The Clans

Yeah.

Okay, so Noah and his family, they step off the ark, when then what?

Well, eventually, nations and languages and peoples and governments. And that sounds interesting, but before we get to that, an unusual story. There's a story that really tells us about the character of the nations that will grow from these sons. I think we need to hear about that. Let's do today.

I'm more than a coward.

Well, hey, good morning. Here we are again. I'm Dorothy. And I'm Jim. And this is More Than Inc., and we have been talking about Noah.

Noah. And in the last couple weeks, we've been talking especially about what happened after the flood, after they came out of the ark. We wrapped up last week talking about the rainbow as the sign of God's unilateral covenant with all people and all animals that he would never again destroy the earth by flood.

So that's kind of where we left off. And at the end of the passage we were dealing with last week, we read: The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and that's that's uh chapter 9, verse 18. Right. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed. Yep, so everyone came from these three sons.

That's a big statement. Yeah, yeah.

So talk to us about that.

So, here we're going to actually follow Noah's family for a while, working our way up to the start of Abraham's family, which will then eclipse the whole rest of the book of Genesis. But we're going to look at Noah's families right now, and then specifically these three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and what happens to them. And so, before we get to that, and we will get to that, we're going to follow them specifically in detail a little bit. A funny little inclusion is put in here. After they come out of the ark, after God makes his unilateral promise to mankind not to wipe it out with water again, and the rainbow is a sign of it.

All that stuff is happening. We should be following their histories. But before we get to there, Noah turns into a man of the soil, of the earth. And uh and a very strange thing happened.

So we're going to spend a little time looking at this because this is Admittedly, a little odd.

Well, it becomes very clear that even though the violent corruption of the earth had been washed clean, human beings still contained within them the seeds of corruption. Yes. It's become very clear.

So why don't we just start reading? Because we'll just read today. We'll see what happens.

So, starting in verse 20 of chapter 9, Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. he drank of the wine and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward, and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness.

When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, Cursed be Canaan A servant of servants shall he be to his brothers. He also said, Blessed be the LORD the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. After the flood, Noah lived 350 years. All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

So death came through. Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, they come off the ark, and you can't call it the end of the story where they all live happily ever after. Because immediately, What is this drunkenness?

Well, it's it's not immediately. I mean, it's the first thing we're told, but it takes a couple of years to grow grapes and long enough for grapes and wine. Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

So, not only the tendency perhaps to drunkenness came through, but the tendency in this one son to Humiliate his father. Yeah, yeah.

The opening of it is curious to me. Noah began to be a man of the earth or a man of the soil. You know, that's exactly the same word that God collected to make Adam? Hmm, the soil, you mean? Yeah, Adam was made from the dust of the earth, we call it, but it's the earth.

And so it's a kind of funny. There are some dualisms between Adam as a character and Noah. This is one of them. It's like Noah, Noah, we all know Noah, his reputation is for the guy who built the boat and then floated in the water and collected the animals. I don't think I ever read this story until I was an adult.

Yeah, I didn't even know it was here. Right. But now Noah has sort of returned to the soil, what he's made of, and he plants a vineyard.

Now, it's interesting. It's interesting that wine is kind of a two-edged sword, isn't it? I mean, it's pictured in some places of the Bible as a wonderful thing.

Well, yeah. And sometimes it's a danger. It's a two-edged sword. Right. It has both a good side and a bad side.

But it's interesting to me here that Noah, as part of his stewarding of this blank, wiped clean earth, begins to plant things. Yeah.

And, you know, the question is: was he carrying roots with him? How did where did those come from? I don't know. The text doesn't address that. Address that.

But a couple years later, it had to have been in order to make wine from something you planted, he became drunk. Maybe he was celebrating the first harvest. We don't know. But he overindulged. It had been a long time since he'd had any, probably.

And just to put in a good word for wine, I mean, it's interesting because most Christians are so anti-alcohol. You know, but I mean, in in where I'm going to have to look where I had my notes here. In Psalm 104, one of my favorite psalms, and it's called Wine to Gladden the Heart of Man. And so that's there. And then there's another place in Judges where there's this interesting kind of mythological tale being told about, you know, the trees, the anointed king over them, all this kind of stuff.

But at the end of it, it says, He asked the vine, the trees asked the vine to cover him. And then the vine says to him, Shall I leave my wine that cheers God and men and go hold sway over the trees? Right. So wine throughout the scriptures is very often a very potent symbol of joy and celebration. But uh, it can be misused.

We don't need to linger on that here because the point of the story is this disruption in the spiritual lives of the sons. Yes, yes.

So, evidently, he's really out of it, Noah is. And is uncovered in his tent.

Well, he was lying naked. Yes. Now, how he got into that condition, we don't know. We don't know. He was too drunk to cover himself.

That's right. And Ham, his youngest son, who we're told again, the father of Canaan, he saw the nakedness of his father.

Now, that is, he looked deliberately and studied. He looked on with intent to see something. There isn't necessarily any indication of sexual activity. No, no, no, no. But there is a deliberate humiliation and dishonoring of his father when he comes out and essentially tells a dirty joke about their dad.

Right, right. But it is, it isn't just, you're right, it's not just a casual, oh, what's that? It's more prurient than that. There's something weird, and there's a lot of speculation to fill in the gaps. But we do know that being uncovered is dishonoring.

You know, we think about when that happens with, well, when David's dancing before the ark and his wife gets all bent out of shape, she says, How can you be doing that by uncovering yourself today?

Now, I don't think it was naked, but there's a certain amount of exposure that's not dignified and honorable, she is saying about the king of Israel. And of course, there's that other, there's more.

So we won't get into all of that.

Well, you can look that up in various commentaries, and there's a lot of theories about what this might indicate. Nobody really knows, but we know by Noah's reaction. That it was profound. It was profound. And it told him something about the character of the hand and the people who would come from his line.

Yeah, now let's be careful to note. He's uncovered privately in his tent. He's not outside dancing around.

So that's a whole different kind of affair.

So it also starts to introduce the idea that maybe Ham was violating his privacy in coming into his private tent.

So we don't know, but he makes a big point to say it was inside his tent.

So it's a different kind of thing. It's not quite as bad as you might think, but it's Ham's reaction that he's learning.

Well Ham's reaction is what we're going to focus on.

Well, look at the reaction of the two brothers. Yeah.

Because rather than jolly along with the joke, they treat their father with incredible respect.

So much so that they, oh man, he's naked in there. We don't want to see that. We don't want to shame him in that way. And so we're told twice that they went in backwards so they didn't see and covered their father's nakedness.

So the contrast is very clear, right? Ham went in and gazed on the humiliation of the tent and told a joke. Yeah.

Whereas the other two brothers. Covered their father's nakedness. They protected his dignity. Yeah, yeah.

And Noah apparently was not so out of it that he didn't know it had happened.

Okay. Why do you say that?

Well, because he wokes up and he knows what his youngest son had done. Yeah, yeah.

Unless someone told him.

Well, maybe. Yeah, that's not all I'm saying. But his response is hugely significant, right? Look in verse 25. Noah says, Cursed be Canaan.

Well, okay, that's the name of Ham's son. That's his, yeah. Right? He's not cursing Ham. But as we find out later, as we read on, Canaan is going to be the name of all of the peoples that descend from this son, Canaan.

So he's probably got the people to come in view. He's not cursing his grandson. He's saying the people that grow up inheriting this character. You're destined for trouble. Yeah, yeah, which is why Canaan is so prominent.

He's not one of the three sons. He's one of the sons of the three sons. But Canaan is such a big name as the history goes on with Israel that the writer Moses wants you to be sure about where Canaan came from and understand why Canaan was so central in the story of Israel. Right. And remember that the original audience for this text was Israel before entering the promised land.

So Moses, who's writing, is being very specific with them to know where the root of this started. Yeah.

So listeners, as a tip, as we go forward in Genesis, and we'll read a lot more history with Israel as the centerpiece of that history. Keep a watch out for Canaan because it will come up so much, it'll just blow your mind. And it all started right here, right?

So, we're talking about the heritage that comes out of this event and from this, from him, and his son Canaan. Yeah, okay.

So, the second half of what Noah says in verse 26 is by contrast: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem. and let Canaan be his servant. And may God enlarge Japheth and let him dwell in the tents of Shem and let Canaan be his servant.

So he's definitely placing Canaan and the people that come from him in a subservient position to the other two brothers. Right, right, right. Just because of this sin, and that's going to carry on through these generations, which I think is a fascinating thing about how it tends to go downhill with your descendants. That's kind of sticks to them, which is why he basically says, Canaan is cursed. This is going to follow up for so long.

You know, it's interesting because much later, we're going to read this in a few weeks, that when God promises to Abraham that he's going to give him the land of the Canaanites, which becomes shorthand for all of those different peoples, he says, but not yet. I'm giving them 400 years because the sin of the Canaanites is not yet complete. Yes. They are on a downward moral. Idolatrous spiral that hasn't yet reached its and God's going to let them slide down that spiral until it gets to its full giving them time.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and it gets to its fullest. And at that point then, God has them destroyed. Yeah.

So just keep a watch out for that. You know, this is making me think if you go back to the Uh, the to the Ten Commandments, did you find them in Exodus? We haven't gotten there yet. No, no, no, that's in Exodus, but I mean, everyone knows about the Ten Commandments, but you forget about the fact about He says, you know, secondly, He says, Don't make an image and don't worship a false God, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because I'm a jealous God, and I'll just read it to you. I'm a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.

Right. So, this is exactly in the flesh a working out of what the law is.

Okay, we'll have to talk about that more because God is not saying I'm going to punish them for your sin, right? Right. But he's saying the effect of your sin is going to continue to corrode in the next generations. Yeah.

And every generation has an opportunity for repentance. Yeah.

And we see that today. We do.

Okay, we've got to read on a lot to read.

Okay. So, oh, so we're moving into chapter 10. We need to.

Okay, so now at this point, we're going to talk legitimately about the descendants of Noah. We're going to talk about Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And we're actually going to have what they call a table of nations. We're going to see all. All the different nations that come out of these three sons.

You need a map. You really do need a map. And I've charted this a couple times, but he's going to tell us everything here. And again, remember, we said he mentions Canaan because Canaan comes up so much in the next history of Israel. But now he's going to mention all the other nations that tend to surround Israel.

Interestingly enough, he's going to mention now 70 nations. He's never going to mention the nation of Israel because this is a mention not of just the table of nations, but the table of Israel's neighbors. From the whole son.

So here we go. Chapter 10, verse 1. You want to read?

Okay, so here we go. Your head's going to start spinning in a second.

So these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Um, sons were born to them after the flood.

So, first we start with a table of the sons of Japheth.

So, it's two.

So, the sons of Japheth was this: Gomer, Magog, Media, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer, some were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan, okay, we're into another second generation, yeah, it's still the grandsons, so a lot. Elisha, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. And from these, the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, and in their nations.

Okay. That's all of Japheth.

So that's 14 people mentioned. Right. 14 peoples that are going to grow out of these 14 descendants of. Yeah.

And these are well-known national names during the time of Israel.

So if you were a Jew, if you were in Israel with Moses at the time Moses writes us, they would recognize these names.

Okay, and these people groups settled kind of in the coastal region of the Mediterranean. Right. Right. So they would have known, the Jews who were listening would have known, oh, those peoples, their line back to Noah is this way through Japheth. Yeah, so this is a nice reference later on when we see their names come up.

I might point out too in verse 5, it says there's four distinctives of these peoples spread in their lands.

So that's a geography thing. It's where they went. Their own language.

So they have a language, their own language, he says.

So these are unique languages. Either clans, that's more of an ethnicity kind of statement related to who are you and stuff like that. And then finally, a nations is a political statement of the nation that they made as an autonomous nation. He'll bring that up several times here because those distinctives are important when we talk about the nations.

So let's go on to verse 6. We're going to look at Ham.

Okay. Sons of Ham.

Sons of Ham, Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. Dun dun dun dun dun dun. You should hear the music every time you hear that. And so we're going to follow those sons. The sons of Cush, Seba, Havilah, Sabta, Ramah, and Sabtika.

The sons of Ramah are Sheba and Didan. Cush fathered Nimrod. Here's some interesting stuff coming. He was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord.

Therefore, it said, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.

So the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Eric, Akkad, and Kauna.

So just to stop for a second, this is the one place, one, maybe two places where he actually mentions a person rather than a nation or an ethnicity.

Well, we get a lot of detail here about Nimrod. Great. And Nimrod, he's going to be important pretty soon.

Well, you should have read verse 11. From that land, he went into Assyria and built Nineveh. Yeah.

And then some other cities. But Nimrod by name is going to be someone you'll recognize coming up.

So that's why he wanted to place it deliberately in these nations that come out of him. Yeah.

So Babel, his kingdom was Babel. That's actually Babylon, believe it or not. Erek is South Iraq. Does that sound the same? That's because they are.

So 11.

So from that land he went into Assyria. We know that. He built Nineveh. We know that. Rehoboth Ir, Kala, and Resson, between Nineveh and Kalah.

That's the great city.

Okay, stop there because you're going to go on to another son. Because we need to notice that this comment about Nimrod, he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. Verse 8. Another translation of that or another reading of that is he was the world's first great conqueror. He was this mighty warrior and this mighty hunter.

Well, you know, we can understand that as almost a sarcastic statement to say he was a mighty hunter because he was such a good ruler. And that's kind of historically, kings demonstrated their worthiness to reign by their prowess at hunting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so Nimrod's a big name. He's a mighty something.

He's a mighty hunter, mighty man. Make a note in your side reference and say, Let's wait to see what happens with this guy. Oh, you could almost think maybe pre-Alexander the Great, given the area that he conquers. Yeah, oh, yeah, that's exactly true. I might mention in passing, too, that when we talk about way further in the distance, we had the history of Israel.

We have two captivities where a nation takes them away. Right. First, the north goes to Assyria.

Well, you saw Assyria in verse 11. And Babylon comes, takes the southern kingdom 150 years later. That's Babylon, verse 10.

So pretty interesting.

So the two most prominent enslavers and conquerors of Israel that God allows come from. These guys.

Well, we also have Nineveh mentioned, which is a nation that Israel hated so badly that Jonah did not want to go there. Had a reputation. Jonah says, I'm not going there because they might actually turn around.

So these nation names are really important in the history of Israel. Yeah, and they will ring bells to Jews that are reading this because they know this history, they live this history.

Okay, so pick it up at verse 13. Yeah, uh the son Egypt, which is Egypt, fathered Ludim, Anamim, uh, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, Kasluhim, uh, from whom the Philistines came, and Kafturim.

Okay, those are all Em, those are all plurals, plurals, yeah.

So whole peoples. Which implies large groups. Yeah.

So if you remember, remember the Philistines? And David, Goliath, Philistines, Philistines, yeah, came from these guys, yeah.

Okay. That was Ham. But now under Ham, you've got Canaan, right?

So who are still a son of Ham, we're still in Ham's line.

So verse 15.

So Canaan, Canaan fathered Sidon, which is actually a term that's used to this very day. in Lebanon, Canaan fathered Sidon, his firstborn, and Heph, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites and the Girgushites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinnites, the Arvadites, the Zemorites and the Hamathites. Yeah.

But afterward, the clans of the Canaanites dispersed. You know, those are all the peoples who are named in Genesis 15, I think. God's telling Abraham, I'm going to displace all those people. We know these names. If you know the history of Israel, in fact, when David moves the center, the capital of Israel from Hebron, he goes north to this little mount, which eventually becomes Jerusalem that's inhabited by the Jebis.

Because it was called Jebus. Jebus, yeah.

So that's these people. You know, they're sons of Canaan. And the territory, now this is important, the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon. In the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza. And just to put that on the map in your head, Sidon is in Lebanon on the coast of the Mediterranean.

Gaza is on the coast of the Mediterranean. But it's the southern end of Israel.

So it's that whole coastal region there where Israel is up through Lebanon. And then I'll pick it up from there. And then in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah, so that's inland, straight go east from Gaza. At the bottom of the Dead Sea. Bottom of the Dead Sea, yeah, east of Gaza to the bottom of the Dead Sea.

You've got Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, as far as Lasha.

So these are the sons of Ham by their clans, their languages, their lands, their nations.

So that thing he just described in verse 19. That when Israel is told to go in and take Canaan, it's those. Boundaries. That's the boundary. That's the boundary right there.

To go in and dispossess those people that are there. And these are the people that are in that.

So that's why it was important for him to specify: oh, where did the Canaanites live? This is where they lived. Oh, yeah, that's the place we went in with Joshua and displaced those people. Their clans, their languages, their lands, their nations.

So, again, these are well-established peoples. They're not just random little groups. Right. And so we move on to verse 21 to the son Shem. Shem, and this is where Israel comes out of.

To Shem, also the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth. Children were born. The sons of Shem. Here's the sons of Shem: Elam, Asher, Arpechad, Lud, and Aram. The sons of Aram, we're going down a generation, Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash.

Arpik Sod fathered Sheila and Sheila fathered Eber. And to Eber were born two sons, here we go with real people now, born two sons, the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and the brother's name, his brother's name was Joktan. Very important name. They will come up again, which is why he's mentioning it here that's ready for that. And it says the day when the earth was divided, we'll talk about that later.

I'll just continue this. Verse 26.

So Jochtan fathered Amodad, Sheleph, Hazar Mapheth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimehel, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. And all these were the sons of Jochtan.

Now the territory in which they lived extended from Misha in the direction of Zephar to the hill country of the east. And these are the sons of Shem by their clans, languages, lands, and nations. Wow. Yeah, so is Shem.

So if you're looking at a map of the ancient Near East, You've spread out across the top of Africa, up all toward Greece, and all clear over into Mesopotamia and down around the bottom of the Dead Sea. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah.

So this is a region we know quite well, and this is why we talk about these people as we go through the nation of Israel, because these people all surround Israel.

Okay. And I would say, even in archaeology, some of these. Peoples are still named that as their archaeological remains are explored, yeah. Philistines, yeah, that's that's totally right.

So these are important people, and now we know their genetic connections back to Noah, right? Which is what he's done right here. But real people at a real time in real places-that's what I love. And known people groups, yeah, people groups.

So, um yeah.

So anyway, so that's Shem. By the way, if you ever hear the word Semitic, like anti-Semitic, Semites come from the word Shem. That's Sun Jim.

So.

Well, and I have a little note here in my Bible that the sons of Noah in chapter 10, verse 1, that are dated roughly to about 2200 BC. And so that's kind of helpful to know. We're still talking, we're talking ancient history here, but recorded. Oh, yeah. As far before Jesus as we are from Jesus.

So we're on the flip side of it. Interesting.

Well, let's close this out.

So verse 32.

So these are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies in their nations. And from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood. After the flood. After the flood. So they're spreading out.

Yeah.

Whew.

So now, if you need a reference to go back and find out the people groups that we're going to run into as we go through Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus, all through the nation of Israel, you can come back to here and say, now, where are they in the family tree from Noah? Oh, that's who those guys are. And the prominence of Canaan will become quite apparent to you as we move forward as well, as being such a negative influence, and the people who are displaced. by Israel when they came back to the land.

So next time when we come back and we start into chapter 11, we're going to do kind of a strange thing. Moses does a gigantic flashback. He moves back to before these nations were established. Because if these lists of nations are starting to raise questions in your mind, especially how can they all end up with different languages when there are only a handful of generations from speaking the same language? We will solve those questions next time we come together as we do a flashback to the town of Babel.

And that happened before these nations got established.

So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy.

So come back and we will figure out that mystery next time here on Within Inc.

Okay. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you are there, take a moment to drop us a note.

Well, that's a lot of names. It is. A lot of hard to find. I always lost my voice. But oh my goodness, these were real people in real place, real time, with their own languages, clans, families.

This is really helpful history. Yeah, and it cements our assertion that it is actually history. That's right. We'll pick it up next time. You're on More Than Name.

Yeah.

Bye. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.