টীকা বর্তমানে শুধুমাত্র ইংরেজিতে উপলব্ধ। বাংলা অনুবাদ চলছে।
Genesis 10 — The Table of Nations
A genealogical map of how the post-flood world filled the earth from the three sons of Noah — Japheth, Ham, and Shem. The seventy nations from which all peoples descend. The chapter shows God's ordering of human ethnology and the rise of Nimrod, the first imperial figure.
“These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.”
— Genesis 10:32
- v.1-5 The sons of Japheth — the maritime nations
- v.6-20 The sons of Ham — including Nimrod and the cities of Mesopotamia
- v.21-31 The sons of Shem — the line of promise
- v.32 Summary statement: by these were the nations divided
The "isles of the Gentiles" refers to the Mediterranean coastlands and the European lineage that spread westward and northward. Most of Europe, eventually the Americas and Australasia, descends from the line of Japheth.
Each grouping is described with four marks — tongue, family, nation, and land. The same fourfold description recurs in Revelation 7:9 for the redeemed multitude. The categories that distinguish nations are the same that distinguish the saved.
Nimrod is the first imperial figure in the Bible. The text calls him a "mighty one" — gibbor, a hero-warrior. The same word describes the giants of 6:4.
His name is from a Hebrew root meaning "let us rebel." Whether his parents named him this or it was given for his deeds, the meaning fits. He represents the first organized human resistance to God after the flood — leading directly into Babel in chapter 11.
"Before the Lord" — Hebrew liphne YHWH — can mean "in the face of" or "in defiance of." The phrase is ambiguous in the Hebrew but the context of his city-building (verses 10-12) suggests defiance.
Nimrod is the prototype of the man who builds great works in the face of God rather than under Him. Every empire from Babel onward has borne his stamp.
The first cities of organized power — all in Mesopotamia, in the land of Shinar (later called Babylonia). Babel/Babylon will become Scripture's recurring symbol of the world system in opposition to God.
The cities Nimrod founded continued through history. Babylon falls in Revelation 18. The kingdoms of men, from their first foundation, were destined to be replaced by the kingdom of heaven (Daniel 2:44).
Peleg means "division." His name commemorates the dividing of the nations — likely the Babel dispersion of chapter 11.
The chronology is significant — Peleg lived about a century after the flood. The repopulation, the rebellion at Babel, and the scattering all happened within a few generations of Noah's descendants.
Seventy nations are listed in the chapter — fourteen from Japheth, thirty from Ham, twenty-six from Shem. Seventy becomes a number with theological resonance: seventy elders of Israel (Exodus 24:1), seventy years of exile (Jeremiah 25:11), seventy disciples sent by Jesus (Luke 10:1).
Acts 17:26 picks up the principle: God "made of one blood all nations of men... and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation." The Table of Nations is not arbitrary; it is divine assignment.
Every people group on earth is your kindred. There is no human anywhere who is not your cousin in the line of Noah. The racial and ethnic divisions that fracture the modern world dissolve before the genealogy of Genesis 10. Treat every stranger as family — because that is what they actually are.
The seventy nations of Genesis 10 are the seventy that Jesus would later send the disciples to evangelize in seed form. The great commission to "all nations" (Matthew 28:19) is the great answer to the Table of Nations — every line from Shem, Ham, and Japheth gathered into the family of the Last Adam.
The post-flood world begins repopulating from three brothers. Every human alive today is descended from one of these three lines.
The order — Shem, Ham, Japheth — is by birth or covenant standing, not by chapter sequence. The chapter treats Japheth first, then Ham, then Shem — concluding with the line of promise so the narrative can pick up Abram in chapter 11.