“These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.”
The Table of Nations closes with its summary: these are the clans of Noah's sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood. The final verse draws the widest possible circle around the table's contents: all nations, all peoples, all the human diversity of the post-flood world descends from Noah's three sons. What began with one man, Adam, and restarted with one man, Noah, is now a vast diversity of peoples filling the earth — the creation mandate of Genesis 1:28 and 9:1 being fulfilled generation by generation, nation by nation. Revelation 5:9 pictures the Lamb as worthy because he purchased for God people from every tribe and language and people and nation — a direct reference to the diversity catalogued in Genesis 10. The Table of Nations is the inventory of what Christ came to redeem. Every name in the table has a nation, and every nation has people whom Christ's blood purchased. The table is the scope of the gospel.
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
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