Bible oldThe three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.

Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.

Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK) with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Genesis 10:13-20

13 Egypt was the father of

the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites, 14 Pathrusites, Kasluhites (from whom the Philistines came) and Caphtorites.

15 Canaan was the father of

Sidon his firstborn,[a] and of the Hittites, 16 Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, 17 Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, 18 Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites.

Later the Canaanite clans scattered 19 and the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon towards Gerar as far as Gaza, and then towards Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, as far as Lasha.

20 These are the sons of Ham by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations.

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Last week’s post introduced in more detail the sons and descendants of Ham. Noah put a curse on one of Ham’s sons, Canaan, the father of sorts of the Israelites’ Promised Land, also of the same name.

Today’s verses expand on Ham’s sons and descendants. For those who missed it a few weeks ago, also pertinent to today’s verses is the curse Noah pronounced on his grandson Canaan, Genesis 9:24-29.

Matthew Henry’s commentary tells us (emphases mine):

Observe here, 1. The account of the posterity of Canaan, of the families and nations that descended from him, and of the land they possessed, is more particular than of any other in this chapter, because these were the nations that were to be subdued before Israel, and their land was in process of time to become the holy land, Immanuel’s land; and this God had an eye to when, in the meantime, he cast the lot of that accursed devoted race in that spot of ground which he had selected for his own people; this Moses takes notice of, Deut 32 8, When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.

Egypt — one of Ham’s sons — was the father of the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites (verse 13) as well as the Pathrusites, Kasluhites (from whom the Philistines came) and Caphtorites (verse 14).

John MacArthur says:

… any time you see “im” it’s an ending that means a people. And all those “ims” in verses 13 and 14. They could be “ites” or “ims.” Later he changes to “ites,” but “ites” or “ims,” it’s the same thing; it’s people groups.

Canaan, the bearer of Noah’s — and God’s curse — likely for unbelief, although Scripture does not specify it, was the father of Sidon his firstborn, and of the Hittites (verse 15), the Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites (verse 16), the Hivites, Arkites, Sinites (verse 17) as well as the Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites (verse 18).

MacArthur emphasises the vast number of clans here:

So, the Canaanites were people who descended from Canaan, but there were all kinds of families of them. All kinds of families.

Later, the Canaanite clans scattered (verse 19).

MacArthur discusses the Hittites:

The Hittites, an interesting people, they had sort of a life of their own. The Hittites – we don’t need to introduce something that’s not important in this text, but in case you’re wondering what happened to the Hittites, they had an empire of their own, which today is in the area of modern Turkey. At the time of Abraham, they were in the land of Canaan, and they were a powerful people. They were still a power a thousand years after Abraham at the time of Solomon.

Are these the same people who had the highly powerful Ottoman Empire, which existed between 1299 and 1922? At varying points in history, that empire spread from as far north as Poland down to Kosovo in the opposite direction. The Ottomans had their defeats, but their empire collapsed only after the First World War with the Turkish War of Independence which lasted between 1919 and 1923. The last sultan, Mehmed VI, left Turkey on November 17, 1922, and the Republic of Turkey was created on October 29, 1923. That was only a little over a century ago.

Then there is the question of which of Noah’s sons’ descendants settled the eastern part of Asia.

MacArthur posits two possibilities.

The first involves the Hittites:

Most of the evidence connects the heritage of Asian people to the descendants of Ham. Perhaps the Hittites who came out of Ham were the ones who populated China. Let me read you just a thought on this. The Hittite Empire endured a long time – as I said, over a thousand years. And there are indications survivors of the Hittite Empire fled into China, that they went into China east of Turkey, moving, migrating on a route which Marco Polo took when he opened a new era of commerce many centuries later. And some say it’s the Hittites who got the name Chitti, which brought to the east the name Cathay, which, of course, is a name associated with the Orient.

And some archeologists say that the Hittites and the Mongols have very similar features: shoes which had toes that turned up, hair in a pigtail, pioneer work in smelting and casting iron, and the domestication of horses. That’s one possibility.

The second involves the Sinites:

The other possibility of the origin of the Asians is from the Sinites. Look at verse 17, at the end of the verse, “Sinite” – S-I-N-I–T-E. When we talk about American-Chinese relations, what do we call those? What do we call them? Sino-American relations. Why do we call them Sino-American relations? Well, the word “sin” – S-I-N – is a common word in the Orient. There is a dynasty – the Sin [Qing] Dynasty. It’s a word that means purebred. Many emperors used Sin as a title. There is the study of China. Do you know what it’s called? Sinology. And so, it is possible that they came from Ham. But I’ll tell you this; they came from Noah’s family. There is a Chinese scholar in the church who keeps giving me lessons in the Chinese language all through the book of Genesis and showing me how the Chinese letters – Chinese letters are really pictures – prove their connection. They have words that are connected that demonstrate in pictures the story of the garden of Eden – the serpent, the tree, Adam, Eve, the whole thing.

One of the ones that’s very interesting, that I just discovered, is the Chinese word for ship – the Chinese figure for ship; it’s not really a word, it’s a figure. The Chinese figure for ship is made of three components – if I had a board; I’d draw it for you – three components. Component number one is a container. Component number two is a person. And they depict a person by a mouth that’s open. Because what distinguishes a person is the ability to communicate, speak.

So, these three figures are all pressed together for the sign of a ship. And one of them is a container; it’s the sign for a container. One is the sign for a person. And the other is the number eight. That’s the Chinese word for ship. A ship is how eight people got in a container and survived. That’s how the Chinese language – and that’s one of hundreds of illustrations; there’s an entire book on this. They take their roots all the way back to the ark. And it’s most likely that they came either from the Hittite strains of Ham, or from their Sinite strains of Ham.

The borders of Canaan — the Promised Land — stretched from Sidon towards Gerar as far as Gaza, and then towards Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, as far as Lasha (verse 19).

That concludes the sons — including descendants — of Ham by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations (verse 20).

MacArthur gives us a biblical view of what happens to the Israelites as they laid claim to the land of Canaan:

… out of Egypt they came, they wandered around in that desert south of Israel and east of Israel for 40 years, and they’re ready to go into the land of Israel, that little thin strip of land that we’re so familiar with between Africa and Europe, and Asia to the east, and they were to go in and take possession of that land. After the 40 years of wandering they had been purged, the generation that came out of Egypt had died off, Moses was set apart at that point to be their leader until the time to enter the land, and then the mantle was passed, as you know, to Joshua, and you know the story of them going in, sending spies, the whole time moving in and taking the Promised Land.

Now at that time, that land was called the land of what? Canaan. The land of Canaan. And that is because it was occupied by descendents of Ham through Canaan. Canaanites. And here are the Jews on the brink of going in to take this land. And God had told them go in, take the land, it belongs to you, and kill the people who live there. You are acting as instruments of divine judgment. You need to go in on behalf of God and be the instrument of judgment against the wicked Canaanites. And they were wicked. Vile, idolatress people. Who if not eliminated, would corrupt the Israelites. And as you know the history, the Jews did not eliminate them as God told them to, and they suffered the corruption. Because they didn’t, it cost them ultimately to again to into captivity into Babylon, and lose the glory of their great land.

But here are the Jews on the brink, they’re ready to go in to take this land. Turn to the 15th chapter for a moment of Genesis. And I think it’s important for you to kind of see what’s going on here. Here is where initially the land is promised to the descendents of Abraham, the Jewish people for whom Abraham and those who came after him; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob’s name is changed to Israel, and that’s the line of descent that ends up being Jewish people.

But here in the original promise to Abraham that we know as the Abrahamic Covenant, God promises to Abraham and his descendents this land. Let’s pick it up in verse 7 of Genesis 15. God said to Abram as he was called initially, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess it.” And he said, “O Lord God how may I know that I shall possess it?” You’re telling me that there’s gonna be a land that I’m going to possess? A great land, in fact a land that extends far beyond the current borders of Israel in its original pledge, that engulfs most of the Middle East, east of Israel.

The Lord made a covenant, seemingly with Abraham but really with Himself:

And when the sun was going down, verse 12, says Moses the writer, “A deep sleep fell upon Abram.” God gave him a divine anesthetic, knocked him out. “And behold terror and great darkness fell upon him.” I mean, he went into a serious coma. They indicate that there was a fear, overwhelming fear, indicative of the presence of God. And God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendents will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years”. God gives him a prophecy that there’s going to be an enslavement of the Children of Israel, the Children of Abraham, for 400 years. Actually, specifically, 430 years they were in Egypt, “But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions”. That’s exactly what God did. The Israelites came out of there with a measure of wealth, delivered from Egypt by, as you know, the ten plagues, the Red Sea parted for them. “As for you, Abram, you shall go to your fathers in peace, you shall be buried at a good old age.” And the fourth generation after the 400 years of captivity, they shall return here. For the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” Here is the land I’m gonna give you, He says to Abram, right here in front of you. You left there, you’ve come here, here’s the land. But I want you to know your descendants are gonna get this land, I’m gonna make a covenant, I’m cutting the pieces right here, to signify the seriousness of this covenant as if to say may I die if I don’t keep the covenant. But I’m telling you, the covenant is not gonna be fulfilled immediately; in the intervening period there’s gonna be a 400-year enslavement. And you’re not gonna be able to come back and take this land, look at this, until the inequity of the Amorite is complete. The Amorite is another word for Canaanite.

I can’t bring you into the land until you can act as my instrument of judgment on an iniquitous people. so from the very beginning, God had pledged to Abram this land. What land is it? Go down to verse 18. “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying ‘To your descendents I have given this land from the River of Egypt, as far as the Great River, the River Euphrates.'” That would be from the Euphrates way at the east, way back in the Iraq/Iran fertile crescent area; we don’t know where the ancient River Euphrates exactly was and where it exactly flowed, to the River of Egypt. Probably not understood to be the Nile, but rather, what has been known in ancient times as Wadde El Orach, the southern border of Judah. “I’m giving you all that land, the land of the Kenite, the Kennezite, the Cadmonite, the Hittite, the Parazite, the Rupham, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Girgashite, the Jebusite; the Jebuse being an ancient name of Jerusalem, and the ancient occupants of God’s city. So all of these people were a part of their whole Canaan culture. But He said I can’t give you the land until the iniquity of these people is full.

We now jump not 420 years later, but closer to 600 plus years later. The 430-year captivity is past, it didn’t come for a while after Abraham as you know, they didn’t go into Egypt in Abraham’s time. They went into Egypt after Abraham and the stories of Joseph are the ones that are linked with Egypt.

So, there’s some time to pass, then there’s 430 years, and now here we are jumping ahead 600 or so years, and the inequity of these people is full. The inequity of the Canaanites, the Amorites meaning Canaanites is full. And God has now brought his people through this equitous trek. Forty years in the wilderness, they stand on the edge of the Jordan to cross and take the land. They’re entitled to it, because God pledged it to Abram.

And to show you how binding the pledge was, I want you to go back to verse 17 for a minute. I think this is one of the most interesting little pieces of insight in the Old Testament. When the sun set, remember now, Abram’s in a coma. Usually when there’s a covenant, you cut the animals, and both parties walk though. Both parties together walk through the dead animals. They’re cutting the covenant, and signifying by walking between the bloody pieces, may such happen to me if I don’t keep the covenant.

But Abram didn’t go through this ritual. He didn’t go through the pieces, God knocked him out. Came about when the sun had set. It was very dark. “And behold there appeared a smoking oven, and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.” Who was that? God, by himself. That’s why we say the Abrahamic Covenant is a unilateral, unconditional covenant made between God and Himself. It’s not dependent on Abraham. It is unilateral, it is a covenant which God makes with Himself. He will give Abram a people. He will give that people the land. That’s His promise.

Going forward in time with the Israelites:

And when they were standing on the edge of the Jordan River looking across at the land, and ready to go take the land, and the surrounding area, the question would immediately come into their mind, what right do we have to this land? The answer: the promise of God to Abram. This is your covenant land. But why should we go in and dispossess the Canaanites? Because their inequity is complete. God has a limit. And you will be his instruments of judgment. But why Canaanites? Well, they would know the answer to that, wouldn’t they … Let’s go back to chapter 9. Because Canaan was the one who was cursed …

That is not to say that the rest of the family weren’t sinners – they were all sinners, of course. But this is a unique curse that shows up in the line of Canaan, ultimately in the Canaanites. And the Canaanites become the enemies of God’s people all through the Book of Genesis. Starting in chapter 11 we’ll see it, all the way to chapter 50. They are the enemies of God’s people. In fact, the sin of the Canaanites was so massive and so great, that it defiled the land. You can read about that, Leviticus 18:28, Joshua 23; their inequity was so great, they had totally defiled the land.

And so this is to help the Jews understand that when they go in, they are acting as the judges of God, or I should say the executioners, bringing out God’s judgment. And what is this specifically, this curse, “…a servant of servants he shall be to his brothers”. A servant of servants he shall be to his brothers. That is, he’s gonna be a slave. He’s gonna be a slave, first of all, to the family of Shem. Because it was out of the family of Shem that Abraham came and the Jews came. These people were wicked.

… if you study the territory of Ham, the territory of Canaan coming from Ham – it included Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities of the Plane. Go down to verse 15, Canaan became the father of Sidon his firstborn, and now you see them develop the Jebusites, Amorite, the Girgashite, the Hivite, the Arkite, the Sinite, the Arvadite, the Zemaritem the Hamathite; afterward the families of the Canaanite were spread abroad, they’re going everywhere extending from Sidon, that’s on the coast of what is now Israel, toward Gerar as far as Gaza on the south, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim – they sweep all the way to Sodom and Gomorrah. That whole area was the area of these people who were the descendents of Canaan. Wicked, wicked people. Corrupt and corrupting. We’ll see that in chapter 13, chapter 15, 18, chapter 19, and particularly in chapter 38 of Genesis.

And they, by the way, interestingly enough, were the people whose lifestyle was characterized by nakedness. When we get to Leviticus chapter 18, if you wanna look it up, I think as I remember, 24 times the issue of uncovering nakedness is mentioned there, and it was part of the lifestyle of the Canaanites. Somehow … that experience of nakedness that occurred with Ham shows up generations later in this immoral pen[chant] for uncovering peoples nakedness; that is for having activities outside of God’s boundaries. God didn’t make them evil; in fact, God waited for centuries, until their evil had reached an intolerable limit. God’s hatred of these sins particularly caused him to ready the Children of Israel to take that land …

And I might just say the promise to Abraham of the land for the people of God is still in place today. It’s still their land, it still belongs to them, and God will see that they receive it.

On that note, a couple of weeks ago, someone posted the following graphic online:

In case the graphic disappears in time, it is a quote from Mossab Hassan Yosef, the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of the founders of Hamas.

Mossab Hassan Yosef was no stranger to Israeli jails, yet was appalled by the brutality of Hamas towards their fellow Arabs.

In time, he left his past behind. He became a Christian. He now lives in the United States.

The graphic says that no one knows Hamas or Gaza as well as he does.

Recently, this is what he said about the Hamas-Israeli conflict:

There is no difference between Hamas and the so-called ‘Palestinians’, as the vast majority of them support Hamas … There are no ‘Palestinian People’. There are conflicted tribes, and without Israel as the common enemy, they would kill each other.

It would be interesting to read more about what this man has to say.

Next week we look at Shem’s line, the Semites.

Next time — Genesis 10:21-32