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Origin of Nations

Origin of Races and Nations - The Bible is clear in teaching that all present races and nations, tribes and languages, have been derived from Noah’s three sons and three daughters-in-law in the few thousand years since the great Flood. It was shown in the previous chapter that the development of the present world population from this beginning is quite reasonable and conservative. However, it might be questioned whether such extreme variations in physical and linguistic characteristics among different groups of men could develop so rapidly. Presumably before the Flood, all men spoke the same language and were of the same race. At any rate, this was true of Noah’s family at least. 

Several major European royal genealogies can be traced all the way back to Noah's sons, and the Table of Nations listed in: Genesis, chapters 10-11. This is another important evidence points us directly back to our true ancient history; one which is on the order of thousands of years and in concurrence with the Bible's true record of our ancient history. Bill Cooper, of Middlesex, England, wrote and edited "After the Flood" in 1995 after spending over 30 years carefully researching ancient European genealogies. "After the Flood" is a compiled summary of this extensive research; all of which is independently verifiable from within the archives of several national libraries.  

Listen to Dr. Cooper, “When applied to the Table of Nations, this healthy historical research yields some surprising facts, surprising that is, in the light of what most commentaries go to such great lengths to assure us of, namely that Genesis is not to be trusted as accurate history. The Table of Nations is a simple genealogy, I wanted to see how many of its names were attested in the records of other nations in the Middle East, which included for my purposes all the nations of Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and even Greece. Over the years, little by little, pieces of corroborative evidence came together and a picture began to build up that revealed the tenth and eleventh chapters of Genesis to be an astonishingly accurate record of events. The Table of Nations had listed all the families and tribes of mankind in their correct groupings, whether those groupings were ethnological, linguistic or geographical. All the names, without exception, were accurate, and in more than twenty-five years of searching and analyzing, I uncovered not one mistake or false statement of fact in the Table of Nations. “ 

The Japhetic Races (10:1-5)

In His governmental dealings with mankind, God saw to it that the races were dispersed over the globe. The confounding of human speech at Babel was intended to force the nations apart and hasten their distribution over the face of the planet. The table of nations begins with the Japhetic races.  In all, fourteen Japhetic families are listed in v. 2-5, thirty Hamitic families are listed in v. 6-20 and twenty-six Semitic families in v. 21-32, making a total of seventy families altogether. 

A summary of the nations of the Middle East concerning the descendants of Japheth, show the trend of that evidence in vindicating the Genesis account. Moreover, the Japhetic line is the briefest in the Table of Nations. The Japhetic list in the Table of Nations looks like this when set out as a conventional genealogy:

Very briefly then, as we consider just a few of the names in the Japhetic list, we find that in the mythology of the old world, Japheth was regarded as the father of many peoples, particularly the Indo-European nations. The pagan Greeks perpetuated his name as Iapetos, the son of heaven and earth and again the father of many nations. We find his name in the vedas of India where it appears in Sanskrit as Pra-Japati, Father Japheth, who was deemed to be the sun and lord of creation, the source of life in other words for those descended from him. Later, the Romans were to perpetuate his name as that of Ju-Pater, Father Jove, later standardised to Jupiter. We shall see also that the early Irish Celts, the early Britons and other pagan European races traced the descent of their royal houses from Japheth, including the Saxons who knew him as Sceaf (pr. sheaf or shaif). And all these peoples, we must remember, were pagans whose knowledge or even awareness of the book of Genesis was non-existent.  

Thus it comes about that, throughout the entire Table of Nations, whether we talk about the descendants of Shem, Ham or Japheth, every one of their names is found in the records of the early surrounding nations of the Middle East, even the many obscure names of certain remote Arab tribes that are otherwise not evident in any modern history book of the times, and enough is available for a detailed history to be written about them. It is a phenomenon of immense implications.  

Seven Founders of the Japhetic Nations

First the founders of the Japhetic nations are listed, beginning with Gomer.  

·         In Genesis 10:2 Gomer's descendants are often identified with the Cimmerians who first settled on the shores of the Caspian and Black Seas and who later spread into Europe as far as the Atlantic, leaving marks of their presence in Germany and Wales. They were later driven away by the Elamites. The prophet Ezekiel, during the time of the Captivity, referred to them as those who dwelt in the uppermost parts of the north. They appear in Assyrian records as the Gimirraya whose defeat under King Esarhaddon is duly noted. They appear also in the annals of the reign of Ashurbanipal of Assyria around 660 BC. The people of Ashchenaz are found in earliest times in Armenia, and later Jewish writers associate them with the Germanic races (Germanic Jews to this day are called Ashkenazim). They appear also in the 6th century BC records of Assyria as the Askuza who allied themselves with the Mannai in a revolt against Assyria, an event also mentioned in Jeremiah (51:27) whose prophecy incidentally confirms the identity of the Askuza with the Ashkenazim. ... and so on.

·         Magog comes next. His were a fierce and warlike people ruled over by princes who bore the royal appellation "Gog" (comparable to "Pharoah" or "Caesar"). Their descendants are thought to be the Scythians and their territory to be in the Caucasus. We would identify them today with the Russians.

·         Madai is the third founding father listed. His descendants are thought to be the Medes, and their territory is linked with the southwest shore of the Caspian Sea.

·         Javan became the father of the Greek peoples.

·         Tubal  found their home in northern Armenia and, again, would today be identified with the Russians.

·         Meschech found their home in northern Armenia and, again, would today be identified with the Russians.

·         Tiras is thought to have been the ancestor of the Thracians or of certain tribes who found their home around the Taurus. 

Seven Founding Families of the Japhetic Nations

Having listed seven founding fathers, the narrative goes on to describe seven founding families beginning with the sons of Gomer in 10:3-4. 

·         In Genesis 10:3 the first named is Ashkenaz. Jewish commentators believe that his descendants founded Germany.  To this day Jews from Germany and central Europe are referred to as Ashkenazis.  Riphath gave his name to the Riphaean mountains on the north of the Caspian. (Is it coincidental that perhaps the largest single discovery of gas and oil ever- worth TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS- may have been found last year in this Caspian Sea area?) The descendants of Togarmah are generally identified with the Phrygians, the Cappadoceans, the Armenians, and the Taurians inhabiting the Crimea. It is significant that a number of those peoples are identified by Ezekiel with the hostile, antisemitic nation that bursts out of the "uttermost parts of the north" in the last days to descend in battle array upon Israel (Ezekiel 38-39). Magog, Meschech, Tubal, Gomer, Togarmah are all to be members of that anti-God alliance of the last days.

·         In v. 4 the sons of Javan come next into prominence beginning with Elishah, thought by some to be Elis in the Peloponnesus, but in any case a maritime people of Grecian stock. Tarshish is frequently identified with southwest coast of Spain. It became famous in Bible times as a wealthy and important seaport. Prophetically, it stands for the "uttermost parts of the west," the western world. Kittim is identified with Cyprus, but also with the shores of Italy and Greece. The identification of Dodanim is obscure. It is interesting that many of the sons of Javan are depicted by Ezekiel as opposing the invasion of Israel by Russia in a coming day. 

·         The statement concerning the Japhetic nations closes with a summary (10:5) of the geographical, philological, tribal, and national divisions of the "Gentiles" (goyim). Those are the nations that came to power after the fall of Babylon and that have controlled the world ever since.  Positive identification of some of the peoples and territories cannot be made. Scholars differ on the matter. 

The Hamitic Races   (10: 6-20)

The table next turns to the Hamitic races. In the early dawn of human history they were the vigorous, aggressive peoples, the early empire builders, the controllers of human destiny. It must have seemed to the old world skeptics that God's prophetic word through Noah regarding the enlargement of Japheth was singularly at fault. Not so. God's prophecies are frequently long-range and take time to mature. With those ancient skeptics it was their perspective that was at fault, not prophecy. 

The Hamitic list begins with notable names (10:6-7), the first of which is Cush.  

1.      In Genesis 10:6 the original settlements of Cush might have been on the upper Nile, and he is most generally identified with Ethiopia, although some of his descendants are thought to have migrated to Arabia, Babylonia, and India. The Bible depicts the Cushites as being black (Jeremiah 13:23) and tall (Isaiah 45:14).

2.      Mizraim founded Egypt. The word is a dual word and would thus embrace both Egypts, upper and lower, sprawling along the length of the Nile. The original name for Egypt was Kem, thought by some to be a reference to Ham.

3.      Phut founded the nation of Libya on the African coast. Canaan occupied the territory that afterward bore his name and that, for a period, was a province of Egypt.

4.      In genesis 10:7 a number of the sons of Cush are listed, most of whom settled the country between the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf or else Ethiopia. Seba's descendants seem to have occupied Nubia in northern Ethiopia.

5.      The sons of Havilah are identified with what was essentially Semitic territory between the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. That vast territory was large enough to accommodate peoples from both major races. The sons of Sabtah are linked both with Ethiopia and Arabia. Both Raamah's and Sabtechah's descendants are linked with the Persian Gulf. Two of Raamah's sons are listed. Sheba's name has been linked with the great city of that name in Arabia and Dedan's name is associated with the Persian Gulf. 

In Genesis 10:8-12 Nimrod whom we covered in our RCC and Revelation study became a kingdom builder and the founder perhaps of idolatry, astrology, and all the black arts. 

Next Moses begins to point toward the origins of God’s Nation of Israel. First Mizraim's descendants are listed. They are all peoples associated with Egypt. The writer gives the added note in v. 14 that the Philistines originally sprang from Egyptian stock. The word "Philistine" is said to be derived from an Ethiopic root meaning "to emigrate." 

The descendants of Canaan are listed last.

1.      In Genesis 10:15 the first and foremost of those was Sidon (10:15) who founded the oldest Canaanite city which, together with its sister city, Tyre, became a famous commercial and maritime center. Phoenician explorers and colonists set forth from those cities. Carthage, the ancient rival of Rome on the African coast, was a colony of Tyre.

2.      In Genesis 10:16-20 Heth founded the Hittite nation. The Jebusites held Jerusalem until David's mighty men wrested it from them. The Amorites entrenched themselves on both sides of the Jordan and in the mountains that afterward belonged to Judah. Little or nothing is known of the Girgashites. The Hivites were villagers or "settlers in cities." The Arkites and the Sinites, the Arvadites and the Zemarites together with the Hamathites complete the list of Canaanite tribes. Those were the peoples whose culture and religion were so vile that God later commanded their complete extermination. 

The Semetic Races [9] (10:21-32)

Having dealt with the other peoples, Moses concentrates on the Semitic races. Very little is known about Shem, where he lived, what he did, the size of his family, the convictions that he had. Abraham was a distant descendant of Shem 7 GREATS! (his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson if the chronologies are complete), and Abraham lived an utter pagan in thriving Ur of the Chaldees.  

One supposition is that Shem and Melchizadek were one and the same persons, though there is little proof to substantiate that. But, if it were so, if the famous Melchizadek of Salem were indeed the long-lived Shem, then Abraham must have doubly felt his loss. The list is carried down to Peleg and Joktan, in whose day the great sundering of mankind took place, doubtless a reference to the confusion of tongues at Babel.  

In Genesis 10:22 the first of Shem's sons was Elam, who settled the mountainous district east of Babylonia. Asshur comes next; he founded the nation of Assyria. Arphaxad's territory is said to be north of Assyria. The descendants of Lud were the Lydians of Asia minor, having migrated there from countries more closely identified with Shem. The descendants of Aram settled in Damascus and Mesopotamia.  

In v. 23 we see four of Aram's descendants are named. The land of Uz was settled by his firstborn. Uz was a tract of territory southeast of Palestine in the Arabian desert, famous as the place where Job lived. His other sons, Hul, Gether, and Mash, are thought to have settled in Armenia. 

In v. 24 Shem's third son, Arphaxad, is the most important in the entire list of nations because it was through him the royal line led to Abram and thence to Christ. Nothing is known of Salah, Shem's grandson, except that his name means "extension," implying, perhaps, that he was an early colonist. His importance lies in the fact that his son was Eber, the father of the Hebrew people. The name "Eber" means "emigrants." His descendants came from "the other side of the flood" (that is, the Euphrates) to Canaan (Joshua 24:2-3, 14-15).  

In v. 25 Eber's two sons both rank high in the list. Peleg's name means "division," appropriately enough. The division of mankind into nations and the curse of tongues at Babel are commemorated in his name. At that point Moses leaves the royal line for a while and ends the table of nations with a brief summary of the related line that ran through Joktan[10]. 

In v. 26-31 Joktan is thought to be the father of the Arabians. His thirteen sons are listed. Almodad is thought to have founded Yemen, Ophir is probably Oman on the Persian Gulf. The other sons are all more or less linked with Arabia. 

In v. 32 while concluding the table of nations, Moses gives a brief summary. “These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided (the word means 'disrupted,' emphasizing man's disruption in judgment) in the earth after the flood: (10:32). The whole chapter emphasizes the completeness of man's dispersal and the picture it gives, although some of its details may be uncertain today, is certainly one of worldwide dispersal.