Genesis Chapter 10 Part 1: Where Did Every Nation on Earth Come From? Genesis 10 Answers

After the flood, three sons and one table changed everything. Genesis 10 is often skipped over, but it holds the answer to where every nation, language, and people group on earth actually came from. This is the Table of Nations, and it is one of the most historically confirmed chapters in the Bible.

We trace the lines of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. We look at Nimrod, the first empire builder, and why Scripture calls him a mighty man before the Lord in a way that is not a compliment. We look at the Ancient Near Eastern context behind names like Mizraim, Cush, and Canaan, and why this genealogy sets up the rebellion at Babel in the next chapter.

If you have ever wondered how the Bible accounts for the diversity of nations we see today, this lesson lays the foundation. Watch the full teaching now and share it with someone who needs to see how historically grounded Genesis really is.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

And welcome back to our study. Uh, today we're gonna be in Genesis chapter 10, verses 1 through 20. We're gonna look at the table of nations, 70 people, uh, the sons of Japheth and Ham, and Nimrod, the empire builder. And as we arrive at Genesis chapter 10, I want to say something before we read a single word of the text. Most people treat Genesis chapter 10 as the chapter that you skim through to get to Genesis chapter 11. What they see is a list of names, and honestly, many almost unpronounceable names, which I will try to pronounce to the best of my ability. We'll see what happens. Uh, we see long genealogies, we see borders and territories, and it's really easy to skip. But just for today, just in this lesson, I'm gonna ask you not to skip this chapter and tomorrow's lesson as well. Because Genesis chapter 10 is one of the most historically remarkable documents in all of the ancient world. It is the only comprehensive account of the origins of all the nations of the ancient world that existed in antiquity. Many of the people who are named here can be identified with specific civilizations and archaeological sites known from ancient history. And I want to be clear here. This is not mythology, this is the only account of the family tree of the entire human race. And embedded inside this genealogy are some of the most important theological statements in all of Genesis. The 70 nations that descend from Noah's three sons. We see that the first empire builder in human history, the first recorded city called Babel, uh, and a picture of God's design for human diversity that most of our world has completely forgotten. And so today we're gonna walk through the first 20 verses in the lines of Japheth and Ham. And we're gonna spend significant time on one hand one name that most people read in just two seconds. And that name is Nimrod, because Nimrod is one of the most significant figures in early Genesis. And what the text says about him, when you understand what the Hebrew language is actually saying, will change how you read the next chapter of Genesis chapter 11. Now, I will do my very best to try to read these names. I'm asking you, don't send messages and pick on me because of my country accent. As we read through these, just a little note for you guys. And in a lot of them, you will see the ending of IM in the name. That is simply uh a Hebrew plural, like using an S in the English. Uh, for example, you have the Ludom uh people, which is just simply the people of Lud. Um, and so let's read the text here. And again, please, please, please be patient with me as we go through these names. Some of them are pretty difficult to read uh because they are not common to our language, but we'll do the best that we can. Starting in verse 1 of chapter 10. It says, Now these are the records of the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and sons were born to them after the flood. Now the sons of Japheth were Golmer, Magog, Madai, Javon, Tubal, Meshech, and Tyrus. Not too bad so far. The sons of Golmer were Ash, Kanaz, and Ripheth, and Togabar. The sons of Javon were Elisha or Elisha and Tarshus and Kidam and Dodanem. From these the coastlands, I want you to pay attention to the wording here. From these the coastlands of the nations were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations. Then the sons of Ham were Cush and Mizaram and Put and Canaan. The sons of Cush were Sebah and Havilah and Sabtah and Ramah and Sabtak, and the sons of Ramah were Sheba and Dedan. Now Cush became the father of Nimrod, he became a mighty one on the earth. 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 and Erik and Akkad and Kalnah in the land of Shinar. From that land he went forth into Assyria and built Nineveh and Rehoth Batar, as good as I can get on that one, and Kalah, and reasoned between Nineveh and Kalah, that is the great city. Mizarram became the father of Ludam and Anamim and Lahabim and Naphthim. I wouldn't recommend naming any of your children these names. And Pathrasim and Khazluhim, which came the Philistines, and Kathturim. Canaan became the father of Sidon, his firstborn, and Heth, and the Jebusite and the Amorite and the Gergeshite, and the Hivite and the Architect and the Sinite, and the Ardavite and the Zimmerite and the Hamathite, and afterward the families of the Canaanite were spread abroad. This is why most people don't read these chapters. The territory of the Canaanite extended from Sidon, as you go toward Girah, as far as Gaza, as you go toward Sodom and Gomorrah and Adama and Zeboyim as far as Lasha. These are the sons of Ham according to their families, according to their language, by their lands, by their nations. I'm glad that part's over with. Now, in these 20 verses, we see 70 people groups beginning to take shape. And one man who's standing out in the middle of all of that. So let's start by looking at the significance of this, of what is commonly titled the Table of Nations. Now, Genesis chapter 10 opens with a familiar formula. It's by saying, Now, these are the records of the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. This is the sixth, what is called a Toledote. It's spelled T-O-L-E-D-O-T. T-O-L-E-D-O-T. Toledote. Our generations. Every time you read in the in the Old Testament, it says these are the generations of. That's a tolerte. So Moses uses this formula to mark the major structural divisions of a book. But this toledote is unique. It is the only one in Genesis that covers three family lines simultaneously. Every previous Toledote traces one line. This one spreads outward in three directions, covering the whole known of humanity. And so we've said before a couple of times that the number 70 is one of the most significant numbers in all of Scripture. And before we look at the individual people groups, we need to understand the significance of the total number. When you count all of the distinct people listed in Genesis chapter 10, the number comes to 70. And in the Hebrew text, the number is intentional and precise. Japheth's line produces 14 people. Ham's line produces 30 people. Shams line produces 26 people. The total there is 70 nations. 70. And the number's not accidental. In the biblical worldview, 70 is the number of completeness in the human dimension. And it echoes through the entire Bible in a pattern that most Christians have really never been shown before. In Genesis chapter 10, you have the 70 nations that spread across the earth. In Genesis chapter 46, verse 27, you have 70 members of Jacob's family that go down into Egypt. In Exodus chapter 1, verse 5, 70 descendants of Israel entered Egypt. In Luke chapter 10, verse 1, Jesus appoints 70 disciples and sends them out to the nations. And so the pattern is deliberate and it's kind of breathtaking when you think about all of it. Seventy nations scatter across the earth in Genesis chapter 10. Seventy people go down to Egypt where they become a nation. 70 elders govern that nation in the wilderness, and 70 disciples are sent out by Jesus to bring the gospel back to those 70 nations. What scattered at the nation was being gathered at the Great Commission that Jesus gave. Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse 8 says, When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the people according to the number of the sons of Israel. That means God divided the nations according to the number of Israel. Seventy nations, seventy sons of Israel. That's the math of divine purpose, and it's embedded in the founding document of the human race, the only founding document of the human race across all of antiquity. Now, here's something that will make people think you are a serious Christian apologist. Many of the people groups listed in Genesis chapter 10 can even today be identified with specific ancient civilizations and people known from archaeology and from ancient history. Just a few examples. Javon, for example, is the Hebrew name for Greece. The Greeks called themselves from the line of Javon. Madai is where you get the Medes of ancient Persia, a major empire in Assyrian records. Tubul and Meshach was the people or the people of Asia Minor that were attested to in the Assyrian records. Gomer associated with the people known in ancient Greek and Assyrian sources to the Sumerians. Cush was the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia and Nubia, that was well attested to in Egyptian records. Mizoram, the Hebrew word for Egypt, is still used in the Arabic today, linking them to Mizoram. Sidon, the Phoenician city-state that's still visible archaeologically speaking on the Lebanese coast. You have Heth and the Hittites, one of the great empires of the ancient Near East. And then you have their capital, which is Hattishah, which has been excavated multiple times. You have the Philistines who descended from Caslehim, according to verse 14. And this is confirmed in Egyptian records and extensive archaeology. No other ancient document in the ancient world attempts to do what Genesis chapter 10 is doing. No other ancient document provides a comprehensive table of the origin of all the known people groups in the entire world. In fact, there was a great archaeologist named William Albright. He was not a confessing evangelical. He said that the table of nations in Genesis chapter 10 stands absolutely alone in all of ancient literature. It surpasses anything else in its broad comprehensive suite of the origins of people and nations. And its accuracy, wherever it can be tested, is remarkable. What that means for you and I as believers, as followers of Jesus, as those who read the scriptures, that means this is not mythology. This is traceable history. These are real names, real people, real places, all confirmed by archaeology. Now, let's look at the sons of Japheth in verses 2 through 5. Japheth's descendants are listed first, and the summary statement of verse 5 tells us where they went. It says they went to the coastlands. In the ancient Near Eastern worldview, the coastlands referred to the regions beyond the central lands. You're talking about the Mediterranean coast, the islands, the regions to the north and to the west. And so Japheth's descendants spread to what we would recognize as modern Greece, Asia Minor, the Black Sea region, Persia and the Medes, and then the northern Mediterranean. And these are broadly in the Indo-European peoples, the ancestors of the Greeks, the Persians, the Armenians, and Asia Minor. And through those people, eventually the ancestors of much of Europe. Now we saw in Genesis chapter 9, verse 27, that Noah blessed Japheth with expansion. May God enlarge Japheth. And Genesis chapter 10 shows that expansion beginning immediately. The coastlands and the inlands, the broad spread of civilization to the west and to the north, all of it traced back to the sons of one man who walked out of an ark onto a mountain. Now, verse 5 contains a phrase that anyone who's reading carefully will immediately flag. It says, Everyone according to his language, according to their families, and to their nations, according to his language. You say, but wait a second. Genesis chapter 11, verse 1 says, Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. Isn't this a contradiction? If the whole earth had one language before Babel, why does Genesis chapter 10 refer to different languages? And this is what scholars call a tele, the telescoping nature of the Hebrew narrative. Genesis chapter 10 is the big picture view showing the end state of the separation. Very much like Genesis chapter 1 is an overview, and then Genesis chapter 2 is a zoom lens. Genesis chapter 10 is an overview. Genesis chapter 11 is a zoom lens. And so the languages of Genesis chapter 10 are the result of what happens in Genesis chapter 11. Genesis chapter 11 tells us how they became different languages. Moses is not contradicting himself, he is showing us the destination of chapter 10 and then explaining the journey in chapter 11. Now, let's look at the four sons of Ham. Ham's line produces four primary sons, Cush, Mizoram, Put, and Canaan. And we've already met Canaan extensively in Genesis chapter 9. But Mizoram is noted, and this is really interesting, is the Hebrew name for Egypt. And Put is generally identified with Libya and then other North African people groups. And Cush, the ancestor of the people of Ethiopia and Nubia. So Ham's line covers a broad uh reach of what we would call the Middle East and Africa. And from Ham's line comes one of the most controversial and significant figures of all of the early Genesis. Verse 8 introduces this person by the name of Nimrod. And Nimrod deserves our full attention because his name alone has generated enormous discussion amongst biblical scholarship. The Hebrew name Nimrod comes from the root meaning to rebel. Nimrod, the rebel, the one who rebels, the one who rises against. And most Hebrew scholars understand the name as carrying this connotation of rebellion. Not necessarily that his parents named him rebel, but that his name came to be associated with his character. In the ancient world, names often became descriptions, and Nimrod became identified by what he built and what he represented. He became a mighty one on the earth. Now, the Hebrew word for mighty is the same word used for the Nephilim's offspring in Genesis chapter 6 and 4. The men of renown, the mighty men, the celebrated warriors and power figures. So Nimrod is the first mighty man specifically named in the post-flood world, the first powerful man, the first celebrated figure, the first individual who rises above the nations as a force to be reckoned with. And now we come to the phrase that fascinates people when talking about Nimrod. This is this divided interpreters for centuries. It says he was a mighty hunter before the Lord, therefore it is said, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord. And at the first reading, this sounds like a compliment. A great hunter, a mighty hunter, famous for his hunting. Is that what this is saying? And some people read this as God's honoring, somehow honoring Nimrod's skill. But the Hebrew language carries a much more alarming meaning. The phrase that you see here before the Lord, it appears throughout the Old Testament. And it doesn't always mean in God's favor, it can mean in God's face, in defiance of God, in a direct confrontation with God's authority. Consider how that phrase is used elsewhere in Scripture, specifically Genesis. In Genesis chapter 6, verse 11, we read that the earth was corrupt before God. Not corrupt in a way that pleased God, but corrupt in God's very sight, open and defiant. In 1 Samuel chapter 10, verse 8 and other passages, appearing before the Lord carries the sense of presenting oneself in the presence of God in a formal but confrontational way. And the word hunter in the Old Testament is not only used for hunting animals. In Micah chapter 7, verse 2, the same root is used for men who hunt other men. It says the mighty ones lie in wait and to shed blood, each one of them hunts his brother with a net. And so when the text says that Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord, the most consistent reading in that text of what follows is that Nimrod was a mighty hunter of men, hunter of people, one who pursues power and dominion over human beings in open defiance of God's design. And this reading is confirmed by what Nimrod immediately goes on to build. He doesn't build a farm, he doesn't create a family. He starts working on his empire. Verses 10 through 12 give us the scope of Nimrod's kingdom. Says the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erik and Akkad and Kalan, the land of Shinar. From that land, he went forth into Assyria and built Nineveh and Rehoboth and Kalah and Rezin between Nineveh and Kalah. That is the great city. You have to look at what he built. He built Babel, the site of the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11, the center of his empire. Erik and ancient Uric, one of the earliest and greatest cities in all of Mesopotamia. Akkad, which would be the uh the capital of the Akkadian Empire, uh according to all secular archaeology. Nineveh, the great Assyrian capital, and Kala, another major Assyrian city, which has been extensively excavated by archaeologists. One of these cities, every one of these cities, is historically attested to. Uruk has been excavated and is dated to go back to the fourth millennium BC. Nineveh has been extensively excavated with massive finds confirming their significance. Kingdom after kingdom encompasses what secular historians call under Nimrod's kingdom the cradle of civilization. And at the center of all of that is Babel in the land of Shinar. Now, in Genesis chapter 11, verse 2, what we're going to talk about in our next series of lessons, the people who build the tower settle there in Nimrod's city. And so Genesis chapter 10 and Genesis chapter 11 are not separate stories. Genesis chapter 11 is the story of what happened in Nimrod's empire. The Tower of Babel then becomes the fullest expression of Nimrod's spirit. Keep that in mind. Nimrod's spirit, what he wanted to accomplish. Now, let me step back and draw out the significance, the theological significance of Nimrod. After the flood, God scattered humanity with the intention that they would fill the earth, be fruitful and multiply, spread throughout the earth. Genesis chapter 9, verse 1. God's design was diversity, distribution, many people and many nations. The 70 nations of Genesis chapter 10, each in their own land with their own language, each under God's sovereign governance. Nimrod, however, had a project which was a direct reversal of God's design. Instead of Spreading, he gathered. Instead of many nations, he wanted one empire. Instead of God as the sovereign over the nation, he wanted one man as the power over the people. And Nimrod is the first human being in the post-flood world to attempt a concentrated power in which would be in direct defiance of God's design for humanity, of diversity and distribution. Now, the spirit of Nimrod, remember I told you to hold on to those words. The spirit of Nimrod is the spirit of every totalitarian empire in human history, every Pharaoh who enslaved a nation, every Caesar who demanded to be worshipped, every dictator who erased the identity of people he conquered, every ideological empire that tried to flatten human diversity into their uniformity under one power, all of them are Nimrod's heirs, his spirit. And the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11 is Nimrod's empire reaching its fullest and most explicit expression of rebellion. Let us make a name for ourselves. Let us not be scattered. Let us build into the heavens. Nimrod starts that. Babel completes it, but then God answers it. Now here's where apologetics gets genuinely fascinating to me. Scholars have long debated whether Nimrod corresponds to any specific historical figure, if that was not his name, if it was just rebel, uh if he was just named that. And so several serious candidates have been proposed to be the actual Nimrod. And the most widely discussed candidate is Gilgamesh, the legendary king of Urk. Now, now, which is which is commonly referred to as Erik. The connections are striking. Gilgamesh is associated with this land of Eric in Genesis chapter 10, Nimrod City. And he's described as two-thirds divine, a mighty one. And Gilgamesh was called a hunter and a builder of great walls and great cities. And he was famous for his feats of strength over uh and power over other people. The Gilgamesh epic describes him as the one who saw all, who knew all, and who built the great walls. Nimrod's city. The city of Gilgamesh was built and ruled. Now others have identified Nimrod with other people, Sargon of Akkad, which would be the founder of the Akkadian Empire. He was a famous warrior king who conquered the cities of Mesopotamia and established the first true empire. And that description fits pretty pretty well. But we cannot identify Nimrod with certainty. But the cities he built are real. The region he ruled is historically attested to. And the pattern of his empire building matches exactly what ancient Near Eastern archaeology has revealed about the first great powers of Mesopotamia. Now, next, in verses 15 through 19, there's a list of the descendants of Canaan. And for Israel, this list would have been immediately recognizable. Every enemy that Israel faced in the conquest of the promised land is named here. It's Sidon, the great Phoenician city, uh Heth and the Hittites, the Jebusite who held Jerusalem until David conquered it, the Amorite, one of Israel's most persistent enemies, the Gergeshite, the Hivite and the Architect, the Philistines who descended from Caslim and Ham's line through Mizoram. And the territory is defined from Sidon as you go, as you go toward Gaza, as far as Gaza, and you go toward Sodom and Gomorrah, this is the promised land, the land that God would give to Abraham's descendants. And Genesis chapter 10 shows it was already populated by the very people whose moral trajectory began with Ham's act in Genesis chapter 9. The Canaanite territory defined in Genesis chapter 10, specifically in verse 19, is exactly the territory that Israel would enter into under Joshua. Moses is drawing the map of redemptive history right here in Genesis chapter 10 with the table of nations. And here is something that I believe our world right now desperately needs to hear. The table of nations in Genesis chapter 10 is not a lament. It's not a picture of fragmentation and loss. It is God's design for humanity unfolding. God told Noah and his sons, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Genesis chapter 10 shows that happening. It is not the residue of sin alone. It is part of God's design for the richness and the fullness of his creation. Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse 8 says that God set the boundaries of people. And then Acts chapter 17, verse 26 says that he determined the appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation. That means that God is the God of nations. That means that God arranged them. That means that God governs them. And the end of the story is not everything coming back together. It is not the all the nations melted into one. It says this in Revelation chapter 21, verse 24 through 26. Revelation 21, 24 through 26. Said the nations will walk by his light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into in the daytime, its gates will never be closed, and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. The glory and the honor of the nations. Plural. Brought into the new Jerusalem, not erased, but made into one people group. The diversity of the nations that begins in Genesis chapter 10 is still present, but it's redeemed and glorified in Revelation 21. Now, just for a minute, let's look at Nimrod's spirit. We keep coming back to that versus God's design. The contrast embedded in Genesis chapter 10 is between two visions for humanity. God's vision, 70 people, each in their own land, each with their own language and identity, each under his care. Nimrod's vision, one empire, one power center, one man with his name great over all the rest of men. These two visions are still in conflict today. I'll share this with you. Every political vision that seeks to erase national and cultural distinctiveness in favor of global uniformity under a single power structure, that's the spirit of Nimrod. Every movement that honors the dignity of distinct people, distinct languages, distinct cultures, distinct national identities is in a real sense honoring the design God embedded in Genesis chapter 10. Now, this does not mean that nations cannot cooperate or that the borders are bad or that they're sacred absolutes within side of those nations. It just means that the diversity of people is not a problem to be solved. It's a gift to humanity that should be stewarded. And the answer to human diversity is not Nimrod's empire. It is the gospel which reaches every person in their own tongue and transforms them without erasing who they are. Now, just one more thing in the field of modern apologetics. I want you to think for just a second what we've talked about with the table of nations and what we know from ancient history. And let me give you a handful of specific examples that can you can use when someone challenges you on the factual history found within the book of Genesis. Start with just the Hittites. For centuries, critics pointed to the Hittites as evidence that Genesis was unreliable. The Hittites appeared nowhere in ancient records outside of the Bible. And therefore you would have skeptics arguing that they were a mere invention inside of the Bible. And then in 1906, archaeologist Hugo Winkler excavated the Hittite capital, which is now modern Turkey, and he found over 10,000. Keep that number in mind, 10,000 clay tablets. The Hittites were not a biblical invention. They were one of the great empires of the ancient Near East. And Genesis chapter 10, verse 15 names Heth as the founder, as the ancestor of the Hittites. And archaeology confirms that. Think about the Philistines in Genesis chapter 10, verse 14. It says the Philistines came from Casloim, of Ham's line. Egyptian records going all the way back to Ramesses III have inscriptions that describe a sea people invasion. Archaeological excavations of these areas and other Philistine cities have confirmed a distinct cultural identity consistent with the people who migrated from the sea into the region of Canaan, exactly as Genesis chapter 10 implies. And then there were Nimrod cities of Eric and which have been excavated and is considered one of the earliest large cities in the ancient world. Nineveh has been extensively excavated. Every city Nimrod built in Genesis chapter 10 is a real city, once again, confirmed by archaeology. That means that the table of nations in Genesis chapter 10 is not mythology. It is, according to all scholarship, the most accurate and comprehensive ancient document of the origins of the known world and the people groups that exist anywhere in antiquity. Every other ancient civilization produced creation stories and kings lists and hero epics, but none of them produce comprehensive, a comprehensive table of the origins of all the nations of the known world. The Egyptians explained Egypt. The Babylonians explained Babylon. The Greeks would explain Greece. But only Genesis explains everyone. Only one ancient text in the history of the world claims to trace the origin of all people of the world from a single family. And that text has been proven to be remarkably accurate wherever archaeology can be tested. And that's exactly what you would expect from a book that is the very breath of the Creator. It's not what you would expect if Genesis is just a collection of later tribal legends assembled by small people in the corner of the ancient Near East. Now we also see in this in Genesis chapter 10 a New Testament fulfillment. The 70 nations in Genesis chapter 10 find their New Testament answer in a single passage. In Luke chapter 10, verse 1, it says this. 70. Jesus appointed 70 disciples and sent them out. Not 12, that number belongs to Israel's 12 tribes. 70. That number belongs to the nations. Jesus was sending the gospel to the 70 nations of Genesis chapter 10. The 12 apostles would reach Israel. The 70 disciples would reach the world. And when they returned in Luke chapter 10, verse 17, they reported that even the demons submitted to them. And Jesus said, I watched Satan fall from heaven like lightning. This was the reversal of Nimrod's spirit. Nimrod gathered the nations under one human empire in direct defiance of God. The 70 disciples scatter into the nations with the gospel, gathering them under the kingdom of God. Make no mistake, the spirit of Nimrod does not disappear from the Bible after Genesis chapter 10. It runs all the way to Revelation. Babel, the center of Nimrod's kingdom, becomes Babylon. Babylon becomes the great enemy of God's people throughout the Old Testament. And then Babylon appears one final time in Revelation 17 and 18 as a symbol of the world system that stands in opposition to God. And so the city that Nimrod built, the empire that began long ago, appears in the final book of the Bible as a symbol of everything that opposes God's kingdom. And then Revelation 18, 2, fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great. The empire of Nimrod, the spirit of human rebellion gathered under one power in defiance to God, falls. One final time, completely, permanently, and in its place in Revelation 21, the New Jerusalem. The city that was built by the hands of a rebel hunter gets replaced by the city that's built by the hands of God and sets the boundaries of all the nations and he brings them together. Now here's the word I want to leave you with from today. This is a powerful chapter that we're going through. Genesis chapter 10 is often called a boring chapter by people who don't really read it carefully. The chapter is full of, again, unpronounceable names that I probably absolutely destroy today. It's a chapter that most people skip by on their way to Babylon, chapter 11. But Genesis chapter 10 is actually the chapter that answers one of the deepest questions that we can ever ask. Where do we all come from? Well, we came from one family, from one flood, then from three sons, and the 70 nations, and we came from a God who set the boundaries of every people according to his own purpose, so that every one of them may seek and find Him. In Acts chapter 17, verse 26 and 27, it says, And he made man, he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God. If perhaps they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. That's beautiful. The seventy nations of Genesis chapter 10 were not scattered at random. They were placed by a God who wants us to find him. Now, in our next lesson, we're going to look at the line of Shem, uh, the road that leads to Abraham, which is amazing, and the theological meaning of the table of nations as a whole. I hope that you've enjoyed today's lesson. Until next time, I hope that you have a blessed day.