Day 4 Genesis Chapter 10-12 Supplemental Notes

Genesis Chapter 10

After The Flood, the nations (see Family, Clan, Tribe, Nation) began again from Mount Ararat in the Middle East. All of humanity today are descended from Noah and his wife through their sons Shem, Ham and Japheth, and their wives.
Japheth, pronounced in Hebrew as yeh-feth, means opened or expanded. The descendants of Japheth settled, at first, primarily to the north, in Asia beyond the Black and Caspian Seas.

"The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.
The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.
The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.

From these the coastland peoples spread. These are the sons of Japheth in their lands, each with his own language, by their families, in their nations." (Genesis 10-2-5 RSV)
Ham, pronounced in Hebrew as khawm, means hot. The descendants of Ham settled toward the southwest and Africa e.g. Egypt is called "the land of Ham" (Psalm 105:23), although many of the most well-known Middle East people of Bible History are descended from Ham.

"The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan.

The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca.
The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan.
Cush became the father of Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before The Lord; therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before The Lord." The beginning of his kingdom was Babel [see also Why "Babel"?], Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar [see The Plain of Shinar]. From that land he went into Assyria [see also Asshur On The Tigris], and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city.
Egypt became the father of Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, Casluhim (whence came the Philistines), and Caphtorim.
Canaan became the father of Sidon [see Sidon the Canaanite] his first-born, and Heth [see Sons And Daughters Of Heth], and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites.
Afterward the families of the Canaanites spread abroad. And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon, in the direction of Gerar, as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom [see also Where Is "Sodom" Today?], Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. These are the sons of Ham, by their families, their languages, their lands, and their nations." (Genesis 10:6-20 RSV)
Shem, pronounced in Hebrew as shay-em, means name or character. Shem's descendants settled through the central area of the Middle East.

"To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram.

The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. Arpachshad became the father of Shelah; and Shelah became the father of Eber. 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. Joktan became the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan.
The territory in which they lived extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar to the hill country of the east. These are the sons of Shem, by their families, their languages, their lands, and their nations." (Genesis 10:21-31 RSV)

Genesis Chapter 11
It did not take humanity long after the flood before they were again defiant toward The Lord (see YHVH, Adonai, Jehovah, LORD). When the infamous tower of Babel was constructed, The Lord stopped them, not because they were a threat to Him, but because a united humanity was a threat to itself i.e. "this is only the beginning of what they will do." The Lord then scattered humans over the entire earth.

"And The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And The Lord said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."

So The Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there The Lord confused the language of all the earth [see Speaking In Tongues]; and from there The Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth." (Genesis 11:5-9 RSV)
The line of Shem remained however, for the most part, in the area in and around Babylon. Genesis 11:10-32 provides the genealogical record from Shem to Abraham who was born in what is today southern Iraq.

Genesis Chapter 12
Genesis 12 introduces Abram and Sarai who were called to journey to a new land (see Settlers and Invaders From Iraq).

"Now The Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you [see On His Own Two Feet]. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves."

So Abram went, as The Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions which they had gathered, and the persons that they had gotten in Haran; and they set forth to go to The Land Of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan" (Genesis 12:1-5 RSV)
Abraham's settlement in what would become known as the land of Israel (see Was Abraham A Jew?) was a gradual journey from the central area to the south (see The Negev and Hebron).

"Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then The Lord appeared to Abram, and said, "To your descendants I will give this land." So he built there an altar to The Lord, who had appeared to him.

Thence he removed to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to The Lord and called on the name of The Lord. And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb." (Genesis 12:6-9 RSV)
As would happen to the Israelites in later years, a drought and famine forced Abraham to go to Egypt (see The Delta Of The Nile).

"Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land." (Genesis 12:10 RSV)

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Day 3 Genesis Chapter 7-9 Supplemental Notes

Genesis Chapter 7

After Noah and his family had completed all of the preparations and loading of animals that The Lord had commanded them to do, The Flood began upon the earth.

"Then The Lord said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate; and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive upon the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground."

And Noah did all that The Lord had commanded him. Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the ark, to escape the waters of the flood." (Genesis 7:1-7 RSV)
The waters of the flood were not rain alone i.e. "on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of the heavens were opened" (see Fountains; also Evidence of The Flood), but righteous Noah and his family were saved by the ark (later, another well-known person of Bible History was also saved by an ark; see Moses' Ark).

"And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

"On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, they and every beast according to its kind, and all the cattle according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and every bird according to its kind, every bird of every sort. They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. And they that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and The Lord shut him in.
The flood continued forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters." (Genesis 7:12-18 RSV)
"And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days." (Genesis 7:24 RSV)
Did the flood cover the entire earth? Or just the Middle East? The Scriptures seem to describe an earth-wide deluge, however even if it were not, all of humanity would have been destroyed because mankind did not yet inhabit the entire earth. That did not happen until later, after the flood, when "The Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth" (Genesis 11:8 RSV).

Genesis Chapter 8
After the flood had made the earth clean in God's sight again (see also Old Testament Baptisms), the waters began to recede. Note again how the "fountains of the deep" were involved along with the rain - the surface of the earth drained, not merely evaporated.

"But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided; the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters had abated; and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ararat." (Genesis 8:1-4 RSV)

Noah then made a sacrifice to The Lord.

"Then Noah built an altar to The Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when The Lord smelled the pleasing odor, The Lord said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease." (Genesis 20-22 RSV)

Genesis Chapter 9
The new world after the flood also marked a change in diet for humans. Humans, and animals, began as vegetarians (i.e. "I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food" Genesis 1:29-30 RSV), but humans became meat eaters of clean animals (see Clean and Unclean) after the flood.

"Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything." (Genesis 9:3 RSV)

The Lord then also made a covenant that He would never again destroy life on earth with the waters of a flood.

"And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh." (Genesis 9:12-15 RSV)

So, from the ark's landing point on the mountains of Ararat, humanity began anew. Like some others before him, Noah lived out his life to a very old age (see Ancient Longevity).

"After the flood Noah lived three hundred and fifty years. All the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years; and he died." (Genesis 9:28-29 RSV)

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Day 2 Genesis Chapter 4-6 Supplemental Notes

Genesis Chapter 4

The fourth chapter of Genesis is the account of the first creation of children i.e. Adam and Eve were created as adults, so their children were the first children.

"Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man with the help of The Lord." And again, she bore his brother Abel." (Genesis 4:1-2 RSV)

Some interpret the verses above to mean that Cain and Abel were twins. There is no definite statement of that, however it is quite certain that Cain and Abel had a very similar physical appearance, just as Adam and Eve did (see Were Adam and Eve Redheads?). Eve was created from a part of Adam, so genetically they were nearly identical. The fanciful notion that Adam was "tall, dark and handsome" while Eve was "blonde and beautiful" would seem unlikely.
Cain and Abel were different in other ways though (see My Brother's Shepherd).

"Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to The Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering He had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell." (Genesis 4:2-5 RSV)

After the killing of Abel, Adam and Eve had other children (see Cain's Wife and The Line of Seth).

"Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch" (Genesis 4:17 RSV)

"And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, "God has appointed for me another child instead of Abel, for Cain slew him." (Genesis 4:25 RSV)

Genesis Chapter 5
Genesis chapter 5 is a genealogical account of the generations from Adam to Noah (see also What Happened To Enoch?).

"This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. Male and female He created them, and He blessed them and named them Man when they were created." (Genesis 5:1-2 RSV)

"When Lamech had lived a hundred and eighty-two years, he became the father of a son, and called his name Noah, saying, "Out of the ground which The Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands." (Genesis 5:28-29 RSV)

Genesis Chapter 6
Although it was obvious almost from the beginning that humans had become rebellious toward God's Eternal Law (see The Ten Commandments From Creation), by the time of Noah humanity had descended to the lowest point, a moral bankruptcy that will be seen only again in the time just prior to Christ's return.
Noah and his wife were chosen to, in effect, be the new Adam and Eve since all humans are descended from Noah and his wife (her name was not recorded in the Scriptures).

"These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. And God said to Noah, "I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them; behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of Gopher Wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with Pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits [see How Big Was Noah's Ark?], its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits." (Genesis 6:9-15 RSV)

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Day 1 Genesis Chapter 1-3 Supplemental Notes

Genesis Chapter 1

Genesis begins with "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," a statement of the creation of all that exists (see also The First Scientist and Hydrogen; also How Old Is God?). It then continues with a more earth-specific account of how the earth cooled, allowed light through the dense atmosphere, formed continents and oceans, and then living creatures.

The first day: "Let there be light." Sunlight penetrated to the earth's surface through the dense, hot primordial atmosphere (Genesis 1:3-5).

The second day: The earth cooled further so that there was a definite separation between the atmosphere and the water-covered surface i.e. "separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament" (Genesis 1:6-8).

The third day: Dry ground and seas formed on the surface; plant life began (Genesis 1:9-13).

The fourth day: With the atmosphere now transparent, the sun, moon and stars became visible "for signs and for seasons and for days and years" (Genesis 1:14-19). The heavens were to be used as the basis of the calendar, not for idolatry (see Sun Worship).

The fifth day: Water creatures and birds began (Genesis 1:20-23).

The sixth day: Land animals and humans (Genesis 1:24-31).

Genesis Chapter 2

With the six days of the physical creation complete, God rested on the seventh day and made it holy (see "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it Holy" and The Key To The Calendar)

"And on the seventh day God finished His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all His work which He had done in creation." (Genesis 2:2-3 RSV)

Chapter 2 then provides a more specific account of the creation of mankind; a man alone, then a woman in Eden.

"The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it." (Genesis 2:15 RSV)

"Then The Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." (Genesis 2:18 RSV)

So The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which The Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." (Genesis 2:21-23 RSV)

Genesis Chapter 3

The fall of man, "man" referring to the species as a whole i.e. "God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27 RSV).

God's order to not eat "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" was given to the male man before the woman was created (Genesis 2:15-18), but the woman was fully aware of the command when Satan spoke to her.

"And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" (Genesis 3:2-3 RSV)

Nevertheless, the woman, and the man who was right there with her, succumbed to Satan's lies.

"So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate." (Genesis 3:6 RSV)

For their disobedience to The Lord, the humans were driven out of Eden into a carnal world in which they would be subject to death.

"To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."

And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

And The Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them. Then The Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever" - therefore The Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life." (Genesis 3:16-24 RSV)

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