December 4, 2007

• Insights

  
  Genesis 10 & 11: Noah’s Lineage; The Line of Shem; Babel in Between

  I had always wondered why God had organized the lineage of Noah’s
  descendants through Shem twice in Genesis 10 and Genesis 11. Why repeat
  the lineage? And why put the Tower of Babel in between the two lists?

  I was preparing for a Sunday School class and as we are preparing to
  move to examining Abraham at the beginning of the year, we’ve been
  taking a look at the events and conditions of the world that preceded
  Abraham to gain an understanding of the sort of things that would be “current events” or other facts that would have shaped Abraham’s thinking and thus understand the Bible’s famous “man of faith” who is
  referred to elsewhere in the Bible. From this, I again ran into the
  questions I just mentioned, only this time, I received some insight
  into the matter from my reading. It goes to show that we should not
  neglect what the Bible says even if it seems to just be a genealogical
  record. More than once, looking closer at the lists of people in the
  Scripture has been well worth the effort. One of the first and most
  obvious things is that the genealogical lists for Shem are not the same
  length. The first one stops with Peleg (and Joktan).

  Anyway, I took a drawing program (Visio, in this case) and created a
  “lifetime overlap chart” to examine just who was alive when from Noah
  all the way out to Jacob entering Egypt. The nice thing about it is
  that I was able to exactly align the “lifetime spans” after the flood
  so that they lined up properly in time and I could see the entire
  sequence of people from Noah and Shem, all the way to Jacob and
  discover how many “great-grandfathers” were still alive in, … say
  Abraham’s time. (BTW, you should do this for yourself sometime even if
  its done with pencil and paper.. It is amazing.)  I’d post it but the text would be too small to read in many places even though its mostly a graphical item.

  Did you know that according to the Biblical account…

  1. Noah was still alive when Abram was born?
  2. Noah and Shem, both “antediluvians” (born before the flood) were the
  last recorded people to live lifetimes greater than 600 years. Ham and
  Japheth most likely lived as long as they did.
  3. Did you know the next three generations after Shem still lived greater than 400 years but less than 500?
  4. Did you know that after Eber (the 3rd generation), the recorded
  lifespans shortened to a little over 200 years (Nahor, an exception at
  148), and Terah, Abram’s father is the last person recorded to live
  over 200 years? Abraham, Isaac, and especially Jacob would not get very
  near 200 years old.
  5. All the old patriarchs from Noah’s time to Jacob’s had died before
  or about midway through Jacob’s life with the exception of his father,
  Isaac? They were all alive during Abram's early life.
  6. only 582 years are accounted for from the Flood through Shem’s line to Jacob entering Egypt?
  7. only 580 years are between Arpachshad’s birth and Jacob entering Egypt?
  8. given that the first child recorded to have been born after the
  flood was Arpachshad (born 2 years after the Flood), did you know that
  Abram’s birth (290 years after Arpachshad) was the exact middle of the
  timeline between the Flood and Jacob entering Egypt? (580 divided by 2
  = 290)
  9. in Genesis 10 that Shem’s lineage stops at Peleg (when the earth was
  divided) and then in Chapter 11 begins with the tower of Babel? 
  10. all of Noah's descendants named in Chapter 10 were “divided by
  language” (vss. 5, 20, and 31) yet Chapter 11:1 says that the whole
  earth used the same language and the same words? Given that, we are
  told the earth was divided in Peleg’s time (10:25) (and Reu, his son,
  is not mentioned) so that apparently must mean that these descendant of
  Noah were the sons that were alive at the time of the Tower of Babel
  (Genesis 11:1-9) so as to be around to be dispersed by God by their
  “languages”. Since the “earth was divided” in Peleg’s time, it would
  seem that the Tower of Babel event happened sometime after 101 years
  from the Flood and perhaps less than 131 years (when Reu was to have been
  born).
  11. when the nations were divided by language, God did not separate
  families in the dispersion from the Tower of Babel? God preserved the
  families intact. (Genesis 10:5, 20, 31)
  10. After the Tower of Babel account, we find Shem’s entire line to
  Abram listed where thereafter the focus on mankind concentrates on
  Shem’s descendants through Abram?
  12. Abram could have met living people who were around before and after at the Tower of Babel?
  13. Terah, Abram’s father, was the first one recorded to set out from
  Ur of the Chaldeans to travel to Canaan. He took Abram, Sarai, and Lot
  with him but they ended up settling in Haran.
  14. Terah was still alive when Abram left Haran with his wife Sarai, and his nephew, Lot?

  That’s quite a bit of information from a couple of genealogical lists and the account of the Tower of Babel account. Mr.Vee

  • 12:06 pm
  • 2 Comments