Genesis 10-11 gives us a unique look at the birth of the nations.1 It takes up the topic that was introduced in 9:18-19 and moves the story forward to Abraham. As we shall see, Genesis 10 is like no other genealogy in the Bible or in antiquity. You can easy see that the second genealogy of Shem in 11:10-26 is of a different type than the genealogy in Genesis 10. The genealogy in 11:10-26 is like the genealogy in Genesis 5 with a few abreviations. Genesis 10, perhaps, can more appropriately be called a Table of Nations or a Map of Nations. Three times the Table tells us of its uniqueness in that it is an account of clans, languages, lands, and nations (10:5,20,31). The Table is selective in the peoples it mentions, but it’s intended to represent all the peoples of the world.2 It unmistakably ties the origin of all peoples to the sons of Noah. In summary, in Genesis 10-11 we have two genealogies with the story of Babel sandwiched between them.
The human family as we know it today has grown to about 11,492 people groups consisting of nearly 7.2 billion people. A people group is defined as the largest group the gospel can flow through without encountering significant barriers of understanding. Of these peoples, 6,817 have less than 2% evangelical believers. These represent 4.25 billion people. Over 3 thousand of those people groups are unengaged, that is, no one is working among them with a church planting strategy. These numbers include the peoples of North America.
What of God’s purpose of blessing? What has become of it? Possibly, many of us never consider God’s purpose of blessing for the peoples of the world. We, perhaps, are far more concerned with His blessing on us individually. Blessing terminates on us. Most who make themselves the center of God’s purpose are highly dissatisfied. If you are your own aim, you will never be content.
What we have in Genesis 10-11 is God creating the context of world missions. I think this text shows us why we should not only be concerned with but give our lives for the blessing of the nations.
As we have seen the Table is an accounting of peoples by their lands, languages, clans, and nations (v32). For example, the Table has personal names (Japheth v2, Ham v6, Shem v21), Nimrod v8, Eber v21, Peleg v25), place names (Sidon x2 vv15,19; Sheba v27), and people groups or nations in terms of ethnicity (“im” vv4,13; and “ites” vv15-18). We see how flexible the terms “sons of” (vv2,3,6,7,22,23) and “father of” (vv8,13,18,21,25,26) are in the Bible. They refer to nations, places, and tribes, and clans. Regardless of the labels used in this genealogy, the Table traces all peoples back to the sons of Noah, and thus to Noah and Adam (vv1,32). We have a common origin in a common humanity. The things that bind the human family together are much greater than the things that separate us.
When we define people in impersonal term, we accentuate the differences and depersonalize them. The tendency is to define people in terms of ethnicity, race, politics, and religion: the one deals with origin, one with color, and the others with allegiances. Sometimes we have can learn from little kids. You can put a group of kids together of every sort, and they will play like crazy. Take those same kids and grow them into to adults, and they will group themselves based on perceived differences instead of seeing each other in terms of a common humanity.
People all over the world have the same basic needs and desires. They need food, shelter, community, and they need to be recognized as persons of value in the community. They get married, have families, care for each other, work jobs, and hope for the future. We have a common origin that binds us is a common humanity.
The great sins that plague the human family today are racism, classism, nationalism, and fanaticism. It is hard at times to separate these sins from one another because one generally leads to the other. Human value is determined by one’s color, one’s social and educational status, one’s politics, and/or one’s religion. If we want to know how deeply we are impacted by these things, simply ask yourself who your friends are?
As a common humanity, we share a common dignity. The most important and defining thing about us is we are made in the image of the Creator. God made the human family in His image. God help us to first look at every other person as someone made in the image of God, a person of value who will spend eternity in heaven or hell. We can only carry on our destructive ideologies when we deny the common dignity of others as image bearers, but when we do that, we de facto deny our own worth.
How can a society carry on the murder of the unborn? We simply objectify them and deny their value. How can a fanatic take Christians out and cut their heads off? They are denied any personhood. How can we measure other people by ourselves? Are they as pretty, successful, influential, wealthy, or intelligent? We view them only as objects to make us feel better about ourselves. We do this to hide our own insecurities and inadequacies.
We cannot know God and not care about His world. We are frightened by encountering people who are different from us, and they are frightened by us. We live in a time when the world is more open to strangers than it has ever been. There is a reason why the first missionaries were coastal. Hudson Taylor was revolutionary when he went “inland.” There is a reason why he founded “China Inland Mission.” There is a reason why missions went through the mission compound era. Now in most places in the world you can live amongst all God’s children. This has opened the way for a great harvest of souls. Yet, still many of us remain frightened by the world around us.
Moses wrote this to Israelites who lived among hostile neighbors. They were about to enter Canaan. In fact, the Table is arranged on the basis of proximity to the Israelites. Canaan’s territory is defined in the Table (v19), whose peoples were Israel’s local enemies (vv15-18). The origin of their later international enemies is identified (v11). One point Moses is making is we have a common humanity. God dispersed the nations. He alone controls their times and territories (Acts 17:26). Don’t fear them. Fear the God who has commanded us to engage them.
We share a common humanity that compels us to seek the good of all men. There is no higher good than the gospel. Pluralism is not seeking the highest good. It’s an opiate on the way to hell. It’s redressing secular humanism in religious robes.
In Genesis 10, we saw the world’s people according to their clans, languages, lands, and nations. Now, Genesis 11:1-9 is framed (vv1,9) by the idea that there was a one language shared by all people. The Genesis 11 world does not appear to be as diverse linguistically, geographically, culturally, and politically as the account of Genesis 10. We have a similar structure in Genesis to help us see how these two chapters relate to each other.
For example, in Genesis 1 and 2, we appear to have two accounts of creation. Genesis 1 gives an account of the creation of all things, including man. Genesis 2 focuses on one aspect of creation, the creation of man. In Genesis 10-11, we have the same sort of structure. Genesis 10 in broad strokes gives us an account of the world’s peoples, and Genesis 11 narrows the focus to show how the division of languages and diverse peoples and cultures came about. The writers purpose, however, is not to satisfy our curiosity about the diversity of the world’s peoples. His purpose is to show the sovereign hand of God ruling over the nations, even those in rebellion against Him. God does not rule simply over those who submit to His will. He rules over all. The nations are His. The peoples are His. History is His, even my personal history.
The Babel story is filled with irony and sarcasm to show the impotence of man in rebellion against God. The story is divided into two parts and swings on the hinges of verse 5. In the first part, we see man in rebellion against God (vv2-4). In the second part, we see God ruling over sinful man to bring about His redemptive purpose for man. God’s purpose in scattering the nations is to gather them. God’s sentence is proportional to their sin in order to bring blessing on the nations.
All sin springs from the first sin in the Garden. Rebellion at Babel smacks of the same essence as the first rebellion. The Babelites assert their autonomy and a spirit of self-determination to decide what is good and what is evil. After the flood, God reaffirmed the creation covenant with Noah (9:1) and all creation (9:17). However we slice their sin, the Babelites acted completely contrary to the covenant stipulations of Genesis 9.
Verse 2 gives us an indication of their rebellion. If after the flood, people migrated to the “land of Shinar,” they traveled in an easterly direction. The phrase “from the east” in verse can also be translated “eastward.” For example, the NLT translates this verse, As the people migrated eastward, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there. Context is the factor that determines if the word (miqqedem) should be translated “from the east” or “eastward.” In Genesis “eastward” is associated with judgement and separation from God (Sailhamer, EBC, 41-42).
When God exiled Adam and Eve from the Garden, He sent them “eastward” away from His presence (3:24). Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod east of Eden (4:16). The difference in Genesis 11 is that men are not being driven “east,” they are migrating “eastward”—deliberately walking away from God. Lot did the same thing (13:11).
They imagined a world that they thought would bring them security, binding them together as a people (v4). They built a city and a tower that would establish them as a people. Remember who these people are. They are the sons of Noah (in the biblical sense). The start of Nimrod’s kingdom was Babel (10:10). Here the spirit of Babylon begins its work in the world. Babylon opposes God at every point and offers counterfeits to every good thing. Babylon’s aim is one—to destroy the souls of men.
Humans are hopelessly religious people. They need to try to sanctify their sinful endeavors in hopes that the gods will give them good luck. This is what the building of the tower in Babel is all about. To the Babelites, Babel was the “gate of the gods.” When people determine “the world they want,” they have to try and secure it somehow. To build a tower to the heavens was to provide a stairway for the gods to travel from one realm to the other. It was all about appeasing the gods, so the gods would be happy and life would go as planned.
You can see superstitious behaviors today that are mixed with Christian ritual. I’ve met people who were baptized as infants and have not attended church since but maintain they are Christians. I’ve seen couples who live in sin want to be married in a church as if somehow that secures God’s approval so that marriage will go as they want it. I’ve seen people who want good things but go about obtaining those things in sinful ways. I’ve seen people who have trained their hearts to desire sinful things, and they pursue those things hoping for a good end.
God cannot be manipulated. You can do nothing to gain His favor or to coax Him into to giving you the life you want. God is pleased with One Man, and He calls the rest of us to place our faith in Him. God calls us to lay down our pursuit of autonomy and self-determination, deciding what is good and what is evil. We cannot make good evil and evil good. We cannot hope to pursue ungodly things and end with good results. You may say, “Yes, I understand that theoretically, but my heart is pulled. I cannot deny my desire.” You at the moment may not can deny your desire, but you can cut off access. You don’t have to act on it. Don’t build that tower to the heavens. Tear it down. Kill it.
I remember as a young man about 19 or 20 years old. I was caught in what I felt was a sin. I was divided between what I felt was right and desires stronger than cravings. I felt I knew what God wanted me to do. I knew Satan wanted me to disobey. I prayed and begged for help. I became angry at the devil for vexing me so. I determined I would die before I would do this thing again. Slowly by slowly my desire began to be trained by my behavior. Desire will follow behavior. After I gained the victory, the Lord seemed to say, “That was hard for you wasn’t it?” “Yes.” “Don’t get yourself in that position again.” God’s discipline answered my rebellion and worked graciously, though painfully, in me.
Verse 5 is the swing verse in this story. It is filled with divine sarcasm. Obviously, before He created the world, God knew the builders would build the tower. Yet, He purposed this event to show us how puny and powerless our fits of rebellion are. No man, no movement, no people will ever overthrow the purpose of God. No one will give God anything He needs. No one will impress God with his deeds.
The rebellion of Babel is tied to the rebellion in Eden by verse 6. This versed sounds a lot like 3:22 when God exiled Adam and Eve from the Garden. The same result will apply to the Babelites. God will disperse them. If Adam and Eve acted in autonomy to eat the forbidden fruit, they would also assert their autonomy in applying the remedy. The same with the Babelites. If they acted in autonomy to be self-saviors by the rebellious works if their own hand and the plans of their own devious minds, no good outcome would be possible for them as a people.
In Genesis 3-11, we see the proportional reality between the sin of man and God’s judgment to bring about His redemptive purpose of blessings the world. Adam and Eve sinned and God removed them from the garden to save them. The antediluvian man ruined God’s world, so God ruined them to saved Noah and his family (6:11-13).
God acts in both judgment and mercy. He disperses the nations that He might have mercy on the nations. Notice the irony of “Come let us” in verse 7. The divine counsel plays off the conspiring of the Babel builders (vv3,4). In the assertion of autonomy, they sought for unity and identity. Language is the brick and mortar of cultural and ethnic identity. God confused their language to disperse them.
The very things they sought after unity, security, and identity as a people, God reversed. The name the Babelites sought to make for themselves became “confusion.” To the Babelites, “Babel” meant “gate of the gods.” The writer of Genesis plays off the name “Babel” and calls it “confusion” (balal).
From the dispersion of the Babelites, the nations of Genesis 10 came to be. We know that God’s purpose from the beginning was for man to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” This purpose was good. God is bringing about His good purpose in the scattering of the nations.
God scattered them that He might have mercy on them and bless them. There is only one gathering point for mankind, only one Name worth having. The spirit of Babylon in every age offers its counterfeits for gathering—Babylon bids peoples to gather around race, politics, and the religion of pluralism. All of these will fail. The only point of gathering for the nations is Christ. Eph 1:9-10 say, He set forth Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and on earth. The prophets saw the gathering of the nations, and John saw all tribes and nations gathered (Rev. 5:9-10).
How will God then gather the nations? It seems like He made quite a task for Himself in scattering them and confusing their language and culture. How could this possibly be redemptive?
Where the first genealogy of Shem traces him to Eber sons and follows the line of Joktan (10:21, 25-26ff), the second genealogy of Shem traces Shem to Eber and follows the line of Peleg, which culminates in the 10th name, Abram. Abram’s family migrated from Ur to Haran (11:31), and then, God called Abram to leave Mesopotamia and spend his life sojourning in a land that He would give him. That land was the territory of Canaan outlined in 10:19, also known as the Promised Land.
That Land, Paul tells us, served as a microcosm of the world. In Romans 4:13, Paul writes, For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be the heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.
God called Abram out from the nations of Genesis 10, to give him a name and bless the families of the earth. This comes out again in Genesis 17:5. God did not make Abraham a father of a nation, but of many nations. Which nations? Those nations in Genesis 10 that represent the nations of the world. Again we pick up on an interesting use of what it means to be a “father.” How could Abraham be the father of many nations? Again Paul helps us in Galatians 3:7-9, Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all nations be blessed. So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
What I want you to see is that there is a correlation between the people of God and the nations in every age. God’s answer to the rebellion of the nations is His people. We can see this in the arrangement of the nations in the Table and in their number. Notice that the order of Noah’s sons is reversed in the Table. That is the nations are outlined in Genesis 10 according to their proximity to the people of God. Japheth represents those farthest from Israel (people of the extreme north and west). Ham represents those nations nearest to Israel (Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Arabia). Shem represents the Semitic peoples of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Arabia from which Israel came.
However, the chosen line of Shem is separated from the Table in Genesis 10 and not recounted until after the scattering of the nations in Genesis 11:1-9. Shem’s line culminates in Abraham who is called out from the nations to the nations as the agent of God’s redemptive blessing.
There are 70 nations in Genesis 10. The remainder of Genesis shows the blessing of Abraham’s family until it reached 70 people who went to Egypt (46:27). They came out of Egypt a mighty nation with 70 elders (Ex 24:9; Num 11:24).3 Why all of these references to 70, and why was Abraham the 10th name listed in Shem’s genealogy called to bless the nations?
Paul tells us the offspring of Abraham refers to Christ. He is the seed the woman, the fulfillment of all covenant promises and the answer to Adam’s failed headship. When Christ sent out his disciples, He sent out 70 (Luke 10:1-16). When they came back they were overjoyed that even the demons were subject to the Name of Jesus through their ministry (Luke 10:17-20).
What is the point? The people of God are able to take the gospel to the nations in every age. This brings us to a point of crisis. 2 billion people have yet to hear the gospel. 4 billion people have a slim to none opportunity to hear it. 33 cities across North America are unreached and in those 33 cities lives 80% of the population of North America. The question is, “What are the people of God preoccupied with?” What is the concern of your heart today? I don’t want to down play that concern. Life has problems we don’t even know about yet.
My fear is we have concerned ourselves with everything but what Jesus has commanded us to be about. We are like the Babelites. We have constructed in our minds a world that we really want, and we are pursuing it with all of our energy regardless of God’s redemptive purpose.
As the church, we have two things we must do. First, we have to build the base. Some of you God has called to stay right here, but it does not follow that you build your life around things other than God’s global redemptive purpose through His church. A strong base is essential for ongoing Great Commission endeavor. Those of us who stray here must be as captivated by the advance of the gospel as those who go. Second, we must see our mission is to use our spiritual gifts to strengthen and encourage each other in faithfulness and in heroic exploits for Christ. We have to give ourselves to taking the gospel to Jackson and to preparing others to take the gospel to places we will never go. Then with all our being we must support those who are ready to go. As Aaron preached from 2 Corinthians, And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work (2Cor. 9:8).
As we come to the table, we come to affirm the power of the gospel to save us and the peoples of the world. When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are eating and drinking the body and blood of the Savior who died to not only save the church that is but the one that will be. He is the one who after His resurrection told us the nations are His and to go disciple them, that is bring them into humble submission to Christ in faith and repentance.