Week 1 Genesis 11
Yesterday I looked at family name lists – 32 verses of names in chapter ten and 23 more in chapter eleven.
But sandwiched into the middle of those 55-verses is the story of the Tower of Babel and I notice a couple of things in chapter ten that relate to the Babel story…
Japheth’s family: became the seafaring people in various lands, each tribe with its own language.
Nimrod: built the foundation of his empire in the land of Babylonia, with the cities of Babel, Erech (etc.)…
Descendants of Ham were: identified according to their tribes, languages, territories, and nations.
During Peleg’s lifetime: the people of the world were divided into different language groups and dispersed.
Descendants of Shem were: identified according to their tribes, languages, territories, and nations.
In summary the Noah group of families was: listed nation by nation…the earth was populated with the people of these nations after the Flood.
So it looks like the Tower of Babel story of language & dispersal is out of chronological order because chapter ten talks pretty matter-of-factly about national & tribal & language differences and geographic dispersion. The Babel story in chapter eleven might legitimately fit just as well before chapter ten.
It’s another reminder to me that the writer had his goals in mind and he also had to make editorial decisions about content sequencing. So I take this as a heads-up reminder to not read Genesis like I’m a robot.
Note: quotes from Genesis 10:4, 10, 20, 25, 31, 32 (NLT)