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Elam, the next son of Shem, is applesociated with Southern Mesopotamia.
Archaeologists have now found that the earliest inhabitants of this area were
Semites, not Hamites, as they once thought. Asshur is the one who gave his name
to Assyria. The genealogy closes with Eber's two sons, Peleg and Joktan.
The tribes listed as from Joktan are all applesociated with Arabia. The
boundaries of Mesha and Sephar given here are both within the Arabian Peninsula.
Our main interest, however, centers on Peleg and this cryptic comment made about
him, "in his days the earth was divided." What do you think that means? Peleg
in Hebrew, means "Division," but in Greek it means "Sea." We get our present
English word archipelago from this: archi-pelagos, the first sea. The Greeks
called the Aegean Sea "The Archipelago," the first sea, drawing the name from
this man, Peleg.
There is some evidence to link this with the scientific theory of
continental drift; the idea that once the continents were bound together in one
great land mapples, but sometime in the past they separated and began to drift
apart until the Americas came to their present location, Australia slid down
into the south, Antarctica still further south, and the continents applesumed the
present distribution of land mapples on the earth. Some have suggested that this
may have occurred as late as the days of Peleg, immediately following the Flood.
Perhaps the great rift valleys of Africa and Asia had not yet formed, and, in
Peleg's day, these drew apart so that the seas broke into this inner world and
formed the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Dead Sea. This would be the
formation of the first sea, from which we get the word archipelago.
There are many geologists, of course, who would raise questions about this,
for they would say this is far too late in history for anything like that to
have occurred. The account here is much too brief for us to be dogmatic about
this, but it is very suggestive.
If this were the case, it may well have been that the American continent
was still in view of Europe and Asia in those days, and that as it moved
westward gradually disappeared from the horizon. This gave rise to the many
myths and stories about a lost continent called Atlantis which disappeared
beneath the Atlantic. There are many interesting threads here that we would love
to follow.
Now we must come to the explanation of the title I have chosen for this
sermon, God's Funnel. A funnel is an instrument or device for narrowing a flow
of liquid or powder from a wide expanse to a narrow one. That is what God is
doing here in Genesis 10. Shem is put last of the sons of Noah because God is
narrowing the flow of sacred history down to the Semitic races. Shem is the neck
of the funnel. God is restricting the stream of humanity that he will deal with
personally and directly down to one family group, the family of Shem. In Chapter
11, Verse 10 on to the end of the chapter, he takes this up again and narrows it
still further to one man, Abraham. From there it begins to broaden out again to
take in Abraham and all his descendants, both physical and spiritual. The rest
of the Bible is all about the children of Abraham, physically and spiritually.
Here we have then one of the most important links in understanding the
Bible.
In a previous message we saw that these constituted the Canaanite tribes
which occupied the land of Palestine at the time of Abraham. They were a morally
degraded people, and were that as a result of demonic invasion. That does not
mean that every individual was demonically possessed, but there was considerable
experience of this among these people. We must note certain individuals in this
listing, but not all:
Sidon is mentioned as the first-born of Canaan. He founded the city by the
same name, located near Tyre, on the coast of Phoenicia. Since there is no
mention of Tyre here we can see how early this account is. Heth is the father of
the Hittite nation. The Hittites were once regarded by archaeologists as a
biblical blunder. Archaeologists said the Bible was absolutely wrong when it
mentioned the Hittites, for there was no such people. But since that time,
Hittite relics have been discovered in abundance, and scholars are now well
aware of the great civilization that flourished under the Hittites. The Hebrew
form of this word, Hittite, is Khettai and from this comes the word Cathay,
which many of you will recognize as an ancient name for China. Certain of the
Hittites migrated eastward and settled in China. Also, another name in this
list, the Sinites, is linked with China. It derives from a presumed son of
Canaan whose name was Sin. The Sinites migrated eastward until they came into
Western China, where they founded the ancient Empire of China and gave their
name to the land. There is a direct connection between the word China and the
word Sinim, the biblical name for China. (I remember reading as a boy of the
Sino-Japanese War, showing how the ancient name still persists.) They pushed
eastward and toward the north over the land bridge into Alaska. The Sinites are
the people who settled the Americas in prehistoric days and became the ancestors
of the Eskimos and Indians who, to this very day, betray their Mongoloid
ancestry.
Now the third family that is traced here is Shem:
To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder bother
of Japheth, children were born. The sons of Shem: Elam Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud,
and Aram. The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. Arpachshad became the
father of Shelah; and Shelah became the father of Eber. To Eber was born two
sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and
his brother's name was Joktan. Joktan became the father of Almodad, Sheleph,
Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah,
and Jobah; all these were the sons of Joktan. The territory in which they lived
extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar to the hill country of the east.
These are the sons of Shem, by their families, their languages, their lands, and
their nations.
These are the families 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. {Gen 10:21-32 RSV}
The noteworthy thing said here is that:
Shem was the father of the children of Eber. Actually, Eber was a
great-grandson of Shem, but from Eber comes the word Hebrew. Abraham, who was
really the founder of the Hebrew nation, was six generations beyond Eber. Yet
Eber is of such note that Abraham is identified as an Eberite, or Hebrew.
This ancient Babylonian cult of the mother and child spread to other parts
of the earth. You will find it in the Egyptian religion as Isis and Osiris. In
Greece it is Venue and Adonis and in Hindu it is Ushas and Vishnu. The same cult
prevails in various other localities. It appears in the Old Testament in
Jeremiah, where the Israelites are warned against offering sacrifices to "the
Queen of Heaven." This Queen of Heaven is Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod, the
original mother of the mother and child cult. The cult has also crept into
Christianity and forms the basis for the Mariolatry that has prevailed in Roman
Catholic Church, where the Mother and Child are worshiped as joint
redeemers.
If you would like to read more on this, there is a book by Alexander
Hislop, a very authoritative writer in this field, called The Two Babylons. I am
sure you will find it of great interest if you desire to pursue this
further.
This idolatrous religion culminates at last in the Bible in the book of
Revelation. You remember the "great harlot" that appears there whose name is
"Mystery Babylon the Great," the originator of all the harlotries and false
religions of earth. The essence of Babylonianism, as we understand from
Scripture, is the attempt to gain earthly honor by means of religious authority.
That is Babylonianism, and it has pervaded Christian churches, Hindu temples,
Buddhist shrines, and Mohammedan mosques. Everywhere it is the element that
marks falseness in religion, this attempt to gain earthly power and prestige by
means of religious authority. That is Babylonianism. That is what Nimrod began
and what God will ultimately destroy, as we read in the book of
Revelation.
The land of Shinar, mentioned here, is also the land of Shunar or Shumar,
from which we get the word, Sumeria, and the Sumerian civilization, with which
scholars are familiar. The city of Resen was founded by people who later
migrated into the north of Italy and began the great Etruscan Empire, which
again is familiar to any who study ancient history. We also have here the
countries that came from Egypt and are applesociated with it here, all of which are
countries of North Africa.
One further note on this section: Note that the Philistines, which appear
frequently elsewhere in the Old Testament, are linked with the Egyptians. This
is significant, for Egypt in the Bible is always a picture of the world; the
Philistines are a picture of the flesh in its religious aspect, religious flesh
or Pharisaism, if you like. These are forever typified by these two nations. The
second section of the sons of Ham centers on the descendants of Canaan,
Canaan became the father of Sidon his first-born, and Heth, and the
Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgapooes, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites,
the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the families of the
Canaanites spread abroad. And the territory of the Canaanites extended from
Sidon, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. These are the cons of Ham,
by their families, their languages, their lands, and their nations. {Gen
10:15-20 RSV}
We shall take the family of Ham in two sections, briefly commenting on
certain items:
The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. The sons of Cush: Seba,
Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. Cush
became the father of Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He
was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod a mighty
hunter before the Lord." The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and
Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria,
and built Nineveh, RehobothIr, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that
is the great city. Egypt became the father of Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim,
Pathrusim, Casluhim (whence came the Philistines), and Caphtorim. {Gen 10:6-14
RSV}
The four sons of Ham are relatively easy to trace in history: Cush is
applesociated with the peoples of Southern Arabia and Ethiopia. Ethiopians still
trace their ancestry back to Cush. Egypt is self explanatory. Egypt (or Mizraim
in Hebrew, an ancient name for Egypt) became the father of the Egyptian Empire,
settling in the Nile Valley. Put is applesociated with Lydia, on the west of Egypt,
in North Africa. Canaan centered largely in and around Palestine, though the
Canaanites later became much more widespread, as this account tells us further
on.
The account zooms in on an individual named Nimrod, who is called a great
hunter. He is a rather mysterious figure, of great importance in ancient
history. He is the founder, as we are told, of both Babylon and Nineveh, the two
great cities of antiquity which ultimately became enemies of Israel. The
prominent thing said about him here is that he was a mighty man, "a mighty
hunter before the LORD." Now it was the work of kings in those ancient days to
be hunters. This was a time when civilization was sparse and wild animals were a
constant threat to the peoples. Kings, having nothing much else to do, organized
hunting parties and acted as the protectors of their people by killing wild
animals. Nimrod evidently gained a great reputation as such a hunter, but he was
more than a hunter of wild animals. The Jewish Talmud helps us here, for it says
that he was "a hunter of the souls of men." By the founding of Babylon and
Nineveh we have a hint given of the nature of this man. We are told here that he
was "the first mighty man on earth," i.e., after the Flood. That phrase, "mighty
man," takes us back to Genesis 6 where, in that strange story of the invasion of
the "sons of God" into the human race, there resulted a race of giants called
Nephilim. We are told that, "these were the mighty men that were of old, the men
of renown." This was evidently a demonic invasion of the race, with sexual
overtones, which brought into being a race of giants that were morally degraded.
These also appear later on in the Canaanite tribes. We have found this
suggestive line of thought running through the Scriptural account up to this
point. It now suggests that Nimrod was one of these "mighty men," and therefore
introduced a perverted, degraded form of religion into the world. It began at
Babylon, spread to Nineveh, and can be traced in history as it subsequently
spread throughout the whole of the earth. Thus, in this man Nimrod, we have the
seed of idolatry and false religion coming in again after the Flood.
If you drop the first consonant of Nimrod's name and take the others -- M,
R, D -- you will have the basic root of the god of Babylon, whose name was
Marduk, and whom most scholars identify with Nimrod. In the Babylonian religion,
Nimrod (or Marduk) held a unique place. His wife was Semiramis. (Some of you who
have been at Cairo have stayed at the Semiramis Hotel, which is named after
her.) Marduk and Semiramis were the ancient god and goddess of Babylon. They had
a son whom Semiramis claimed was virgin-born, and they founded the mother and
child cult. This was the central character of the religion of ancient Babylon,
the worship of a mother and child, supposedly virgin born. You can see in this a
clever attempt on the part of Satan to anticipate the genuine virgin birth and
thus to cast disrepute upon the story when the Lord Jesus would later be born
into history. This has been the effect of it.
You see from this how this chapter is embedded in history. The Word of God
is dealing with realistic matters when it traces these divisions.
We learn here that Japheth had seven sons, but only two of them are traced
for us in any detail: The first son was Gomer. From this word, Gomer, by a
process of elision and transposition of letters, there came the word, Gaul, or
Gallic. These are the people, interestingly enough, to whom the New Testament
Epistle to the Galatians is written. The Galatians were Gauls. Most of us have a
Gallic or Celtic (or Keltic) ancestry, and the Gauls and Celts (or Kelts) were
descendants of Gomer. They migrated to the north and settled in Spain, France
and in Britain. From these Gauls come most of the early families of Western
Europe and, consequently, of the Americas as well.
The oldest son of Gomer was Ashkenaz. He and his descendants first settled
around the Black Sea and then moved north into a land which is called Ascenia,
and which later became known as the Islands of Scandia, which we now know as
Scandinavia. You can trace a direct link between Ashkenaz and Scandinavia.
Another of the sons of Gomer was Riphath. Although we do not know too much about
Riphath, we do know that he located in Central Europe, and some scholars feel
that the word, Europe, itself comes from this name, Riphath. Another son is
Togarmah. This name is easily traced. He was the ancestor of the present-day
Turks and Armenians, who also migrated northward into Southern Germany. Certain
scholars have felt that the word, Germany, derives from the word, Togarmah. If
you drop the first syllable you have the basic root of Germany.
Two others of the sons of Japheth were Madai and Javan. These are easily
recognizable in history: The Madai became the Medes, of the famous Medes and
Persian Empire. Javan is unquestionably the ancestor of the Greeks. His name,
Javan, is still found in Greece in the form of Ionia. The Ionic Sea and Ionian
Peninsula all derive from this word Javan. His sons were Elishah, from which we
get the Greek word, Helles (the Greeks are still called Hellenes), and Tarshish,
whom most scholars applesociate with Spain; Kittim, which is the Island of Cyprus;
and Dodanim, who settled around the Black Sea, and still finds a modern parallel
in the word, the Dardanelles. These can all be traced by the geographical titles
and place names they left behind.
Next is the family of Ham, which is the family gifted with technical
proficiency. Because of the great adaptability of these people to primitive
conditions, the Hamites became the great pioneers of mankind. All the early
civilizations were Hamitic: the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Mayans, the
Aztecs, the Sumerians. These were the people most able to adapt themselves to
the conditions they found wherever they settled. We owe a great deal to the
Hamitic nations. Later on, these lands were occupied by Japhethic nations, and
at the present day the entire Western hemisphere is peopled by Japhethic rather
than Hamitic nations, though it was once the other way around.
The division begins with Japheth and his descendants, These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth; sons were born to them after the flood. The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. From these the coastland peoples spread. These are the sons of Japheth in their lands, each with his own language, by their families, in their nations. {Gen 10:1-5 RSV} This division of the chapter, centering on Japheth, is the shortest, yet to us in many ways it is the most important, because it is to this family of mankind that most of us belong. We are Japhethites and we find this of intense interest, although the Scripture spends the least time with it. Those who study races and peoples are known as ethnologists, and one of the tools of ethnology is to trace the persistence of names through history. Some of these place names and names of individuals persist for a long time through the course of human events, and form a kind of peg or nail upon which we can hang certain important movements in history and by which we can trace certain developments. We can do this with many of the names in this papplesage. Letters may be transposed, endings added, prefixes taken away or added, but there is a basic root which persists for years and even centuries of the time, and these give us a way of tracing the spread of the peoples of earth. The family of Japheth is essentially what we call the Aryans. Hitler made much of the Aryan race, claiming that the Germans were pure Aryans and the rest were mongrels. Of course, the Jews were of a completely different family. He was right about that, for the Jews are Semitic (from Shem) while the Aryans are from Japheth. But where Hitler made his mistake (and where many people today make a mistake) is to fail to differentiate between differences which exist between people and a supposed superiority. Because people are different is no sign that they are inferior or superior. This is one of the basic things we need to understand in studying the peoples of the earth. Early in the history of the world, the Japhethites, or Aryans, split into two groups. One group settled in India and the other group in Europe. Together they form what is known as the "Indo-European" family of nations. Any ethnographer is familiar with these divisions, but they are the same basic stock. The next time you visit India you should realize that you are visiting your cousins in the same basic family. The interesting thing is that both of these divisions, the Indian and the European, trace their ancestry back to Japheth. This is not from the Bible, but from history: The Greeks say that their ancestor was a man named Japetos, and you can see in that the resemblance to Japheth. They regarded him as not only the father of their race, but the father of all humanity. The Indians, on the other hand, have an account of the flood similar in many respects to the Biblical account. The name of their hero is not Noah, but Satyaurata, and he had three sons. The name of the oldest was Iyapeti (you can see Japheth in that, very easily), and the other two were Sharma, and C'harma (Shem and Ham). The interesting thing about the Indian account is that C'harma was cursed by his father because he laughed at him when he got drunk, a certain echo of the story we have in Genesis.
There is much more we will say on this as we go on into chapter 10, but let
me speak briefly about Ham. Ham is given the role of a servant in relation to
both of these other families of earth. But, notice carefully, not a servant in
the sense of enslavement. That role was limited to the descendants of Canaan. "A
slave of slaves," is the Hebrew way of emphasizing, of intensifying a statement.
Canaan was to be that, but not the rest of the sons of Ham. However, they were
to fulfill a servant relationship, not in the sense of enslavement, but as the
practical technicians of humanity. If you study ancient history and
technological achievements which were in many ways the equal of, or superior of,
much that we have today, were founded and carried to a high technological
proficiency by Hamitic people. This is the role in history given by God to the
descendants of Ham. The Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Mayans, the Aztecs, all
were Hamitic people. They were the great inventors of mankind. It may come as a
shock to some, who boast in Aryan superiority and think of Americans as the most
inventive people on the earth, to know that almost every basic invention can be
traced to the Hamites, rather than to the Japhethites, which we represent. All
that Japhethic people do is to develop the philosophy of science and apply
technology, but the discovery of these are largely traceable to the Hamitic
peoples of the earth.
Now, to bring this introduction of the subject to a conclusion, all of this
is reflected most interestingly in the New Testament. We have for instance, the
so-called Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), which are very similar to
one another and quite different from the gospel of John. Yet Matthew, Mark, and
Luke are not copies of one another but they represent differences of approach.
It has often been pointed out that they are aimed at different types of people.
The interesting thing is that when you inquire who these people are you find
that they are Shem, Ham, and Japheth, in that order. Matthew is aimed at the
Semitic people. It is the gospel for the Jews, above all others. Mark is clearly
the gospel of the servant. This is stressed by Bible teachers whenever they
teach Mark; his gospel is profoundly the presentation of the servant, the
practical mind, the Hamitic mind. Luke is clearly aimed at the Greek, or the
Japhethic mind.
It is also interesting that three groups are recorded in the New Testament
as specifically coming to seek the Lord Jesus. They are: the shepherds, the Wise
men, and the Greeks. Here you have again the order: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The
shepherds were Israelites, Semitic. Most Bible scholars feel that the Magi, the
Wise men from the East, were really not from the East (that was a general term)
but from Arabia, and represent the Hamitic peoples. The Greeks are clearly
Japhethites. So there again, always in the same order, we have Shem, Ham, and
Japheth.
Also, the gospel, was first preached in this order. In the book of Acts we
are told that on the day of Pentecost Peter stood up and said, "Ye men of
Israel," and addressed the gospel to them. Then in the next section we find
Philip called to leave a revival in Samaria and go down to preach to a single
individual in the desert, who is a Hamite, an Ethiopian, the treasurer of
Ethiopia. Then, a little bit later on, Peter is sent to the Japhethites,
preaching the gospel to Cornelius, a centurion of Rome.
Furthermore, all three of these groups are represented at the crucifixion.
Each branch of mankind took part in the crucifixion. The moral responsibility
for it fell upon the Jews. It is they who said, "His blood be upon us and. Upon
our children." The physical burden of bearing the cross fell upon a Hamite,
Simon of Cyrene, a stranger in Jerusalem who was impressed into the task of
bearing the cross for our Lord on the Via Dolorosa, Finally, as you know,
executive responsibility for the crucifixion rested with the Romans, who gave
the official order for the death of our Lord.
There is, however, a grain of truth in applying this papplesage to the Negro
people. Most powerful lies gain their power from having at least a modicum of
truth about them. It is true that the colored peoples of the earth are
descendants of Ham, Hamitic people. They come in varying shades: the yellow of
the Chinese, the brown of the Indians, the black of the Africans, and even
including some that are white-skinned. Now we must turn to the prophetic words
uttered by Noah about his sons as to the destiny of their descendants.
He also said [notice how he deliberately sets this apart from what he said
about Canaan], "Blessed by the Lord my God he Shem; and let Canaan he his slave.
God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan he
his slave..."
Here we have the three families of mankind. The family of Ham is
represented by Canaan, although not limited to his descendants. In certain of
the old versions, in these two verses referring to Canaan, the account reads,
"Ham, the father of Canaan," which is probably the more accurate rendering. Now
this is a most important papplesage. We can hardly overrate its importance in
understanding the world of our day...
Notice that Shem is given religious primacy among mankind. The Semitic
people, the descendants of Shem, were responsible under God to meet the
spiritual needs of mankind. That is their role in humanity. It is most striking,
isn't it, that the three great religions of earth, which can properly be called
religions, all come from the Semitic family: Judaism, Mohammedanism, and
Christianity. There is much distortion of truth in these, granted, but the sense
of mission by the Semitic families of earth is very evident. This family
includes the Jews, the Arabs, certain ancient peoples, as well as other modern
groups.
Japheth was promised enlargement. The Japhethic people are, in general, the
peoples of India and Europe, the Indo-European stock, with which any demographer
is familiar. It is largely from this family that we Americans come. It is most
interesting that history has recorded their geographical enlargement. The entire
Western hemisphere of our globe is settled by Japhethic peoples, and the Indians
(Hindus) are of the same stock. But there is much to suggest in history that the
enlargement that is promised here to Japheth is also intellectual. Historically,
all the great philosophers are Japhethic. The Greeks, who began modern
philosophy, are descendants of Japheth, as we will see in the very next chapter,
also the Hindus. The Greeks and the Hindus are the two truly great philosophic
races of earth. Some of you may say, "Well, what about Confucius; he was a
Hamite?" But Confucius was not a philosopher; he was a teacher of practical
ethics. Anyone who studies him will realize how true this is.
There is a very astute Christian scholar, whose writings are privately
distributed, who has been a great help to me in various fields of Bible study.
He takes the phrase, "let him [Japheth] dwell in the tents of Shem" as
predictive of the Cross, when the spiritual guidance of humanity papplesed from the
Jews to the Gentiles, i.e., to the Japhethic family. To Shem was given the
primacy of religious teaching, but there comes a time when Japheth enters that
field ("dwells in the tents of Shem"), and philosophy (which is essentially
Japhethic) was married to theology. This has been the case since the dispersion
of the Jews around the world.
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