Genesis: Chapter Ten (The Table of Nations)

In which lots of people make lots of babies and Nimrod gets the short end of the naming stick.

Always right to the point, the chapter begins, "This is the account of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Noah's sons, who themselves had sons after the flood." (10:1) A brief scan of the chapter tells me I'm about to read all about three different sects of people, the descendants of Japheth, Ham, and Shem. Those tribes are called The Japhethites, The Hamites, and The Semites. (Let it be known that I will, from here forward, be paying close attention to the bloodline of Shem. If we get the term Semites through Anglicisation of this tribe, then the term antisemitic is likely to share etymological roots, and I want to know what those are.)

In 10:2-4, Japheth has seven sons named Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. Gomer has three sons — Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah — while Javan has four — Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittim, and the Rodanim. The footnote in my Bible says that some other texts call this last group of people the Dodanim. It's probably just a translation thing.

10:6-7 sets up the Hamite tribe. Ham spawns Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan (whose lineage was cursed into slavery in the previous chapter). Cush begets Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. Raamah has two kids, Sheba and Dedan.

But Cush had another son named Nimrod (yeah, seriously, check out 10:8), and Nimrod was "a mighty warrior on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord." So he fought in wars, I guess. Wars that are conveniently not mentioned in the Bible. Or maybe he was a "soldier in Christ". 10:9 says, "That is why it is said, 'Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.'" So Nimrod was awesome enough to warrant his own regional saying.

Nimrod is a guy who builds cities and turns them into a kingdom. "The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh." Later, "he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, and Resen." (10:11-12) Calah is called "the great city."

Another history lesson goes down in 10:13-17. Mizraim (son of Ham) birthed the lineages of the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites, Pathrusites, Casluhites, and the Caphtorites. The Philistines are derivative of the Casluhites. Canaan had offspring as well: Sidon (who apparently failed to start a successful clan, much like my attempts at playing World of Warcraft), the Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites, and Hamathites. No word on the Hermaphrodites.

But Canaan's offspring spread out across the world and their territory sprawled from Sidon to Gaza, then to Sodom and Gomorrah, and some other places that take up a lot of typing space. The point is that Canaan and his boys had themselves some territory. (10:19)

10:20 finally contradicts my triplets theory in full by saying that Shem's older brother was Japheth. So the Noah brothers were born in this order: Japheth, Shem, Ham. Japheth is the eldest, Ham the youngest.

Another history lesson goes down in 10:21-30, and I'll condense it for you because, quite frankly, this chapter has been boring so far. No character development whatsoever. Shem has five sons. One of them, Aram, has four. Another, Arphaxad, births Shelah, who in turn births Eber (who is important enough to warrant three mentions in this segment). Eber has a son named Peleg, which my footnotes tell me means "divided". Peleg was so named "because in his time the earth was divided." This could mean there was an earthquake that split the earth (common natural occurance) or it could mean that the people were divided (politically? culturally?), but again, the Bible isn't going to tell me. What good would the Bible be if it explained everything? Eber's other son is Joktan, and he makes lots of whoopee and thirteen kids. This tribe also had a lot of land.

The chapter ends nowhere near as eventfully as the rest of this story with a couple of verses (9:31-32) saying that we've now covered all of the clans of Noah.

Not much is going on in this chapter at the same time that lots of stuff is happening. The text has quit telling us how long people lived and at what age they began producing offspring, and that's a blessing, the least reason for which is that I no longer have to do math to figure out how old people really were when they made babies or died. But the text itself is pretty bland. This guy had this guy who had this guy and so on and so forth. Still, it's necessary to give us the history and genealogy necessary for me to keep in touch with the Semites like I promised. The only two people in this chapter to receive special attention from the author are the unfortunately-named Nimrod (face it, he's been made fun of ever since, by proxy) and Eber, who is a Semite, and whose lineage I will continue to follow.

On the other hand, the chapter's boring quality also kept it more or less within the bounds of my scrutiny. The closest thing to impossibility here is Joktan's thirteen kids. But that's not really unheard of. I've known larger Mormon families.

Predictably, only sons are mentioned in this lineage. Women are not so much casually discarded as they are completely ignored, despite the fact that we all know it takes a woman to make a baby. If you don't know that, you're probably too young to be reading the Bible.