The following commentary covers Chapters 10 and 11.
The
history of the world after the Deluge
Chapters 10, 11 give us
the history of the world as peopled and established after
the deluge, and the ways of men in this new world; the
great platform of all the development of the human race
as peopling this world after the flood, and the
principles and judgments on which it is founded. Chapter
10 gives the facts, chapter 11 how it came about in
judgment, for chapters 10 and 11 are not to be taken as
chronologically consequent; for the division into nations
and tongues was consequent on the attempt at unity in
human pride in Babel; and then, lastly, we have the
family Jehovah owned, to trace the descent in it to the
vessel of promise: together with God's orderings of the
world. The posterity of Noah is given by families and
nations (a new thing in the earth), out of which, from
the race of Ham, arises the first power which rules by
its own force and founds an empire; for that which is
according to flesh comes first. We have then, that the
moral history of the world may be known as well as the
external form it assumed, the universal association of
men to exalt themselves against God, and make to
themselves a name independently of Him [1], an effort stamped on God's part
with the name of Babel (confusion), and which ends in
judgment and in the dispersion of the race, thenceforth
jealous of and hostile to one another [2]. Lastly we have the genealogy of
the race by which God was pleased to name Himself; for
God is Jehovah [3],
the God of Shem.
The history of our
present world in its great principles, and original
sources
The importance of these
chapters will be felt. The preceding chapters gave us,
after the creation, the great original principles of
man's ruin, closing with judgment, in which the old world
found its close. Here we have the history of our present
world, and, as seen in Genesis (which uncovers the roots
of all that was to be for the revelation of God's
thoughts and the display of His government), in its great
principles and original sources, which imprint their
character on the results, till another judgment from God
Himself obliterates all but its responsibility, and gives
room for another and a better world.
The world set out
by families
The result of this history
is that the world is set out by families. The fashion of
this world has obliterated the memory and the perception
of this, but not the power. It is rooted in the judgment
of God, and, when the acquired force of this world
becomes weak, will be evermore apparent, as it now really
works. The fountain heads were three, first named in the
order, Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: the first being the
family in which the covenant was to be established on
earth, and with which God was to be in relationship; then
he who was in hostility with God's family; and last,
though eldest and proudest, the Gentile Japheth.
Japheth
In the detail Japheth is
given first. The isles of the Gentiles in general, that
is, the countries with which we are familiar, and much of
northern Asia, were peopled by his descendants. But the
great moral questions, and power of good and evil in the
world, arose elsewhere, and the evil now (for it was
man's day) before the good.
Ham
The East, as we call it,
Palestine, down the Euphrates, Egypt, &c., was in the
hands of Ham. There power first establishes itself by the
will of one in Nimrod. A mighty hunter—force and
craft—works to bring untamed man, as well as beast,
under his yoke. And cities arise; but Babel was the
beginning of his kingdom; others he went out and built,
or conquered. Then come the well-known Egyptians,
Mizraim. Another branch of this family is marked as
forming the races in possession of the inheritance
destined of God for His people.
Shem
Shem comes last, the
father of Hebrews, the brother of him who has long
despised him, as possessed of an elder brother's title.
Such is the general result in the peopling of the world
under God's ordering.
Man seeking a
centre for himself
The way was this. Man
sought to make a centre for himself. Adam, living in the
earth, would have been so, and its link with God; as
Christ will be hereafter, and ever was in the purpose of
God, for Adam was the image of Him that was to come. But
will has none but itself. Noah, whose influence would
have been just, has no place in the whole history (after
his worship), save that he lost the place of authority by
falling into sin, in the loss of self-restraint[4]. Will characterised all now; but
in a multitude of wills, all impotent as centres, what
can be done? A common centre and interest is sought
independent and exclusive of God. They were to fill the
earth; but scattered in peaceful quietness, to be of no
importance, they would not.—They must get a name for
themselves to be a centre. And God scatters into nations
by judgment what would not fill the earth by families in
peace. Tongues and nations must be added to families, to
designate men on the earth. The judged place becomes the
seat of the energetic will of one—of the apostate
power. The beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was Babel.
Tongues were a restraint, and an iron band round men.
God's history
beginning in Shem
In Shem God's history
begins. He is Jehovah, the God of Shem. We have dates and
epochs, for after all God governs, and the world must
follow: man belongs to God. Other people's ages were
shortened surely besides those here named: here we know
when. And when the earth was divided, for God after all
disposed of it, men's years lost one-half of what they
were, as they had already done immediately after the
flood. But of known history God's people have ever been
the centre. This comes down to Abraham. And here again a
new element of evil had become universal, at least
practically so—idolatry (Josh. 24: 2), though it had
not been the subject hitherto. It is man in the world;
and in Shem, the secret providential ordering of things
by God. Still it ended in the power of evil, even in the
family of Shem.
Universal idolatry
We have seen the
wickedness and violence of man, his rebellion against
God, and Satan's craft to bring him into this state: but
here an immense step is made, an astonishing condition of
evil appears on the scene. Satan thrusts himself, to
man's mind, into the place of power, and seizes the idea
of God in man's mind, placing himself between God and
him, so that men worship demons as God. When it began,
scripture does not say; but the passage cited shews that
it had contaminated even Shem's family, in the part of it
too which scripture itself counts up as God's genealogy
in the earth at the time we have arrived at. Individuals
might be pious; but in every sense the link of the world
with God was gone. They had given themselves up, even in
the family which as a race was in relationship with God,
to the worship and power of Satan. What a tale all tells
of man! What a tale of the patience of God!
A new system:
Abraham called and chosen by grace
Here therefore we change
entirely the whole system and order of thought; and a
principle, in exercise without doubt from the beginning
as to individual salvation, but not manifested in the
order of things, declares itself, and comes into evidence
in the history of the earth. Abraham is called, chosen,
and made personally the depositary of the promises. But
remark that here, in order that this great principle may
be preserved in its own purity as an act of God, the
occasion given in the fact we have referred to is not
mentioned. We find it in Joshua 24. God comes down, after
judgment, in sovereign grace to have a family of His own
by the calling of grace—an immense principle.
Abraham the father
of the faithful, the head of the accepted race of God on
the earth
But it is well to dwell a
moment on what was really a most important epoch in the
history of God's ways with the world, where the proper
history of faith begins, though of course there were
believers individually before. But as Adam was the head
of the ruined race, so Abraham was the father of the
faithful, the head of the race of God on the earth, both
after the flesh and after the Spirit. Christ the fulness
of all blessing we know, in whom we have far higher
blessings than those revealed in Abraham. Still in God's
ways upon the earth Abraham was the head of the accepted
race. Idolatry, as we have seen, had at this time gained
a footing in the family of Shem himself. "Your
fathers," says Joshua (24: 2), "dwelt in old
time beyond the flood, Terah, the father of Abraham, and
the father of Nahor; and they served other gods."
Now these gods were demons (1 Cor. 10: 20; it is a
citation of Deut. 32: 17). That is (now that God had
interfered in judgment[5] and in power), these demons had possessed
themselves of this position in the spirit of man, and
taken the place in his mind of the sources of the
authority displayed and of blessing still bestowed. They
presented themselves to him as authors of those
judgments, of all which drew forth the worship, the
gratitude, and the terror of the natural heart of
corrupted man, expressed in his worship according to the
principles on which he was, on which he alone could be,
in relationship with those superior beings, to whom he
attributed the power to answer his desires or to avert
the things which he feared. It was not merely man
corrupted and in rebellion against God, it was his
religion itself which corrupted him; and he made of his
corruption a religion. The demons had taken the place of
God in his mind, and having the ascendency over his
conscience, if man did not forget it, hardened or misled
it. He was religiously bad; and there is no degradation
like that. What a state! What folly! How long, O Lord?
God introduces us
into His own thoughts
But if the human race
plunge thus into darkness, taking demons for their god,
and, incapable of self-sustainment, substitute for their
own rebellion against God servitude to what is more
elevated in rebellion, placing themselves in miserable
dependence upon it, God raises and lifts us up above all
this evil, and by His calling introduces us into His own
thoughts—thoughts far more precious than the
restoration of what was fallen. He separates a people to
hopes which suit the majesty and the love of Him who
calls them, and places them in a position of proximity to
Himself, which the blessing of the world under His
government would never have given them. He is their God.
He communicates with them in a way which is in accordance
with this intimacy; and we hear speak, for the first
time, of faith (chap. 15: 6), based on these
communications and these direct testimonies of God,
though it may have operated from the beginning.
[1]
The idea of a building high enough to escape the flood is
an idea of which there is not the smallest trace in this
passage. It was the pride of man seeking a centre and a
name without God, and coalescing together. The rise of
imperial power and dominion came after this, in which
individual will and energy gained the ascendency. They
are two phases of human effort without God.
[2] Pentecost was a beautiful
testimony: God rose there above the confusion and
judgment, and found, even in its effects, the means of
getting near the heart of man; so that grace overruled
judgment, even when it was not exercised in the power
which regenerates the world.
[3] All in chapter 9 is simply Elohim,
God, till we get to verse 26, where it is Jehovah, the
God of Shem.
[4] This is a striking fact in the
character of the history of man after the flood. We get
the full plain statement of what he become.
[5] In the deluge. It does not seem
that idolatry had crept in before.
Genesis 11 Bible Commentary
John Darby’s Synopsis
The history of the world after the Deluge
Chapters 10, 11 give us the history of the world as peopled and established after the deluge, and the ways of men in this new world; the great platform of all the development of the human race as peopling this world after the flood, and the principles and judgments on which it is founded. Chapter 10 gives the facts, chapter 11 how it came about in judgment, for chapters 10 and 11 are not to be taken as chronologically consequent; for the division into nations and tongues was consequent on the attempt at unity in human pride in Babel; and then, lastly, we have the family Jehovah owned, to trace the descent in it to the vessel of promise: together with God's orderings of the world. The posterity of Noah is given by families and nations (a new thing in the earth), out of which, from the race of Ham, arises the first power which rules by its own force and founds an empire; for that which is according to flesh comes first. We have then, that the moral history of the world may be known as well as the external form it assumed, the universal association of men to exalt themselves against God, and make to themselves a name independently of Him [1], an effort stamped on God's part with the name of Babel (confusion), and which ends in judgment and in the dispersion of the race, thenceforth jealous of and hostile to one another [2]. Lastly we have the genealogy of the race by which God was pleased to name Himself; for God is Jehovah [3], the God of Shem.
The history of our present world in its great principles, and original sources
The importance of these chapters will be felt. The preceding chapters gave us, after the creation, the great original principles of man's ruin, closing with judgment, in which the old world found its close. Here we have the history of our present world, and, as seen in Genesis (which uncovers the roots of all that was to be for the revelation of God's thoughts and the display of His government), in its great principles and original sources, which imprint their character on the results, till another judgment from God Himself obliterates all but its responsibility, and gives room for another and a better world.
The world set out by families
The result of this history is that the world is set out by families. The fashion of this world has obliterated the memory and the perception of this, but not the power. It is rooted in the judgment of God, and, when the acquired force of this world becomes weak, will be evermore apparent, as it now really works. The fountain heads were three, first named in the order, Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: the first being the family in which the covenant was to be established on earth, and with which God was to be in relationship; then he who was in hostility with God's family; and last, though eldest and proudest, the Gentile Japheth.
Japheth
In the detail Japheth is given first. The isles of the Gentiles in general, that is, the countries with which we are familiar, and much of northern Asia, were peopled by his descendants. But the great moral questions, and power of good and evil in the world, arose elsewhere, and the evil now (for it was man's day) before the good.
Ham
The East, as we call it, Palestine, down the Euphrates, Egypt, &c., was in the hands of Ham. There power first establishes itself by the will of one in Nimrod. A mighty hunter—force and craft—works to bring untamed man, as well as beast, under his yoke. And cities arise; but Babel was the beginning of his kingdom; others he went out and built, or conquered. Then come the well-known Egyptians, Mizraim. Another branch of this family is marked as forming the races in possession of the inheritance destined of God for His people.
Shem
Shem comes last, the father of Hebrews, the brother of him who has long despised him, as possessed of an elder brother's title. Such is the general result in the peopling of the world under God's ordering.
Man seeking a centre for himself
The way was this. Man sought to make a centre for himself. Adam, living in the earth, would have been so, and its link with God; as Christ will be hereafter, and ever was in the purpose of God, for Adam was the image of Him that was to come. But will has none but itself. Noah, whose influence would have been just, has no place in the whole history (after his worship), save that he lost the place of authority by falling into sin, in the loss of self-restraint[4]. Will characterised all now; but in a multitude of wills, all impotent as centres, what can be done? A common centre and interest is sought independent and exclusive of God. They were to fill the earth; but scattered in peaceful quietness, to be of no importance, they would not.—They must get a name for themselves to be a centre. And God scatters into nations by judgment what would not fill the earth by families in peace. Tongues and nations must be added to families, to designate men on the earth. The judged place becomes the seat of the energetic will of one—of the apostate power. The beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was Babel. Tongues were a restraint, and an iron band round men.
God's history beginning in Shem
In Shem God's history begins. He is Jehovah, the God of Shem. We have dates and epochs, for after all God governs, and the world must follow: man belongs to God. Other people's ages were shortened surely besides those here named: here we know when. And when the earth was divided, for God after all disposed of it, men's years lost one-half of what they were, as they had already done immediately after the flood. But of known history God's people have ever been the centre. This comes down to Abraham. And here again a new element of evil had become universal, at least practically so—idolatry (Josh. 24: 2), though it had not been the subject hitherto. It is man in the world; and in Shem, the secret providential ordering of things by God. Still it ended in the power of evil, even in the family of Shem.
Universal idolatry
We have seen the wickedness and violence of man, his rebellion against God, and Satan's craft to bring him into this state: but here an immense step is made, an astonishing condition of evil appears on the scene. Satan thrusts himself, to man's mind, into the place of power, and seizes the idea of God in man's mind, placing himself between God and him, so that men worship demons as God. When it began, scripture does not say; but the passage cited shews that it had contaminated even Shem's family, in the part of it too which scripture itself counts up as God's genealogy in the earth at the time we have arrived at. Individuals might be pious; but in every sense the link of the world with God was gone. They had given themselves up, even in the family which as a race was in relationship with God, to the worship and power of Satan. What a tale all tells of man! What a tale of the patience of God!
A new system: Abraham called and chosen by grace
Here therefore we change entirely the whole system and order of thought; and a principle, in exercise without doubt from the beginning as to individual salvation, but not manifested in the order of things, declares itself, and comes into evidence in the history of the earth. Abraham is called, chosen, and made personally the depositary of the promises. But remark that here, in order that this great principle may be preserved in its own purity as an act of God, the occasion given in the fact we have referred to is not mentioned. We find it in Joshua 24. God comes down, after judgment, in sovereign grace to have a family of His own by the calling of grace—an immense principle.
Abraham the father of the faithful, the head of the accepted race of God on the earth
But it is well to dwell a moment on what was really a most important epoch in the history of God's ways with the world, where the proper history of faith begins, though of course there were believers individually before. But as Adam was the head of the ruined race, so Abraham was the father of the faithful, the head of the race of God on the earth, both after the flesh and after the Spirit. Christ the fulness of all blessing we know, in whom we have far higher blessings than those revealed in Abraham. Still in God's ways upon the earth Abraham was the head of the accepted race. Idolatry, as we have seen, had at this time gained a footing in the family of Shem himself. "Your fathers," says Joshua (24: 2), "dwelt in old time beyond the flood, Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor; and they served other gods." Now these gods were demons (1 Cor. 10: 20; it is a citation of Deut. 32: 17). That is (now that God had interfered in judgment[5] and in power), these demons had possessed themselves of this position in the spirit of man, and taken the place in his mind of the sources of the authority displayed and of blessing still bestowed. They presented themselves to him as authors of those judgments, of all which drew forth the worship, the gratitude, and the terror of the natural heart of corrupted man, expressed in his worship according to the principles on which he was, on which he alone could be, in relationship with those superior beings, to whom he attributed the power to answer his desires or to avert the things which he feared. It was not merely man corrupted and in rebellion against God, it was his religion itself which corrupted him; and he made of his corruption a religion. The demons had taken the place of God in his mind, and having the ascendency over his conscience, if man did not forget it, hardened or misled it. He was religiously bad; and there is no degradation like that. What a state! What folly! How long, O Lord?
God introduces us into His own thoughts
But if the human race plunge thus into darkness, taking demons for their god, and, incapable of self-sustainment, substitute for their own rebellion against God servitude to what is more elevated in rebellion, placing themselves in miserable dependence upon it, God raises and lifts us up above all this evil, and by His calling introduces us into His own thoughts—thoughts far more precious than the restoration of what was fallen. He separates a people to hopes which suit the majesty and the love of Him who calls them, and places them in a position of proximity to Himself, which the blessing of the world under His government would never have given them. He is their God. He communicates with them in a way which is in accordance with this intimacy; and we hear speak, for the first time, of faith (chap. 15: 6), based on these communications and these direct testimonies of God, though it may have operated from the beginning.
[1] The idea of a building high enough to escape the flood is an idea of which there is not the smallest trace in this passage. It was the pride of man seeking a centre and a name without God, and coalescing together. The rise of imperial power and dominion came after this, in which individual will and energy gained the ascendency. They are two phases of human effort without God.
[2] Pentecost was a beautiful testimony: God rose there above the confusion and judgment, and found, even in its effects, the means of getting near the heart of man; so that grace overruled judgment, even when it was not exercised in the power which regenerates the world.
[3] All in chapter 9 is simply Elohim, God, till we get to verse 26, where it is Jehovah, the God of Shem.
[4] This is a striking fact in the character of the history of man after the flood. We get the full plain statement of what he become.
[5] In the deluge. It does not seem that idolatry had crept in before.