“These are the clan’s of Noah’s sons, according to their lines of descendents, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.”
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/genesis/chapter-10
The post-flood descendants of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, are listed. The descendants of Japheth settled in Asia Minor and Europe. Ham’s descendants largely settle in Egypt, with some settling in Assyria; the descendants of Ham’s son, Canaan, inhabit the land of what is later called Palestine. Shem’s descendants are the Semitic peoples of Arabia and Mesopotamia. From all Noah’s descendants, nations grow and spread across the earth.
Chapter 10 of Genesis is referred to as the Table of Nations. The above paragraph lists the places that Noah’s sons settled and expanded. If you read chapter 10 carefully it outlines the places in more detail. All of the son’s spoke the same language and adopted the same customs because Noah was their father. We learned from the previous chapter that Ham neglected to cover up his father’s nakedness. For that, Noah cursed him, said he will be the lowest of slaves, and will be held to his brothers. You can imagine a large group of people who were all related. People say that the holidays are hard because they have to see their family, well, imagine that holiday, everyone is your relative. Despite all of family issues, the Lord blessed them. The Bible does not say how long the time span is from when Noah went out of the ark until the end of chapter 10 but it must have been somewhere in the area of 1200 years (if you take each son and they lived 120 years). The other aspect of chapter 10 is that it only mentions one person was a mighty hunter before the Lord, Nimrod. That is a lot of time and babies and very few mentions of the Lord.
My aunt had researched our family history and traced my grandmother’s family right back to the town they grew up in, Poland. Everyone has a family history and no matter how hard you try to forget about it or sweep it under the rug, no one is exempt. Just like the sons of Noah, we all have moved or will go beyond our mom’s and dad’s house. Nimrod, the mighty hunter, was a descendent of Ham. That’s right, the only person mentioned over 1200 years of genealogy to be linked with serving the Lord and he was descendent of Ham, the cursed one.
It is not too late for you. You can start a new chapter in your life that is far different than your parents or your siblings. That journey begins with Jesus. Paul, the guy who wrote two thirds of the New Testament, used to go around killing Christians. God can do and will do a miracle in your life and the first step is following Jesus. Don’t let your family history rob you of the promise of God’s love. Your past does not have to define you because God’s love is greater than that. Get beyond your past today and look forward to the new future with Christ in the middle of it.

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