7

Mizraim is Egypt, and this is the first time the country is named in Scripture. Every descent in the book runs through that name, from Abram going down in chapter 12 to Jacob's whole house going down in chapter 46, and so does the Exodus. Canaan is the son Noah had cursed one chapter earlier, and his line will get more space here than any other in the chapter.

Genesis 10:8-9

Nimrod is the one man in the chapter given a story instead of only a name, and the first king Scripture reports. The phrase before the LORD is read two ways. The Septuagint and Matthew Henry take it as open defiance and render it a mighty hunter against the LORD, while others read it as plain emphasis meaning the greatest hunter anywhere; Wesley heard in him the same spirit as the mighty men before the flood, revived within a few generations of the judgment that swept them away.

Genesis 10:10-12

Babel is named here before its story is told, and Shinar becomes a fixed address in the Bible: the tower stands there in the next chapter, Amraphel king of Shinar rides against Abram in chapter 14, and Daniel says the temple vessels were carried into that land. Out of the same kingdom comes Nineveh, so the two capitals that would later carry Israel and Judah into exile both begin in one man's reign. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the move into Assyria as a push into territory the next list assigns to Shem.

Genesis 10:13-14

The Philistines come out of Egypt's line rather than Canaan's, which is why Genesis keeps them separate from the Canaanite nations listed a few verses later. Abraham deals with a king of the Philistines at Gerar in chapter 20 and Isaac with a king of that name in the same town in chapter 26, and Goliath will come out of their city of Gath. Amos says the LORD brought the Philistines up from Caphtor, which is the last name on this list.

Genesis 10:15-18

Canaan's sons are named as the nations Israel would meet in the land, Heth and the Jebusite and the Amorite and the Girgasite and the Hivite. Wesley notes that this line is given more particularly than any other in the chapter for exactly that reason. Heth matters twice over, because the only ground Abraham ever owns in the country of promise is the cave at Machpelah, bought from the sons of Heth for four hundred shekels in chapter 23, and it is a grave.

Genesis 10:19-20

The border drawn in this verse is the country Abram will be promised, and its landmarks are the settings of stories still to come. Gerar is where the wife-sister episode happens twice, to Abraham in chapter 20 and to Isaac in chapter 26. Sodom and Gomorrah are listed here as living cities on a map, three chapters before Lot pitches his tent toward Sodom and nine before the fire falls.

Genesis 10:21

Shem is held back to last although he is named first everywhere else, because the rest of the book follows him and the other lines are cleared out of the way first. He is introduced not by his own sons but by a descendant four generations down, Eber, whose name stands behind the word Hebrew. The line about Japheth the elder is read both ways, Wesley taking it that Japheth was the older brother and others that Shem was.

Genesis 10:22-24

Asshur stands in both halves of the chapter, once as a builder of cities out of Nimrod's land and here as a son of Shem, which is the ground of the old reading that Nimrod pushed into someone else's country. Aram gives his name to the region the family's wives will come from, since Bethuel and Laban are both called Syrians and Jacob is sent to Padan-aram for a bride. Then the list drops to a single thread, Arphaxad to Salah to Eber, and the narrowing that runs the rest of Genesis is under way.

Genesis 10:25

Peleg's name records a division and the text says it fell in his days. Most take that as pointing to Babel in the next chapter, and Jerome says plainly that the languages were divided at Babylon, while Clarke reports another reading in which a physical division of the land is meant rather than a political one. Two sons are born here and the book follows one and lets the other go, the way it follows Seth and not Cain, Isaac and not Ishmael, Jacob and not Esau.

Genesis 10:26-31

Joktan's thirteen sons are counted out in full and then never taken up again, which is what the chapter does with every line except the one it is following. Three of the names carry weight elsewhere: Havilah is the country the river Pison compassed in chapter 2, where the gold was, and Sheba and Ophir stand behind the queen who came to Solomon and the fleet that fetched his gold. Shem's list then closes with the same formula that closed Japheth's and Ham's, families and tongues and lands and nations.

Genesis 10:32

The names in this chapter have been counted at seventy since antiquity, and seventy is also the number of Jacob's house when it goes down into Egypt in chapter 46. Every people on earth is traced back to one family here, which is the ground Paul stands on at Athens when he says God made of one blood all nations of men. From the next chapter the record stops speaking to the nations and follows one man out of Ur.