Gen. 11:2

The people had the entire Earth to use for God's glory. They had been given a fresh start. In a way, it was similar to Eden because mankind just had to follow God and not get into the evil that had come with time that wound up resulting in the Great Flood. 

Also like Adam and Eve, they went up setting their minds on becoming like gods. And, they didn't need any help from the devil this time.

Studying slowly through Romans in my personal devotionals, I got a very real sense of what these people went through in Romans 1:20 where it says that the people had the knowledge of God. They know Him, and yet chose to ignore Him and worship the things that were created rather than the Creator. From this, all sorts of evil came because the people decided they would work on their own to reach God. They wanted to ascend to Heaven.

However, we can't get up to God's level. We are not perfect, and no sin can enter Heaven.

Instead, God lovingly reached down to our level. He humbled himself and chose to become flesh and dwelt among us. He did that so that He could take the punishment for our sins when He died on the cross and then He rose from the dead.

As for these people, this large group journeyed together till they got to in the land of Shinar. I have a couple of observations on that.

One is that the Euphrates River is named as one of those from which flowed out of Eden. The geography of the pre flood world was incredibly different, so it is almost impossible for it to have been the same Euphrates as flows today and flowed them through Shinar. However, it is possible that the river was named after the one which flowed out of Eden. This actually makes sense because of the other connection.

Nimrod founded a great empire, in the area which is perhaps the most continually settled area in the world. That area of Babylon ground up developing several empires, and the city of Babylon is mentioned more than any city except Jerusalem in the Bible.

So, even here, one can see the battle between God and rebellious man. The battle which has seen the devil tried to wipe out the Jewish people so often. Indeed, many believe the area around Babylon is filled with evil spirits. We do know that during the End Times four unclean spirits looking like frogs will be released from the area.

All this, then, provides the context for what they did next.

Genesis 11 1

As mentioned before, there is good unity and there is bad unity. Simply being unified is not a good thing when that unity is done in an effort to do mischief. A group plotting to rob a bank, for instance, is certainly not unified in a good way. God had told them to fill the earth and enjoy it's fruits. They had.the whole new world to explore.  Instead of setting their hearts on honoring God with their actions, though, they began to let mischief creep in. 

Everyone on earth had the same language at this point. However, they were starting to drift away from the Lord quite a bit. Noah and Sam were still around, we presume that Ham and Japheth were as well, and yet people refuse to listen to these wise men. Wisdom is only helpful if it is listened to and if it is Godly wisdom. Whatever we take into our minds must be tested against the absolute truth of God's Word.

Being of one language, one wonders if everyone's idioms and usage of it was the same. I don't think so. There are many differences between people in the same neighborhood in a small city. However, the important thing is that they can still understand each other. Context can be grasped quite easily as long as someone is willing to listen. And, this was made easier here because - like in that small town - there is still a major common experience all had in growing up in the same area and listening to the ancient wisdom from people like Noah and Shem.

Gen. 10:24-32

The final part of Genesis 10 covers the children of Arphaxad, Shem's oldest child. There are a few things to consider with this genealogy.

This is mostly a description of where the children of Shem's oldest son Arphaxad and others wound up, except for one thing.

Worthy of note is that Peleg is born and it is not long after that the Earth was divided. This could have two meanings. One could be the separation of the large continent into separate continents. However, we showed that if that happened, it was almost surely during the Flood. The other of course is that the events of chapter 11 with the Tower of Babel occurred during his lifetime.

One wonders what 'in his days' might mean, but it is mostly considered that this is when he came to maturity. When he was the leader of those who would become God's chosen people. Of course, Shem was still alive at this point. Even Noah was. But as people aged much more quickly than before the Flood, it fell to on the younger generation much earlier to take the lead.

The earth was divided time as we shall see later, because people were uniting for a false unity. Unity and peace are not good when those things are used to try to go against God's plan. Remember, God's Way is easy. His burden is light. We humans just want our own way so much.

The only other thing to note here is that the people scattered rather quickly. For several hundred years after the earth was divided they wandered. Some information in Michael Oatd's book Life in the Great Ice Age shows how they could have easily covered all the earth.

Essentially, he notes that during the Ice Age, right after the Flood, there were land bridges between Spain and Morocco and between Russia and Alaska. The former would have been used by Japheth's descendants after they went into Europe and found it too cold and filled with glaciers.

It should also be noted that not every area was inhabited right away. Even secular scientists agree that Southern Africa was not inhabited by many people before several hundred years before Christ, which gives these people almost 2,000 years to make it down there. Madagascar was not inhabited till a few centuries after Christ, Iceland and New Zealand till centuries after that. It's possible that New Zealand was not inhabited till a little after 1000 A.D..

So, you can see how these things happened so easily. I could also mention how God's word was corrupted so quickly, but I will save that for some notes on Emperor worship when I mention Babel. Because, the situation in China is a telling example of how people, doing things their own way and not God's, can make things so bad.

 Because they took Emperor worship to such a level that only the elite were allowed to know of God. And yet, the Chinese language that developed contained symbols of knowledge of God that exist to this day, such as the symbol for "boat" containing the symbol for "vessel" and "eight" - the number of people saved in the Ark.

Gen. 10:21-23

Here, we see the sons of Shem discussed. There are several things worthy to note here.

God mentions these people last, even though they wind up being the ones who see God's chosen people come out of them; indeed, even the one from whom His people come is listed third. There are many lasts which shall be first and firsts which shall be last, Jesus reminds us. There is no importance to things like birth order to God, since He looks upon the heart.

"Wait," some might say, "wasn't it important to the Jewish people?" Only in two ways which are not connected to the way God sees us. The first is because the culture developed that way. We have seen before how we must follow God's Word and not the ways of man. Down through history, all the way back to Biblical times, we see the traditions of fallen man leading people away from God. Seeing oneself as important just because of birth or something that person has done leads easily to false pride, and God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. The second reason is connected to the first, and is the reason the first developed. The promised Messiah was supposed to come any time, and nobody knew exactly how or when. So, the first boy born was automatically seen as very important.

However, remember that King David of Israel, a man after God's own heart - the man who God promised that his seed would reign forever through the Messiah someday - was the last born in his family.

Speaking of lasts, one other interesting point - usually these genealogies only mention the people from among the firstborn, but here the last is mentioned. Birth order and other reasons God might have had for naming certain ones have both been discussed previously. However, one particular name stands out to me, at least, though it may escape the notice of some.

Uz is named - the land of Uz is where Job came from. We don't know if Uz named this area himself or if his descendants did. If his descendants did it's not necessarily wrong as long as one doesn't go overboard; America has a state and Federal District named after its first president, for instance, adn the man wanted nothing named after himself in his own lifetime. George Washington was a very humble man. And, Americans don't bow down to him or anything. A similar president with much named after him after his death - Abraham Lincoln - became known for freeing the slaves. Yet, according to one biography of him, after Richmond was captured near the end of the Civil War, President Lincoln toured the area and a former slave bowed down to him. Lincoln very quickly corrected him, "Never bow down to a man, it is not proper." And, the man then stood.

Job is considered by some accoutns the first book of the Bible to be written. It's possible Job lived at the time of Abraham, though that of Jacob may be a little more likely, siply based ont he life span of Job.

Well, if this land of Uz is named after this grandson of Shem, and people multiplied in thos early days after the Flood at about the same rate as before(notice that life spans go down, but people are still living several hundred years at first, meaning they could hve dozens of children), then it is possible that a large number of people could have inhabited that area. It would have been several hundred years after the Flood, after all.

The world was about to change drastically, however - even more so than it had changed from before the Flood.