Katalepsis

Chapter ten is a real snooze-fest. All it contains is an account of the nations that arise from Shem, Ham & Japheth. I know that there is some significance in this chapter. By tracing later races back to this original table, we can learn something about their lineage (particularly the descendants of cursed Ham & Canaan). But I won’t really be able to comment on these points until later in the Bible.

I’ll simply list the nations:

10.2 The Japhethites
The notes say that the Japhethites primarily lived NW of Canaan in Eurasia.

10.6 The Hamites
Primarily located in SW Asia and NE Africa. Ham had a son named Cush, who fathered Nimrod. We get an interesting bit about him, for he grew to become a mighty warrior and hunter.

Later, we are told that the Canaanite clans scattered and pushed the borders of Canaan toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim. You can see what’s coming.

10.21 The S(h)emites
All of the sons of Shem are called “Shemites,” but this was later modifed to “Semites.” Shem is the father of Eber, the first ancestor of the Hebrews ["Eber" is the origin of the Hebrew word for "Hebrew"].

These are the clans of Noah’s sons. From these nations, the rest of the earth is populated after the flood.

In the second half of chapter nine, we get treated to the first story of drunken craziness. Noah had three sons with him on the ark: Shem, Ham and Japheth. It is from these three that the rest of the world will “spring forth.” So, theoretically we should be able to trace our lineage back to the post-flood era.

Noah does something quite interesting here: he plants the first vineyard. He then drinks some wine (nothing is said about how Noah figured out how to make wine) and gets drunk. Ham sees that his father is naked and he runs to tell his other brothers. But Shem and Japheth apparently have no sense of humor. Instead of getting a good laugh at it, they are very concerned with their father’s nakedness. So, they take a garment, walk into their father’s tent backwards (so as not to see him), and carefully lay the garment over him to cover their father’s nakedness.

Noah arises from his drunken slumber and finds out what his youngest son (Ham) did. Apparently, Noah doesn’t have a sense of humor either. He curses his youngest son and calls him the lowest of slaves. Ham is the father of Canaan. I guess the historical point is that if you were wondering (later on) why the Canaanites are so bad, it all traces back to this one little slip-up on Ham’s part. Noah goes on to live for 950 years. That’s right. Despite the fact that God has limited our lives to 120 years, Noah is apparently an exception to the rule.