This short summary of Noah and his sons, and the naming of one in particular, is given by the Lord to begin to explain what happens next.
First, it’s
important to note that these three families would eventually overspread the whole earth, which is actually quite easy mathematically and genetically, with life spans only slowly declining. Please let me pause to give a couple good reference books, the first being available as an Internet edition. In
“After the Flood" by Bill Cooper, we see a good summary of how some of them – especially the
sons of Japheth – did so. There is also “Life in the Great Ice Age” by Michael Oard (also available at Amazon) for a
discussion at the end of the story of how the Great Flood impacted people and
caused, among other things, people with very bad cases of rickets to look to modern
people like a different species because they don’t understand the situation
from the Bible. No, the Bible doesn’t mention an Ice Age, but it all fits
together well, and we have to remember that the Bible isn’t a book to tell
everything about every situation and every fact in the universe. It is,
however, absolutely true in what it says, and what we take in must be analyzed
as accurate or not based on the Bible.
Back to our study, before Noah’s
kids spread out around the world, though, they were all in the same general area.
They’d begun to have families and repopulate the world, but they tended to
remain in the same place rather than replenish the earth as they were told.
Had Noah's sons
and their families begun to spread out like they were told to, what happened
next would not have happened, and there wasn't any been as many to take part in
the evil which would come at Babel. We need to remember that when the Lord
tells us something, He knows the future and every possibility that can come
from each of our choices, and is doing what He does for our benefit, in this
case to protect them from themselves.
It's like the
warnings in the previous section, where I diverge from the talk of the rainbow
to discuss something which may or may not be very close, but which will have
crucial ramifications for those who live through it. God shows in His Word, the
Bible, that he cares about us and only once what is best for each of us.
Notice, finally,
that Canaan is referred to as Ham’s son, but no other designation is given.
This means it is likely that Canaan was not his favorite son as when Joseph is
referred to as Jacob’s – Israel’s by then - favorite. Another time God points
out something special about a person is when Jacob’s attitude toward his wives,
Leah and Rachel, is pointed out. Since Shem had Arphaxad soon after the Flood,
and the young people after all needed time to be born, much less to grow, Noah
likely saw some tendency in Canaan already which would foretell big problems. But, file that away for a moment until we
tackle the rest of this, and simply remember that – given what would come of
the descendants of Canaan, and how wicked they would be – God knew the future already,
and the choices people would make.
