The God Over All Nations (Genesis 10:1-32)

Valley View Baptist Church                                                                 Pastor Curt Audet

6N656 Route 25                                                                                    August 2, 2026

St. Charles, IL  60174                                                                       vvbcil.com

“The God Over All Nations”

Genesis 10:1-32

BI: God sovereignly oversees and moves peoples and nations in His great plan of redemption.

Perhaps the most persuasive feature of the 66 books of the Bible for its veracity, its truthfulness, its reliability is that every single hero of the Bible is, well, painfully human. Hardly a sterling person to be imitated.  Every man and woman struggles up against all that is in the world–the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the boastful pride of life.  Last week we saw the family of Noah shake and shift when his drunkenness left him and his wife vulnerable to grievous sin. This left aftershocks in his son Ham’s and grandson Canaan’s lives for generations.  The only true hero of the Bible is God; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

So why then would God preserve 70 names that most Christians cannot remember or even pronounce?  The answer is, because every human matters to God; every nation matters to God.  You matter to God. 

God’s redemptive hand is upon humanity. In Genesis 1 God began with two people.  By Genesis 6, God blotted out all but eight surviving people in the flood. In Genesis 8:4, we see a glimpse into God’s larger plan when in the 7^th  month, on the 17^th day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.  Chronological researchers have long calculated this date when the Ark finally rested on Mt. Ararat in eastern Turkey—Nisan 17—is the same date—different year, of course—of the Feast Of Firstfruits and the same date marking when Jesus rose from the dead.   God’s redemptive hand is upon humanity.

In Genesis 10, then, God is building again after the flood-judgment preparing the stage for all of world history.   The nations of the world did not arise by accident; they rose by God’s design and remain under His sovereign rule and redemptive purpose.

Every genealogy in Scripture plays a part in the greater story of redemption.  Each one has pieces to the puzzle of God’s working with humanity. Each genealogy sharpens and focuses the overall storyline that God is bringing into our hands.  We discovered this in Genesis 4-5 where the genealogies bridged between the narrative of Creation and the Fall of Man (chapters 1-3) and the Noahic Covenant (chapters 6-9).

I. God is the Creator of every nation. (10:1,32; Psalm 47:7-8)

God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.’  See the bookends of Chapter 10: 

“These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood.” (v.1)

“These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.” (v.32)

God chose Noah, and his seven family members to repopulate the earth. Notice the unique repeated words: Families, clans, languages, lands and nations.  The emphasis here is not on individual people. The emphasis is on the larger view of redemptive history through the birth of civilizations.   All of the earth’s civilizations derive from Noah’s family of 8.  Three sons.  Three family lines.  From these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.

Whether a nation pursues Godly wisdom or morality, still God reigns over them.  God’s sovereignty over kings and kingdoms is one of Scriptures major themes. Earthly rulers may appear to wield ultimate power, but God establishes kingdoms, removes rulers, directs history, and accomplishes His purposes through both righteous and wicked kings.

“The Most High rules over the kingdoms of men.” (Daniel 4:17)

“For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm! God reigns over the nations; God sits on His holy throne.”(Psalm 47:7-8)

God sovereignly oversees and moves peoples and nations in His great plan of redemption. We’ll be seeing this throughout this chapter.

II. God rules the rise of kingdoms. (10:2-31; Psalm 2)

God’s spiritual, redemptive working with each people group can be seen in the presentation order of Noah’s sons.  Each time since Genesis 5-9, Noah’s sons are introduced as Shem, Ham and Japheth.  In an expected genealogy, the list of children are considered to be in their natural birth order.  Oldest, to youngest. Our first clue that this list is not the birth order comes in the sordid details of the Noah’s tent incident when he woke up from his drunkenness and knew what “his youngest son had done to him”.  Ham—we learn then, is not the middle son, but rather the youngest son.  So, then it is worth the ask, then what is the order?   This genealogy in Chapter 10 lists the three sons with Japheth first, Ham second, and Shem as the third.  This order focuses on place where the genealogy is taking us rather than the birth order.  The author—Moses—takes us to the redemptive line we will begin to see in Shem’s line with the first mention of Abram in Genesis 11:31.

In the process, v.10:21 confirms for us that Shem is the oldest son, Japheth, the second and Ham the youngest.  [You may see a margin note in your KJV referencing a textual variant clarifying this birth order.]

The key to a genealogy is twofold:  Where does it start?   And Where does it end?  Relevance to the redemptive storyline becomes more important than the family birth order.

² The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. ³ The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. ⁴ The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. ⁵ From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations.

Japheth’s family line was important for God’s promised blessing by expansion (9:27).  Yet, neither the wickedness of Canaan nor the blessed place of the Semites are key in Japheth’s descendants. Still in its expansive geopolitical impact, Japheth’s descendants would become some of the most influential carrying the Gospel to every corner of the world. became the names of large regional areas.

⁶ The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. ⁷ The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. ⁸ Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. ⁹ He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.” ¹⁰ The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. ¹¹ From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and ¹² Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. ¹³ Egypt fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, ¹⁴ Pathrusim, Casluhim (from whom the Philistines came), and Caphtorim.

¹⁵ Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn and Heth, ¹⁶ and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, ¹⁷ the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, ¹⁸ the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the clans of the Canaanites dispersed. ¹⁹ And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. ²⁰ These are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

The sons of Ham—particularly Canaan–play a large part in the redemptive storyline, but often as Noah had predicted (9:25-27) the future of the descendants of Canaan are going to embrace wickedness and human pride and largely reject the Creator God in lieu of their own pride in human power, strength and wisdom. 

Nimrod–a grandson of Cush, Canaan’s eldest brother, made similar choises as the Canaanites. Self-centeredness. Self-glory. Radical humanism. We will see this as early as Chapter 11 with the city Babel built by Nimrod, and working under the mission statement intended to rebel, resist and erase any God but themselves.  Nimrod was the first empire builder pursuing his own glory over the glory of God:

“Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”(11:4 NLT)

Each of Nimrod’s cities became centers of human power.  Some, like Ninevah because so brutally wicked that Jonah the prophet could not stomach the idea that God would save them if they repented and came to Him. (Jonah 1-4)

Notice the contrast. God told mankind to fill the earth. Humanity begins gathering into powerful kingdoms. Genesis 11 will walk us through  where this leads next week. Apply this: Political power apart from God easily becomes pride. “The nations rage, but God reigns.” (Psalm 2)

The last son of Noah listed here is Noah’s firstborn.  And in this case, the covenant relationship with the Lord flows to and through Shem.  Verse 21 makes this abundantly clear: 

²¹ To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born.

Shem is known as the father of the Semite people.  The ‘Semite’—what we call Jewish people descend from Shem through his grandson Eber.  The word, ‘Hebrew’, whether the Hebrew language or Hebrew people or Hebrew culture flows through ‘Hebrew”, derived from ‘Eber’.  Abram himself will be the first person in the Bible to be known as a Hebrew (Gen 14:13)

 ²² The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. ²³ The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. ²⁴ Arpachshad fathered Shelah; and Shelah fathered Eber. ²⁵ To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother’s name was Joktan. ²⁶ Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, ²⁷ Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, ²⁸ Obal, Abimael, Sheba, ²⁹ Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. ³⁰ The territory in which they lived extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar to the hill country of the east. ³¹ These are the sons of Shem, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

III. God has a purpose for every nation (Psalm 75:6-7)

God Is The King Over All Kings & Kingdom

God Is the Supreme King; Earthly kingdom exists under God’s universal rule.

God Establishes and Removes Kings; ‘It is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another.’ (Ps 75:6–7)

Kings Are Accountable to God Even the greatest kings answer to the Lord.”The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.” (Prov 21:1)

God Uses Both Godly and Ungodly Rulers  God accomplishes His purposes through rulers of every kind.  Pharaoh, Cyrus, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod. “The Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” (Dan 4:17, 25, 32)

Kings Cannot Act Without God’s Power To Do So   Pilate: Do you not know that I have authority? Jesus: “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” (Jn 19:10–11) Even the authority used to condemn Jesus existed only because God permitted it. (Romans 13:1–2)

Honor, remember, pray for our Rulers. “There is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” Paul wrote this while Nero ruled Rome—not because Nero was righteous, but because civil authority itself is part of God’s ordering of society.  Believers are called to honor governing authorities while remembering that their highest allegiance belongs to God. (1 Pet 2:13–17; Romans 13)

IV. Our identity is found in Christ (Galatians 3:28)

I’m of French descent—so much so that when I heard Daniel greet us two weeks ago with parlez-vous français, I felt an inner compulsion—placed in me since high school French class—to respond, oui, un peu. Language matters. Ethnicity matters. Culture matters. But they are not ultimate. Our deepest identity is in Christ.

And I’m proud to be an American / Where at least I know I’m free
And I won’t forget the men who died / Who gave that right to me
And I’d gladly stand up / Next to you and defend her still today
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land / God bless the USA

Nation matters. Ethnicity matters. Culture matters. But they are not our ultimate identity. Our deepest identity is in Christ.

“In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. ²⁷ For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” (Galatians 3:26-29)

“Make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19)

Every tribe, every language, every people, every nation around God’s throne.

“I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10)

The Bible begins with one family. It ends with redeemed people from every nation ever on the earth!

In application, ask yourself these questions:

• Do I value people from every nation?          

• Do I pray for the nations?

• Do I support missions to all nations?          

• Do I view God’s kingdom as larger than my own culture?

• Do I understand God is moving in and through the nations shaping history?