Genesis 10

The Nations from Noah’s Sons

Noah’s three sons become the nations of the known world. Japheth’s line reaches the far north and the coastlands, Ham’s includes Egypt, Babylon, and Canaan, and Shem’s, told last, includes the children of Eber, from whom Abraham will come.

Genesis chaptersChapter 10 of 50

After the Flood, from Noah’s sons to the generation of Peleg. The Church’s Bible Chronology lists the Flood and the tower of Babel without dates, so no date is given. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

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Background

Genesis is built on family records, and each new section “begins ‘These are the generations.’”

Genesis is built on family records, and each new section “begins ‘These are the generations.’” This one is “the generations of the sons of Noah.” It fills out what the last chapter said in a sentence: “These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread” (Gen. 9:19). The Bible Dictionary’s outline of Genesis takes this chapter and the next together as “the peopling of the whole earth by the descendants of Noah’s sons and the diffusion of tongues at the tower of Babel.” After that, “the history of two of these is then dropped,” and the genealogy in Gen. 11:10–26 follows “the line of Shem only… as far as Terah and Abram.”

So the chapter is a map of the world Israel knew, drawn as a family tree (see the note on verse 1). It comes before the tower of Babel in the book, but the two belong together: the list “traces the origin of the tribes which were scattered over the earth,” and chapter 11 tells the cause, the confusion of tongues that divided “the one human race into many different tribes with peculiar languages” (see the note on verse 5).

Other scripture returns to the list. Chronicles copies it, shortened, at the head of Israel’s genealogies (1 Chr. 1:5–23); Ezekiel takes names from it for the nations of the far north (Ezek. 38:2–6); and Luke traces the Savior’s ancestry back through Shem’s line (Luke 3:34–36).

The thread through the chapter

The chapter tells how one family became the nations, and its key word is divided.

The chapter tells how one family became the nations, and its key word is divided. From Javan’s sons “were the isles of the Gentiles divided” (verse 5); in Peleg’s days “was the earth divided” (verse 25); and the chapter ends, “by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood” (verse 32). Verses 5 and 32 use the same Hebrew verb. Each son’s list closes with nearly the same words: his descendants “after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations” (verse 20; compare verses 5 and 31).

The order is deliberate. Verse 1 names the sons as Shem, Ham, and Japheth, but the list runs the other way, Japheth first and Shem last, because the story will go on with Shem: “the family of Shem is the last to be enumerated, leading up to the Narratives of the Patriarchs,” “according to the plan of the book of Genesis.” The same thing happens on a small scale inside Shem’s line. Eber has two sons; Joktan’s thirteen are listed and left (verses 26–29), and Peleg’s line is held over for chapter 11, where it reaches Abram.

Two short stories break into the list, and both point ahead. Nimrod begins the first kingdom at Babel in the land of Shinar (verses 8–12), the plain where chapter 11’s tower will stand (Gen. 11:2). And Canaan’s border is traced from Sidon to Gaza and toward Sodom (verse 19): the land God will promise to Abraham, and the cities whose end chapter 19 tells.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–5

Japheth’s descendants

In plain words

This is the record of the descendants of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who had sons after the Flood. Japheth’s sons were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. Gomer’s sons were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. Javan’s sons were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. From these the peoples of the coastlands spread out into their own lands, each with its own language, by their families and nations.

1 Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.

Context #

Peoples drawn as a family

The chapter lists peoples as well as persons, and sets them out as one family.

The chapter lists peoples as well as persons, and sets them out as one family. Many of the names are plainly nations or places. Mizraim (verse 6) is “the regular Hebrew name for Egypt.” Mizraim’s “sons,” the Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, and the rest (verses 13–14), carry “the plural termination -im” of tribal names, and Canaan’s include “the Jebusite, and the Amorite” (verse 16). Javan’s sons are “evidently geographical,” Greek “colonies and settlements or communities.” Some names may be founders and others the peoples descended from them, and “in some cases we are unable to determine whether the names given denote the founder or the tribe.” Read this way, the list is “not a formal genealogy” but a table of the “peoples known to the Israelites,” set out as relatives.

That form is the point. Every people Israel knew, from the Greeks of the coastlands to Egypt and Babylon, is traced back to one of “the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread” (Gen. 9:19).

Sources: Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2 The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.

Related Scriptures #

Japheth’s peoples, and Gog of Magog

Japheth’s sons are “names of peoples who for the most part seem to have dwelt in remote northern and western regions in Asia Minor.”

Japheth’s sons are “names of peoples who for the most part seem to have dwelt in remote northern and western regions in Asia Minor.” Some are easy to place. Madai is “almost certainly ‘the land of the Medes’”; Javan is “the Hebrew name for ‘the Greeks,’” and where Daniel’s vision speaks of “the king of Grecia” (Dan. 8:21), the Hebrew says “king of Javan.”

The prophets used these names for the far north. Ezekiel prophesies against “Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal,” who brings with him “Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters” (Ezek. 38:2–6) and comes “out of the north parts” (Ezek. 38:15). Five of the names in verses 2–3 are there. John’s “Gog and Magog” (Rev. 20:8), the nations Satan gathers to battle at the end, are “based upon the prophetic passages in Ezekiel 38, 39.”

Sources: Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

3 And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.

4 And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.

5 By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.

Language #

Isles and Gentiles

“Isles” are coastlands. The Hebrew iyyim means “coast, border, region,” and here it is the shores where Javan’s descendants settled: “the Greek settlements branched off in all…

“Isles” are coastlands. The Hebrew iyyim means “coast, border, region,” and here it is the shores where Javan’s descendants settled: “the Greek settlements branched off in all directions among the islands and the coastlands.” “Gentiles” is goyim, the ordinary word for “nation, people.” The same word ends this verse, “in their nations,” and comes again in verses 20, 31, and 32. The King James translators made it “Gentiles” here and “nations” everywhere else in the chapter.

The word iyyim becomes Isaiah’s word for the far-off peoples the Lord calls: “Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far” (Isa. 49:1). Jacob, after reading Isaiah to the Nephites, took it to include his own people: “we are upon an isle of the sea,” and “great are the promises of the Lord unto them who are upon the isles of the sea” (2 Ne. 10:20–21).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Related Scriptures #

Languages before Babel?

The chapter gives each people its own “tongue” (verses 5, 20, 31), yet the next chapter opens, “the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech” (Gen. 11:1).

The chapter gives each people its own “tongue” (verses 5, 20, 31), yet the next chapter opens, “the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech” (Gen. 11:1). The Bible Dictionary treats the two chapters as one movement, “the peopling of the whole earth by the descendants of Noah’s sons and the diffusion of tongues at the tower of Babel.” Read that way, they need not be in time order: chapter 10 sets out the nations as they came to be, and in chapter 11 “the confusion of tongues shows the cause of the division of the one human race into many different tribes with peculiar languages.”

Joseph Smith’s revision of Genesis may have met the same question. In his revised manuscript verse 5 reads “every one after the same tongues,” and verse 20 “after the same tongue,” while verse 31 keeps “after their tongues.” The Book of Mormon adds that the confounding did not reach everyone: at the brother of Jared’s prayer the Lord “did not confound the language of Jared,” and then spared their friends as well (Ether 1:35–37; see the note at Gen. 11:8).

Sources: Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. “Genesis”, Bible Dictionary. Old Testament Revision 2, The Joseph Smith Papers. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 6–14

Ham’s descendants, Nimrod, and Egypt

In plain words

Ham’s sons were Cush, Mizraim (Egypt), Phut, and Canaan. Cush’s sons were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabtecha, and Raamah’s sons were Sheba and Dedan. Cush was also the father of Nimrod, who became the first mighty ruler on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord, so that people still say, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.” His kingdom began with Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar. From that land Asshur (or Nimrod himself) went out into Assyria and built Nineveh, the city Rehoboth, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah, the great city. Mizraim was the father of the Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, and Casluhim (from whom the Philistines came), and of the Caphtorim.

6 And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.

7 And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.

8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.

9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.

Context #

Nimrod, the mighty hunter

Nimrod is the first man in Genesis said to have a kingdom (verse 10). He “began to be a mighty one in the earth” (verse 8), which may mean, “He was the first great monarch.”

Nimrod is the first man in Genesis said to have a kingdom (verse 10). He “began to be a mighty one in the earth” (verse 8), which may mean, “He was the first great monarch.” The meaning of his name is “wholly unknown,” though Hebrew ears may have heard in it marad, “rebel.”

Whether “before the LORD” is praise or blame is the reader’s question, and Genesis does not say. It can be an idiom of size, as when Nineveh is “an exceeding great city” (Jonah 3:3), in Hebrew “a city great unto God”; on that reading the phrase is “merely descriptive of magnitude.” Ancient Jewish readers took it the other way. The Targum (one of the “ancient Jewish translations or paraphrases of the scriptures”) attributed to Jonathan ben Uzziel says that Nimrod “began to be mighty in sin, and to rebel before the Lord,” and calls him “a mighty rebel before the Lord.” Josephus makes him the leader at Babel: “it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God.” He “changed the government into tyranny” (see the note at Gen. 11:3).

Joseph Smith’s revision takes out the words that raise the question: “he was a mighty hunter in the land.” The change “clarifies that Nimrod was a mighty hunter ‘in the land’ rather than ‘before the Lord.’” The Book of Mormon remembers him as well. Jared’s company went down into a valley “called after the mighty hunter” (Ether 2:1).

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Genesis 4–11: The Patriarchs, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). J. W. Etheridge, The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch, with the Fragments of the Jerusalem Targum: Genesis and Exodus, London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1862; scan on the Internet Archive. Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Trans. William Whiston; online at penelope.uchicago.edu. Old Testament Revision 2, The Joseph Smith Papers. Genesis 6–11; Moses 8, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).

10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

11 Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah,

Context #

Babylon and Nineveh

Nimrod’s cities are the great names of Mesopotamia. Babel is Babylon (Nimrod “was the founder of a great kingdom that included Babel (later called Babylon)”), and Shinar, the land…

Nimrod’s cities are the great names of Mesopotamia. Babel is Babylon (Nimrod “was the founder of a great kingdom that included Babel (later called Babylon)”), and Shinar, the land around it, is where the tower of chapter 11 is built (Gen. 11:2).

Verse 11 can be read two ways. The King James Version makes Asshur a man who left Shinar and built Nineveh. The Hebrew can also mean that Nimrod himself went to Assyria: “From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh,” as modern translations have it, and as the Targum attributed to Jonathan read it: “From that land went forth Nimrod, and reigned in Athur.” Nimrod is then “king of Babylonia, and founder of the chief cities in Assyria,” and one man stands behind both Babylon and Nineveh, which became “the capital of Assyria.” The Bible Dictionary calls him “the Babylonian hunter and traditional builder of Nineveh,” and Micah calls Assyria “the land of Nimrod” (Micah 5:6).

Sources: Genesis 6–11; Moses 8, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). English Standard Version, Crossway, 2016; on BibleGateway. New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway. J. W. Etheridge, The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch, with the Fragments of the Jerusalem Targum: Genesis and Exodus, London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1862; scan on the Internet Archive. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. “Nimrod”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

12 And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.

13 And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim,

14 And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim.

Verses 15–20

Canaan’s descendants

In plain words

Canaan was the father of Sidon, his firstborn, and of Heth, and of the Jebusites, Amorites, Girgasites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites, and Hamathites. Later the Canaanite clans spread out, and their territory ran from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim as far as Lasha. These are Ham’s descendants by their families, languages, lands, and nations.

15 And Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn, and Heth,

Context #

Canaan’s sons, the peoples of the promised land

This Canaan is the son of Ham on whom Noah’s curse fell (Gen. 9:25; see the note there).

This Canaan is the son of Ham on whom Noah’s curse fell (Gen. 9:25; see the note there). His “sons” are a city and a string of peoples: Sidon, presumably the ancestor of the Phoenician city of that name, then Heth, “the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite,” and the rest (verses 15–18). They were not one nation. The list shows “that a patchwork of peoples and places comprised the Canaanites,” and “to assume that the Canaanites were a single group of people would be incorrect.”

They matter because their land becomes Abraham’s. When the Lord makes His covenant with Abram He names the same peoples as the inhabitants of the promised land: “the Hittites… and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites” (Gen. 15:20–21). The border in verse 19 is drawn “with evident reference to the fact that it was afterwards promised to the seed of Abraham for its inheritance.” The reader will meet these peoples again. Abraham buys Sarah’s tomb from “the sons of Heth” (Gen. 23:3); the Jebusites’ city was “Jebus, which is Jerusalem” (Judg. 19:10); and Sodom and Gomorrah, at the border’s edge, are the cities whose end chapter 19 tells (Gen. 19:24).

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. George A. Pierce, “The Ancestors of Israel and the Environment of Canaan in the Early Second Millennium BC”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 163–92. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

16 And the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite,

17 And the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite,

18 And the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad.

19 And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.

20 These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.

Verses 21–31

Shem’s descendants

In plain words

Sons were born also to Shem, the ancestor of all the children of Eber and the brother of Japheth the elder. Shem’s sons were Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram. Aram’s sons were Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. Arphaxad was the father of Salah, and Salah of Eber. Eber had two sons: one was named Peleg (“Division”), because in his days the earth was divided, and his brother was named Joktan. Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were Joktan’s sons. They lived in the region from Mesha toward Sephar, the mountain of the east. These are Shem’s descendants by their families, languages, lands, and nations.

21 Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.

Language #

Eber and the Hebrews

Shem is introduced through his great-grandson Eber because of what Eber’s name meant to Israel: of all that could be said of Shem, this “would seem most honourable to Israelite readers.”

Shem is introduced through his great-grandson Eber because of what Eber’s name meant to Israel: of all that could be said of Shem, this “would seem most honourable to Israelite readers.” Eber is “perhaps eponym of Hebrews,” the ancestor whose name is carried in the word Hebrew (ivri). Josephus says the same of Heber: “from whom they originally called the Jews Hebrews” (on the name, see the note at Gen. 11:14).

Shem is father of “all” Eber’s children, and Eber had two lines. Joktan’s thirteen sons (verses 26–29) “probably represent tribes in Arabia,” and Genesis lists them and moves on. Peleg’s line is taken up in chapter 11 and runs to Abram (Gen. 11:16–26).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Trans. William Whiston; online at penelope.uchicago.edu. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub.

Language #

Which brother was the elder?

The Hebrew phrase ends with haggadol, “the great,” which of a son or brother means “elder,” and grammatically it can belong to either name.

The Hebrew phrase ends with haggadol, “the great,” which of a son or brother means “elder,” and grammatically it can belong to either name. The King James Version makes Japheth the elder. Some modern translations read it of Shem, “the elder brother of Japheth,” and note the King James reading as an alternative; others agree with the King James: “Sons were also born to Shem, whose older brother was Japheth.”

Latter-day revelation gives the order of birth: Noah “begat Japheth; and forty-two years afterward he begat Shem,” and Ham was born last (Moses 8:12). That agrees with the King James reading. Joseph Smith’s revised manuscript of this verse, though, reads, “Unto Shem also, which was the Elder Children were born.” Scripture does not explain the difference. The order in verse 1 does not settle it either: Genesis always names the three as “Shem, Ham, and Japheth” (Gen. 5:32; Gen. 6:10; Gen. 9:18), which, by Moses 8:12, is not the order of their birth.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. English Standard Version, Crossway, 2016; on BibleGateway. New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway. New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Old Testament Revision 2, The Joseph Smith Papers.

22 The children of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.

23 And the children of Aram; Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash.

24 And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber.

25 And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan.

Language #

In Peleg’s days the earth was divided

Peleg “signifies division,” and the verse explains the name with the verb palag, “split, divide”: “in his days was the earth divided.”

Peleg “signifies division,” and the verse explains the name with the verb palag, “split, divide”: “in his days was the earth divided.” What was divided, the verse does not say, and readers have taken it in more than one way.

Josephus took it of the people: Peleg “was called Phaleg because he was born at the dispersion of the nations to their several countries.” “The earth” then means “the inhabitants of the earth,” as when “the whole earth was of one language” (Gen. 11:1), and the division is the scattering from Babel.

Latter-day revelation speaks of a division of the land itself. When the Lord comes, the islands “shall become one land” (D&C 133:23), and “the earth shall be like as it was in the days before it was divided” (D&C 133:24). President Joseph Fielding Smith read Genesis 10:25 in that light: the dividing “was not an act of division by the inhabitants of the earth by tribes and peoples, but a breaking asunder of the continents.” Joseph Smith’s revision adds only that “Peleg was a mighty man.” Genesis itself does not say which division it means.

Sources: Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Trans. William Whiston; online at penelope.uchicago.edu. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 4–11: The Patriarchs, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). Old Testament Revision 2, The Joseph Smith Papers.

26 And Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah,

27 And Hadoram, and Uzal, and Diklah,

28 And Obal, and Abimael, and Sheba,

29 And Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab: all these were the sons of Joktan.

30 And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar a mount of the east.

31 These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.

Verse 32

The nations divided

In plain words

These are the families of Noah’s sons, by their lines of descent, in their nations. From them the nations were divided over the earth after the Flood.

32 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.

Related Scriptures #

God divides the nations

The chapter ends with the verb of verse 5: the nations “were divided” (nifredu, from parad, “divide, separate”).

The chapter ends with the verb of verse 5: the nations “were divided” (nifredu, from parad, “divide, separate”). Moses’ song uses the same verb to say whose work the division was: “When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel” (Deut. 32:8). There “separated” is parad again. Read with that verse, the nations of this chapter “were formed from the families of the sons of Noah,” and “the possession of the lands by the nations so formed was to be traced to God.”

Paul told the Athenians the same: God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord” (Acts 17:26–27).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Deuteronomy, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 10

The table of nations sets up the promise that follows it. When the Lord calls Abram two chapters later, He says, “in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12:3), with the same Hebrew word for “families” (mishpachot) that closes this chapter, “the families of the sons of Noah.” The genealogies “prepare the way for the promise of the blessing, which was one day to spread from the chosen family to all the families of the earth.” Paul read that promise as the gospel: “the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed” (Gal. 3:8), and “if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29).

The line the chapter tells last leads to Him. Luke traces Jesus back through Phalec, Heber, and Sala to Arphaxad and Sem (Luke 3:35–36), with one name more than Genesis has (see the note at Gen. 11:12).

Worth exploring next

Read on into Gen. 11, where the tower of Babel explains the scattering and Shem’s line is followed to Abram, and then the call of Abram in Gen. 12:1–3. 1 Chr. 1:1–27 repeats the table and carries it to “Abram; the same is Abraham.” For the scattering seen from the Book of Mormon, read Ether 1:33–43 and Ether 2:1–4.

This chapter elsewhere in scripture

1 Chr. 1:5–23 — The same table of nations, shortened, at the head of the genealogies in Chronicles.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“Chronology”, Bible Dictionary.
“Genesis”, Bible Dictionary.
“Nimrod”, Bible Dictionary.
Genesis 6–11; Moses 8, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Genesis 4–11: The Patriarchs, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).
Old Testament Revision 2, The Joseph Smith Papers.
George A. Pierce, “The Ancestors of Israel and the Environment of Canaan in the Early Second Millennium BC”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 163–92.
Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
English Standard Version, Crossway, 2016; on BibleGateway.
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway.
New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway.
J. W. Etheridge, The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch, with the Fragments of the Jerusalem Targum: Genesis and Exodus, London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1862; scan on the Internet Archive.
Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Trans. William Whiston; online at penelope.uchicago.edu.
Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Deuteronomy, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

I’ve studied Genesis 10