Genesis 10

1 This is the account of Noah ’s sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who also had sons after the flood. The Japhethites 2 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 3 The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. 4 And the sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittites, and the Rodanites. 5 From these, the maritime peoples separated into their territories, according to their languages, by clans within their nations. The Hamites 6 The sons of Ham: Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. 7 The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. And the sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. 8 Cush was the father of Nimrod, who began to be a mighty one on the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; so it is said, “ Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the LORD.” 10 His kingdom began in Babylon, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11 From that land he went forth into Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, 12 and Resen, which is between Nineveh and the great city of Calah. 13 Mizraim was the father of the Ludites, the Anamites, the Lehabites, the Naphtuhites, 14 the Pathrusites, the Casluhites ( from whom the Philistines came), and the Caphtorites. 15 And Canaan was the father of Sidon his firstborn, and of the Hittites, 16 the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, 17 the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, 18 the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Later the Canaanite clans were scattered, 19 and the borders of Canaan extended from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. 20 These are the sons of Ham according to their clans, languages, lands, and nations. The Semites 21 And sons were also born to Shem, the older brother of Japheth; Shem was the forefather of all the sons of Eber. 22 The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram. 23 The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. 24 Arphaxad was the father of Shelah, and Shelah was the father of Eber. 25 Two sons were born to Eber: One was named Peleg, because in his days the earth was divided, and his brother was named Joktan. 26 And Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan. 30 Their territory extended from Mesha to Sephar, in the eastern hill country. 31 These are the sons of Shem, according to their clans, languages, lands, and nations. 32 All these are the clans of Noah ’s sons, according to their generations and nations. From these the nations of the earth spread out after the flood.

✦ What the text says

## Summary Genesis 10 lists the descendants of Noah's three sons — Japheth, Ham, and Shem — presenting them as a genealogical map of "nations" spread across the earth after the flood. The chapter is structured as a repeating formula: paternity statements followed by summary refrains that close each major branch (vv. 5, 20, 31-32). ## Key words - *tol'dot* ("accounts of / generations of", H8435) — a construct-form noun opening and closing the chapter (vv. 1, 32), framing the whole list as a structured genealogical record rather than a narrative. - *nifredu* ("they separated", H6504) — niphal (passive/reflexive) perfect, used in vv. 5 and 32 to mark divisions of peoples as something that happened to them, not an action they performed on others. - *yalad* ("he fathered", H3205) — qal perfect, the standard verb used repeatedly (vv. 8, 13, 15, 24, 26) for direct father-to-son begetting. - *goyim* ("nations", H1471A) — masculine plural, appears both as the object of scattering (v. 5, v. 32) and in the recurring closing formula "in their nations," tying individual names to collective political/ethnic identity. - *mishpechot* ("clans", H4940) — feminine plural construct, used in the refrain "according to their clans, their languages, their lands, their nations" (vv. 5, 20, 31), the chapter's structural fingerprint. ## What the text says The chapter is built on a repeated four-part refrain — *mishpechot* ("clans", H4940), *leshonot* ("languages", H3956H), *artzot* ("lands", H0776G), *goyim* ("nations", H1471A) — which closes each of the three genealogical sections (Japheth's line ends at v. 5, Ham's at v. 20, Shem's at v. 31). This refrain functions as an organizing device: the same four categories are used to classify every group of descendants, suggesting the list is organized by social/linguistic/territorial units, not purely by biological descent. Most entries use simple construct chains — *bnei X* ("sons of X", H1121A) — without verbs, functioning as a name-list. But at points the text shifts to full narrative clauses with the verb *yalad* (H3205, qal "he fathered"), notably for Cush→Nimrod (v. 8) and the Mizraim and Canaan lines (vv. 13, 15), where individual figures receive narrative attention (Nimrod's kingdom-building, vv. 8-12) that the flatter name-lists elsewhere lack. The niphal form *nifredu* ("they separated", H6504) appears at both the Japhethite conclusion (v. 5) and the chapter's final summary (v. 32), framing the dispersal of peoples as a passive/reflexive event rather than an act performed upon them by an external agent. ## Differences between versions The LXX and Vulgate lists show name variants at several points: v. 4's Hebrew *Dodanim* (H1721) is rendered "Rhodioi/Dodanim" differently across LXX and Vulgate; v. 24's LXX inserts an additional generation, "Kainan," between Arphaxad and Shelah, not present in the Hebrew or Vulgate. Several Hamite and Semitic place/tribal names (e.g., v. 7's Sabtah/Sabteca, v. 26-29's Joktanite names) also show orthographic divergence in Greek transliteration compared to the Hebrew forms.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.