Episode 154: Divided Nations, Divine Diversity & God’s Sovereign Plan (Genesis 10 Study)

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Today Counts Show Episode 154: Divided Nations, Divine Diversity & God’s Sovereign Plan (Genesis 10 Study)

Winston Harris: They actually think Shem could have possibly been Melchizedek in the Old Testament. Which is interesting because there’s parallels between Melchizedek being a foreshadowing of Christ. If Christ comes through the line of Shem, there’s some parallels there.

Matt Martin: If Winston figures out the order of Melchizedek, please write that book. Because I just want to ride your coat tail on the money you will make from that.

Winston Harris: Hey, everybody. Before we jump into today’s episode, we’d like to recognize all those who make this podcast possible. The Today Counts Show is supported by the generous donors of the Lead Today Community. Thank you so much for investing in shaping leaders through this podcast. And be sure to like and subscribe on whatever platform you are watching or listening today. All right, let’s jump into the podcast.

Intro

Jim Piper: Everybody, welcome back to the Today Counts show. I’m very excited about this. You have joined either on purpose or by accident. You have joined the Genesis Project. And if you are a leader and you were just leading the podcast role to the next one and you were looking for leadership tips and whatnot, and next thing you know, you find yourself in a Bible study. Don’t change the channel. Hang with us because, boy, a good foundation of Christian scripture is not going to hurt you. It’s going to help you.

Today, as normal, I have some partners with me. We pretend like we’re at a really nice, warm, cozy, especially today because it’s cold where we are coffee shop. And we are discussing we’re reading and discussing today. We are on Genesis 10. The flood has already occurred. Noah and his family have come out of the ark and now some things happened that weren’t great. And now we continue the story. We could probably call Genesis 10 the Table of Nations. Kind of like, “Hey, Daddy, where did all the people come from?” Well, we could go back to the garden, but it might be a little more accurate to start here in Genesis Chapter 10 because it’s kind of like, all right, here’s a second chance.

Fortunately, we have a God who gives us more than just two chances, but we could maybe call this second chance.
And this is what some people would call a genealogy. It’s much more than that. So I’m not going to read every name because I don’t want you to fall asleep, but I will highlight some things. So I’m going to get started. Chapter 10, verse one, I have Pastor Matt Martin with me and Pastor Winston Harris. Our brother Gary has taken this episode off.

Japheth and His Descendants

Here we go. Chapter 10 verse 1. “This is the history of the families of Shem, Ham, and Japheth,” just in case we forgot, the three sons of Noah. Many children were born to them after the flood.” Verse 2 lists the descendants, or the notable, maybe I should say, descendants of Japheth. In the fifth verse, it tells us a little bit about the culture, the leaning of Japheth and his tribe, which kind of connects to the blessing or the prophecy that Noah made. But it says, “Their descendants,” the descendants of not only Japheth, but his descendants, “their descendants became the seafaring peoples in various lands, each tribe with its own language.” Guys, let’s talk a little bit about Japheth and what we know about this fella and his, I guess you could say, developing nation.

Matt Martin: Yeah, when you look at this, this could be an easy chapter, as you said, to kind of just skip through, but there’s so much. Probably bad choice of words here, but genesis of the- there’s probably a smarter word to use, but so much of a genesis of the second chance that humankind has. And when you look at Japheth, I’ve read through this a couple of times. In transparency here, you know, we talked about this a little bit. And I think that sometimes you can see notes on something like Genesis chapter 10 and think that that book isn’t in the Bible because you just kind of skim it sometimes.

But realizing the depth that is really there of what God is showing us, because, you know, we begin to see the spread of mankind, the truly the replenishing of the earth. You know that God said go multiply reproduce. We’re getting another opportunity at this. Something that I was thinking about earlier is I will look at these a little bit. I love the raw and the real and the transparency of Scripture here because not every person we’re gonna look at in here is a model citizen. You know, there’s still sin, we’re still marred by sin, we’re still broken humanity. And God doesn’t shy away from that in this second chance, as we’ve talked about.

And so as we look at that, knowing that it’s not just a, you know, glossing over of, because if the Bible wasn’t real, or it was trying to speak to a point that, “It’s only the good people.” No, no, no, no. God is big enough. He’s strong enough. His shoulders are wide enough to say, “Oh no, there’s some broken things in the world. There’s some that didn’t get it right. And we’re going to continue to talk about that.” And obviously, we have what we would consider the whole canonized Bible following that of showing broken man.

But when you look at Japheth, you see how they, in my translation, it was just showing that some of them were maritime peoples as the NIV talks about. You begin to see this diversity again. You begin to see, you know, people doing different things and they begin to spread. They begin to expand. They begin to inhabit, which is what God intended for man to do. He created this amazing creation. When we look at it and theologians have done a great job and archaeologists have done a great job, I believe, of even, you know, kind of where some of these people went throughout the earth.

For Japheth’s lineage, some would say that, you know, it’s gotten into Europe and parts of Asia. You begin to see the breakdown. I’ve read several commentaries on this, the breakdown kind of where they went. But I do find it interesting that these people were known as some notes I’ve seen that said for their migration and their seafaring ways, even so.

Winston Harris: Yeah, and just to tag off of that too, I think it was in Genesis 9:27, that talks about God enlarging Japheth. And so we see this fulfillment of this promise, right? Kind of just this principle that, you know, God keeps his word. And though, you know, I don’t know if you all know that the timing between Genesis 9 and Genesis 10, if there’s a specific timing, but either way, you know, this even just a little–

Jim Piper: It was a long time.

Winston Harris: That’s good. That’s good enough. It was a long time.

Jim Piper: Expert, you need to footnote that. Jim says it’s a long time.

Matt Martin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, if you look at verse 29 of chapter nine, I mean, Noah lived 950 years. You know what I mean? So there’s a lot of things that happened in there.

Winston Harris: Either way, God kept his promise. Yes.

Jim Piper: Yeah, I’m getting ahead of us a little bit. But what I find fascinating is, I’m going to oversimplify, but how these three sons slash nations became experts are known for certain expertise. Like, you know, this one that we’re reading about here with Japheth, you know, we’ll call them the sailors, right? They’re the Navy of this whole group. And the next one we’re going to look at is they’re like the warriors. You know, the men of war. The other ones we might call the nesters or the farmers or those that are-

Winston Harris: Cowboys?

Jim Piper: -colonizing, whatever.

Matt Martin: Ranchers.

Winston Harris: Cowboys.

Jim Piper: Yeah, yeah. So I think the other thing too to mention is that we kind of see this thing come full circle. While these people over the decades and centuries get into Europe and Asia, and have probably lost touch in some ways with their roots and their heritage. In the book of Acts, we see the gospel reaching now out to the, you know, farthest parts of the earth, where you can’t imagine people to live, although they came from the same father, you know, which I think is pretty interesting. Well, this next–

Matt Martin: We’ll talk more about this in a little bit as well. But just the diversity that we already see, just looking at one, one descendant. So as we unpack this, I think that’s something people need to pay attention to. We’ll put a bow on this at the end, but just the diversity we already see as God’s plan. That is God’s plan, anyway.

Jim Piper: Yeah, and God loves it. All right.

Matt Martin: So, yeah.

Ham and His Descendants

Jim Piper: So the next section goes from Japheth to Ham, which I think is interesting because, you know, this genealogy, if you will, doesn’t really start from the eldest, the middle to the youngest. It almost seems a bit arbitrary. It’s not, but it seems that way. So Ham and his descendants, I guess I would say more than the rest became the enemies of the established Israel in time. If you are looking for key names in this line, of course, we have Canaan, where we get the Canaanites, which the curse of Noah was on.

Then in verse eight, says, one Cush, however you want to pronounce it, descendants was Nimrod. That’s a funny name. who became a heroic warrior. Verse nine says he was a mighty hunter in the Lord’s sight. His name became proverbial or how do you say that? Proverbial. We’ll go with that, proverbial and people would speak of someone as being like Nimrod, a mighty hunter in the Lord’s sight. So he kind of became, you know, the Superman of that tribe. He built the foundation for his empire in the land of Babylonia. And of course, in history, that’s a big name. And it gives you all kinds of other examples.

But also Nineveh is one of the cities. And then it speaks in verse 14, that from this line comes the Philistines, which, of course, you know, we know of the city of Gath. And of course, that other giant that is very popular, Goliath. Then if you go down further, you see more, maybe I should say, infamous names like Sodom and Gomorrah. And then it wraps up in verse 20. These are the descendants of Ham, identified according to the tribes, languages, plural, in one tribe, territories and nations.

Winston Harris: Yeah, so correct me if I’m wrong, but this line, if you will, essentially represents the Gentiles throughout the scriptures and the stories that the story that the Gentiles play in the redemptive plan of the gospel, which is this wasn’t just, you know, while God started with the Jews, you know, the totality of the gospels that it extends to the Gentiles which is why three of us are able to be here on this call talking about God as well.

But so we see this picture start to unfold or the origins of this picture starts unfold where even though these were “enemies” in different nations that would come against Israel, there was already a plan for their salvation. And even in the Old Testament, we get into the great kid’s story of Jonah, which seems you know, very fun growing up. I didn’t realize how weighty Jonah’s story is and how this preacher man was assigned to an enemy territory. He was like, “I don’t think I want to preach to these guys. I really don’t like these very, very mean gentlemen.” He has to go.

Jim Piper: Oxymoron there.

Winston Harris: Preach to men that I don’t want to preach. He ends up going to Nineveh and they end up getting saved, right? And so we start to see these pictures and these foreshadowings of how the gospel reaches everybody. And so I think that’s a beautiful little note there as well.

Matt Martin: I think another thing to look at for this is just look at them as Winston’s already talked about is, you talk about the names of these places, Nineveh. Most people know the story of Jonah, but Canaan, you know, these major areas or cities were now going to be named that would last a lifetime. You know, so we know Sodom and Gomorrah. Now, you know, Sodom was destroyed. But if you keep going, I mean, in verse 19, it talks about the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza.

So when you start looking, I mean, there’s things that are still around today or that are very obvious and very clear that yeah, they were dispersing. Yes, they would go on to create these cities and these regions that would stand the test of time. What they were building was significant, what they were doing was significant.

You know, obviously, as we see the diversity in this and then unravels and unpacks in chapter 11. But I do find that interesting, again, just those little tidbits because you’ve heard me said, you know, scripture has to build upon scripture. And so this gives us a reference point to come back to. If for nothing else, and it’s more than this, but if for nothing else, if we’re reading later in Exodus or we’re reading later in Samuel or Kings and we find a region in the space, we have an origin point to come back to that is not just simply a big ball of fire that exploded throughout space sometime and all landed out in this way.

Jim Piper: That’s good. I find it interesting that, you know, this tribe from Ham, you know, due to the sin of Canaan, you know, from generation to generation to generation, they just become the more violent, aggressive people. It really does then make you go, “Huh, maybe there is something to the generational curse that we you know, sometimes hear about?” Then Winston, it’s odd, isn’t it? Because you’re noticing that these would be classified as Gentiles, even though they came from the same father that over a period of time and space, we call one another as humans, brothers and sisters from a very broad perspective.

But we also know that we have borders and countries and we have enemies and we trade with enemies, we trade with allies, but everything is on a thin layer that we’re just one step away from violence. So how could my brother, how could I have a brother one day and then another day, some of us might be known as Hebrews or Jews and others be known as Gentiles? Interesting, you know, the power that humans have.

Shem and His Descendants

Well, that actually brings us into this next section where we’re talking about the descendants of Shem. And this is, of course, where we see the Hebrews, the Arabs, and the Assyrians. And we do see war in between these tribes, which is interesting, civil war to some degree, and other times it doesn’t look like civil war, but it kind of is as they spread out. But anyway, it says that the sons were also born to Shem, the older brother of Japheth. And in this bloodline, we have Abram or Abraham, and we have Jacob, who’s of course, to Winston’s point, his name was changed to Israel.

And then, of course, in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 3, verses 23 to 38, in that genealogy, of course, we find all of this leading to the birth of Christ within this line. So here we have it. We have three new beginnings that grow into… Theoretically, I’m stopping at verse 31 here, but we have three nations founded by Japheth, Ham, and Shem. What ideas and comments do we want to make about Shem and his descendants, besides the obvious genealogy?

Matt Martin: Theologians have worked through this. And, you know, as we know, Job is actually one of the oldest books of the Bible. Most believe it is actually the oldest, the first oldest. If you start looking just from chronological viewpoint. And it’s interesting, there’s theologians that would say under Shem in verse 30, verse 29. It talks about Joktan or Joktan was the father of and there’s one in there that’s called Jobab, J-O-B-A-B and some have… They feel like they have enough evidence to point that back which would make sense. Somewhere in his lifetime, he would have written this, it would have been most likely post-Tower of Babel.

So again, when you hear statements of the book of Job being as old as it was, well, where was Job? Well, you know, a lot of people, a lot of theologians would point to there that, and he would need to come from the lineage of Shem, as we would see that, you know, this would be the line that would go on with Abraham and, you know, Israel and ultimately what to Jesus as you said.

But something, I don’t know if we were talking about this or you said it already in this recording, but this isn’t an older to younger brother format because it tells us right here,  the sons were born and it tells you the older brother starts putting this together. But when I read through this, again, seeing these names, seeing the layout of it, that God had a plan. It wouldn’t know I had three sons and let’s just cross our fingers and hope that it works. No, again, God being sovereign, knew which sons would father which children and what would happen and where we would go. Just going back to when we were talking about Nimrod a while ago, his name, I think, literally means let us rebel. Just the thought of naming your kid that, but okay, that’s–

Jim Piper: Yeah, that fits, yeah.

Matt Martin: Yeah, because what you see, what he does in chapter 11 is very interesting and he follows through on his name that he’s given. I don’t know, again, I’m just, you know, as we unpack this kind of piece by piece and verse by verse, you just see these little tidbits in here that kind of just weave the picture together in such a beautiful way.

Winston Harris: Yeah, just kind of a nerdy note. If you poke around in some of the commentaries and theologians and scholars, they actually think Shem could have possibly been Melchizedek in the Old Testament, which is interesting because there’s parallels between Melchizedek being a foreshadowing of Christ. If Christ comes through the line of Shem, there’s some parallels there as well. That’s just kind of a, you know, for those Bible nerds out there, something to go dig into and explore.

Jim Piper: Yeah, I hadn’t heard that one before.

Matt Martin: If Winston figures out the order of Melchizedek, please write that book. Because I just want to ride your coat tail on the money you will make from that. I mean, if you have a clear plan. Other people have written about it and you still know what they said.

Jim Piper: Yeah. Well, and then you can parallel that with the Lord walking in the garden, right? And what was that like? Especially the pre-incarnate Christ, if that was the case. Wow, that just kind of blows your mind.

I think one of the things that I remember in seminary about this particular chapter is that though certain historical scholars and those that don’t necessarily believe in a universal flood and therefore take a lot of the story as fable for the Hebrew people, Jewish people, very, very, very, very few are critical on Genesis chapter 10 in regards to the accuracy of this being a historical document because of the detail and because of the evidences they find in later genealogies and stories. It would take a lot of work to create a consistency that this lays the foundation for. So in other words, for most scholars, this is considered a historical account of this time in history.

Matt: Not only is it the people, but it’s the places. The cities we’ve already named. One, it was, let’s see here, I was just reading it. The city or the region known as, some would say, Uz or U-Z, is created here. It’s talked about. Yet Job1:1 talks about that he’s from the land. The land of Uz or Uz however you would… Depending what part of the country you’re from, I guess, but however you want to say that. It’s not just somebody’s going to manipulate names, but you’ve got regions, as we said a while ago, you’ve got regions and cities that have stood the test of time that can point back here with a lot of archeological, a lot of historical evidence, along with biblical evidence and to show the accuracy of it. Again, God doing what he does best and laying a firm foundation.

Jim Piper: And I think when some people join us next time, and we’re not done yet, but when folks join us next time on Genesis 11, sometimes we maybe forget a little bit that 11 does not necessarily follow 10 in a chronological order because we are reading about different languages already in Chapter 10. Whereas the first line of Chapter 11 says at one time the whole world spoke a single language and use the same words. Well, yeah, right. So that’s kind of fun.

Diversity and Redemption

Well, this chapter ends in verse 32 with what seems to be a simple statement, but I think there’s a lot to talk about here. Verse 32 says, “These are the families that came from Noah’s sons listed nation by nation according to their lines of descent. The Earth was populated with the people of these nations after the flood.” It’s funny, I think we already knew that. So why did that need to be written there?

We talked about it earlier. God seems to be, I mean, just looking at creation, we know that God, the creator, the maker is obviously an artist. Very, very creative and so therefore loves. So therefore loves various expressions. I think that’s one of the weaknesses of mankind is that many of us have biases and preferences. In trying to make those reproducible or try to scale that as if my way of talking, my way of thinking, my way of expressing, my way is how everybody should do it, is not at all the heart and desire of God.

Matt Martin: Yeah, the diversity that we see in Genesis. Because a lot of people don’t even see it that way. I am not well-versed in every religion in the world. So I’m going to put a little caveat on what I say, put little star beside it. We can go poke some holes in what I’m about to say in some of this. But when you look at a lot of world religions, if you would, especially the philosophical humanistic side of them, they typically want to start with an enlightenment moment or aha moment or you know, I was on a quest and found moment and that’s where salvation comes from. That’s where wholeness comes from. That’s where afterlife comes from.

But when you look at scripture and you’re able to find it all the way back to the very creation because the salvation of mankind in scripture is not necessarily based on this aha moment or encounter. It’s based on here is the story of how sin entered the world and how man is broken and how in Genesis 10 we see God gives a second chance. Then you see the diversity that God is, because world religions will not start with a basis of diversity. It’s typically gonna start with a basis of singular expression or experience, a singular experience. You know, multiples you could go to. And again, put a star beside it because I don’t know all of them.

But when I look at this and I see the last verse is, these are the groups, the lineage of Noah’s sons and the lines of their descent within their nations. And we’ve talked about this diversity and Jim, you’ve talked about this with Revelation chapter seven and verse nine, and I’m just gonna read it. And so, we’ve made it clear from Genesis one that God is a redeeming God. What we can find in Genesis, we can find redeemed in Revelation. And what was broken by sin in Genesis will be healed and whole and redeemed in Revelation, in the new heaven, the new earth, in eternity.

But Revelation 7:9, “John said, after this I looked and there was before me was a great multitude that no one could count or number.” And I love these phrases, “From every nation, from every tribe, from every people and language standing before the throne and before the lamb.” And he goes on, were waving palm branches in front. The diversity, he looked up and he saw everything that we’ve just discussed that went through every land, through every region, through every place. There’s no other book that can do that. You can’t stretch it these thousands of years and make it tie back in that perfectly.

What God is redeeming, John is now saying the redeemed are now worshiping. And it’s ultimately what God wanted in Genesis 10. I’m creating a diverse people to worship me because I want diversity in worship. I’ve created a diverse world. And I want every nation, tribe, and tongue to… I want to receive their adoration and their worship. And then you go all the way to Revelation chapter seven and John says, “Here’s what I saw. I saw a redeemed earth and a redeemed man and a redeemed heaven and they were worshiping.” He said, “And nobody could count the number that was there.” I loved the picture that that paints.

Jim Piper: Yeah, I think that even though none of us have a clue what heaven’s going to be like when John said he saw the new heaven and the new earth descend, you know, and I meditated on that. I began to realize that, you know, heaven is this transitory place and in this new existence. It’s not going to be heaven because we all look the same. It’s going to be, I think, here’s just a crazy stab at it, is that we’re going to be enlightened to a place where we actually take joy in diversity, where the insecurity has been ironed away, has been cleansed away and the appreciation that we’re going to have for God’s creation, meaning one another and whatever else he includes in that creation. Talk about edification and building up. It’s almost kind of beyond comprehension.

Matt Martin: I mean, we see everyone looking alike, talking alike, acting alike in one spot in scripture. And it’s the next chapter we’re going to talk about. And God’s like,-

Jim Piper: “Yeah, I don’t like that.”

Matt Martin: – “I don’t like how that looks.”

Jim Piper: A world with vanilla ice cream only. That’s just wrong.

Matt Martin: Exactly right.

Winston Harris: What’s interesting is if we continue to go towards the end of how the timeline plays out, you get to the Antichrist. You get into this one world, one religion, one, you see these tensions and these realities, right? Where God is continually looking for a, “Let’s multiply, let’s expand, let’s grow,” and ungodly, if you will, approaches. Let’s all do this one thing the same way under this false lordship, if you will. And so think that’s also a narrative within the Scriptures that we can kind of see these patterns presenting themselves as well as the enemy is trying to rally everybody under his false lordship. And then you have God who’s got a different approach. He’s saying, “Hey, let’s,” to your point, Jim, “let’s appreciate the diversity in which we can all unify as well, but we’re unified under a different lordship.”

Conclusion

Jim Piper: I have a lot to live for, but I really, in my imagination, can’t wait to see what this next life is all about. It’s going to be bizarre. Well, that was Genesis chapter 10, and I am excited about getting into Genesis 11. Thank you, guys.

Outro

Winston Harris: Thank you for joining us here at the Today Counts Show. Be sure to like and subscribe on whatever platform you listen or watch so you don’t miss any content. And stay tuned for more coming soon.
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