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**See notes

Read Genesis 10 – 11 

GENESIS 10 – THE TABLE OF NATIONS 

Genesis 10 is the most accurate and complete document of its kind pertaining to the origination of the nations and races. Noach’s three sons populated the whole earth. Generally speaking, Shem populated Asia, Ham populated Africa, and Yefet populated Europe.  

v.8-12 Kushites = Ethiopians, a race of black-skinned people. Nimrod, son of Kush, was a black man. **The Bible does not deal with racial issues in the sense the West does. Skin colour denoted no racial superiority. Historically, nationality and tribal affiliation made enemies of one another…not determined by skin colour & features. 

—Nimrod first to fashion weapons of war. Established Bavel in the Land of Shinar. v.11—Ashur went and built Ninveh. Ashur is the Assyrian name of Nimrod. 

Modern term for Philistines is Palestine. Palestinians today claim to be descendants of the Philistines…BUT the modern Palestinians are Arabs from the line of Shem…but now identify with the line of Ham…they have given up their line of good by joining the line of evil. 

PRINCIPLE:: God Divides, God Elects, God Separates. 

GENESIS 11 – THE TOWER OF BAVEL 

v.1 The whole earth used the same language, the same words. This tells us that people were very slowly dispersing, and they stayed quite linked to the common language because they didn’t separate from one another. They just expanded like urban sprawl.

v.2 They travelled “from the east”…which can be confusing since the land of Shin’ar (modern-day Iraq) was located southeast of where they travelled from. The reason we have the reference of moving from the east is that by going east from where God placed them, they in essence moved further away from God. This designation of going “from the east” was symbolic of their desire to gain independence from God. 

v.3 Bricks (burned) & clay (slime-asphalt). There were no quarries of stones in the shallow soils of the land. By their efforts they dug up the ground and made bricks, baking them in fire to strengthen them and make them durable like stones. The clay they used was a black slime, a mineral-pitch that was found boiling up from the soil, that when hardened, forms a strong cement—asphalt.

v.4 Under the leadership of powerful Nimrod, the people decided to stop and establish a city with a tower as a monument to their pride…to their own abilities, one that would enhance their fame and for their reputation. The tower alone was not their single act of rebellion, it was their human pride, which led them to defy God. They refused to move on, scatter and fill the earth as they had been instructed. They disobeyed God and attempted to steal His glory. 

v.5 “ADONAI came down…”is an anthropomorphic expression revealing that nothing the people had done
had escaped His attention. God didn’t have to move to know what was happening…but He did react to this
rebellion in a way that the people clearly understood! 

v.6 The Hebrew word used here for “unified” is echad, which an attribute attached to God Himself. Echadliterally means “one” The people were organically connected, inseparable. God didn’t like this. Unity in itself is not a bad thing; the key is what or whom the unifying agent is. Consensus and compromise are man’s kind of unity. It’s mankind holding hands, saying,

“We are one.” But God’s unity is unity in Him. It is each individual holding Messiah Yeshua’s hand, and like the hub of a spoked wheel, He is the point of unity. **see John 17:20-23 / 1 Corinthians 6:17 / Philippians 1:27

v.7-9 God DIVIDES them by confusing their language and they spoke in different tongues. God ELECTS all the people to carry out what He wanted them to accomplish in the first place…to multiply and fill the earth. God SEPARATES them by scattering them all over the earth. **see Revelation 18 “Bavel has fallen…come out of her!” ** Acts 2:1-21. In the Tower of Bavel, God demonstrated how He will divide and separate that which man will unify (dividing mechanism was language). In Acts, at Pentecost we see men unified by language. God unified what He divided and separated more than 2000 years earlier. **see 1 Peter 2:4-5 living stones build a spiritual house

v.10-26 Genealogy of Shem.v.27-32 Genealogy of Terach **According to Rabbi J.H. Hertz, “The main purpose of the First Book of the Torah is giving a complete account of the founders of the Hebrew race, Avraham (Abraham), Yitzchak (Isaac) and Ya’akov (Jacob) and their children. Avram is traced back through ten successive generations to Shem, the son of Noach.”