The Pre-Flood home of Noah and his family was in the area of Babylonia which was some 500 miles east from Mount Ararat, in what is today modern Turkey. After the flood they migrated back to their homeland and built cities. God then caused the confusion of languages which caused them to disperse into the world.

        The descendants of Japheth, after the Tower of Babel, when God made man go out and populate the world migrated west and north. The sons of Japheth's sons are listed giving more detail than is found in the list of Ham's or Shem's sons. A study of names Japheth's sons and grandsons sheds some light on who are his descendants today.

Name of the Son	People Associated With the Name
Japheth	Greeks, Aryans of India
Gomer	People living in area of the Black Sea, Germany and Wales.
Magog	Reference to "Gog" referring to Georgia, a region near the Black Sea and Scythians.
Madai	Medes (Persia), Japheth through Madai father of peoples of India.
Javan	People of Greece and Cyprus.
Tubal	Russian, city of Tobolsk.
Meshech	Russian, (Name Muskovi) city of Moscow.
Tiras	Thracians, possibly the Etruscans of Italy.
Ashkenaz	Germany, Armenia, Scandinavia, Denmark, northern islands of Europe and European west coast.
Ripath	Generally Europe, Carpathians and Paphlagonians
Togarmah	Armenians, Germany and Turkey
Elishah	Greeks ("Hellas" is a form of word Elishah)
Tarshish	Spain, Carthage in North Africa
Kittim	Greeks, Cyprus, Macedonia
Dodanium	Greeks, Rhodes, Dardanelles

(The above information came from Henry M. Morris's book The Genesis Record, pages 247-249)

         As you can see from the list above Japheth descendent are the Indo-European peoples. The Indo-European peoples are identified as the "white" or Caucasian race.

         After the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel, God orderly divided up the different peoples of the world. When God changed the language of the people of the world He did so by family (tribe or clan) and nations. These families who were related found they spoke the same language and gathered together in migrating generally west and north out of Babylonia. This was probably not a migration of all these families in one group. It would seem all these families separately migrated in the same general direction because they all had a common language. This migration of people lasted over many centuries. In seeking new lands as the population grew they spread northward and to the west.

        It should be noted that several cults teach that the people of the English Isles were the descendants of the Ten (supposed) Lost Tribes of Israel. There is absolutely not evidences of this. The English people are Caucasians, the descendants of Japheth, not Shem, who is the father of the Jews through Abraham.

        Ham's descendants settled towards the south west along the Mediterranean into North Africa and southward into the rest of the continent. Ham had four sons, but grandsons are listed for only three.

        The Cushites settled in south Arabia, southern Egypt, the Sudan and northern Ethiopia. Seba is associated with Upper Egypt. Havilah, meaning "sea land" could refer to northern Arabia on the Persian Gulf or Ethiopia. Raamah and Sabtechah were in southern Arabia. Sheba, home of the Queen of Sheba, of I Kings 10, was in southwest Arabia and Dedan in the north. Various tribes in these areas trace their heritage back to Shem, which would indicate some mixing of the tribes.⁽¹⁾

         Verse 9:8-10, refer to Cush's son Nimrod. Nimrod's name means "to rebel" or "let us rebel". Nimrod, is called a "mighty hunter". This is in sharp contrast to the prophecy of Noah, that Ham's descendants would be servants to Shem and Japheth. Nimrod built and apparently ruled the first great city after the Floor, Babylon. Afterward he extended his rule into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth and Calah. Nimrod was the first world ruler. The Bible does not say that Nimrod was responsible for the Tower of Babel, but it seems logical that he was being the founder and ruler of the city. The Babylonians invented the first false religion which was a worship of the stars, astrology. Babylon is infamous in Scripture as being a wicked city openly rebelling and fighting against God. The people of these great cities were major enemies of Israel throughout history. Nimrod was not a servant as Noah had prophesied, but the opposite a "mighty hunter".⁽²⁾ It seems Nimrod's goal in life was to disprove the prophecy of his grandfather and it is possible Ham's resentment of his father Noah was kindled in his grandson.

        Ham's son Mizraim's descendants are associated with North Africa to the island of Crete. The note in verse 14, states that from Casluhium came the Philistim or Philistines.

         The origin of the hated and sinful Canaanite who lived in Palestine came for the lineage of Ham. The Canaanites practiced probably the most sordid and evil religions based on murder and sexual perversion. The idol Baal, was the son of El, the head of a pantheon of decadent deities. Their civilizations was so corrupted that God commanded the Children of Israel to completely destroy them including their animals. Other descendants of the Canaanites were the Chinese, from the Sinites, verse 10:17. Further, the Sinites were probably the ancestors of all the Mongoloid peoples including the people of the South Sea Islands and the Americas.

         The descendants of Shem settled the northern area of Persian Gulf and westward into toward the Indian Ocean. Included in this area are the lands of Syria, Chaldea and parts of Assyria, Persia and the Arabian peninsula. The spiritual blessing promised by Noah, came to all people on Earth through the lineage of Shem to the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

        In this verse we find a simple statement that Shem had a son named Eber, and he had a son named Peleg, and in his time the earth was divided. Peleg was the fifth generation after the Flood and places the division of languages with in his generation.

         Some associate this phrase as referring to the division of the nations. Others see it as a reference of not only the division of nations caused by the confusion of languages, but of the dividing of the world into the present day continents.

        Peleg's name comes from the root word "palag", which means to split (literally or figuratively) "to divide". The form or the word, "Peleg", used here means "earthquake".⁽³⁾

Geologists today have generally concluded that the continents were once connected in one giant super continent they have named "Pangaea". Computer imaging has shown how all the continents appear to fit together. As an example the eastern shores of North and South America conform to the western shore lines of Europe and Africa. Geologist call have named this the "Continental Drift Theory". The conclude that from the contour of the continents fitting so perfectly together, the rifts on the ocean floor and the present measurable movements of the continents that in the past, at some time the continent were one large land mass.

        All of these evidences lead to the conclusion that if the continents did divide this dividing could have occurred in relation to the division of the languages after the Tower of Babel. Possibly, some time after the migrations caused by the confusion of languages, when the people when sufficiently dispersed, God caused the continents of move apart. This would account for man, and animals being on the isolated continents of North and South America and Australia. There were people on the continents when they moved. It appears that God not only divided the people by confusing their languages, He also divided in the land so the dispersion would continue. The division of the land precluded that the people on earth could have physically come back together had they been able to overcome the language barriers.

        It is also interesting to note that this event was some five generations after the Flood. Many of the geological mysteries which are difficult to understand in relationship to the Floor could be explain by a second world wide catastrophic event such as would be caused by the sudden global shifting of the continents. Great earthquakes, volcanic activity, uplifts, flowed and sinking of vast land areas and mountain forming would be expected to accompany such vast changes in the earth's surface.

         The concluding statement of Chapter Ten makes it clear that everyone on earth today is a descendent of one of Noah's sons. When we look at all the different types of people on earth today it is at first difficult to understand. People are so different all over the world. How can it be explained?

        The answer is simple. From each of Noah's sons came the three divisions of called the "races". Anthropologists divide all the world's peoples into three races, Caucasian (white), Mongoloid (yellow) and Negroid (black). Further within each of the sons was the potential to produce all the variations that is evident within the three races of man.
Click here to read my paper "The Origin of Race"

1. The Bible Knowledge Commentary, John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck, Victor Books, 1985, page 43.

2. The New Unger's Bible Dictionary, Merrill F. Unger, Moody Press, Chicago, 1988, page 924.

3. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, James Strong, MacDonald Publishing Company, McLean, Va., Hebrew Chaldee Dictionary, Page 94.

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