To be totally honest, the genealogy in chapter 10 is super confusing. It's easy enough to follow, but it's not as easy as learning the descendants of Cain and Seth. There are so many words in this chapter that I just can't pronounce. So this chapter was a struggle to grasp. But at least I understand the big picture and that's that Shem, Ham, and Jepheth repopulated the earth with the help of their wives (and probably a bunch of other women, too).
What interested me was the story of the three brothers and their father, Noah, in chapter 9. Apparently, Noah got drunk on wine and passed out naked in a tent. Ham found him and went told his brothers, Shem and Japheth. Then Shem and Japheth went into the tent and put garments over their father while being extra careful not to look at their father's naked body. Then, when Noah wakes up he is livid with Ham and curses his son Canaan to be the slave of Shem and Japheth.
I immediately wondered how Noah knew that Ham did not help his brothers to cover him. (I mean, how did Noah know anything to be honest? It sounds like he had a pretty wild night.) But then I decided that it didn't really matter how Noah knew. What mattered is that Ham saw his father naked and chose to do nothing. Instead, he just went and told (gossiped?) his brothers about it. I guess the lesson to take from this is that if you see that something isn't right, do something about it. But I'm honestly not totally sure what to make of the story.
So then we read about the genealogies, and then we get to the Tower of Babel. Again, this is story I vaguely know about. People were building a tower to the heavens. But I always thought God made everyone speak a different language because he didn't want them building a tower up to heaven. And this still maybe very well be true, but after reading the story and doing a little more research, I see that the reason behind the different languages has a lot more with the people disobeying God's command to replenish the earth. When Noah and his family left the ark they were told to increase in number and fill the earth. Well, they increased in number, but they didn't refill the earth. They all wanted to stay in one place. And they thought that by building this city and this tower that they wouldn't have to spread out.
Little did they know that God can do what He wants, so He had everyone start speaking different languages, which forced the people to spread out across the earth just like God had originally told them to do. If only they had listened, right?
The rest of chapter 11 explains how we get from Shem to Abram, and we learn a little about Abram's family. Abram had a wife, Sarai, who couldn't conceive, and one of Abram's brothers died young. His other brother married his niece, who was the daughter of the brother who died, and they had kids together. Then, kinda out of nowhere, Abram's father, Terah, takes Abram, Sarai, and his grandson (son of the dead brother), and the four of them set out for the city of Canaan. But they don't make it and end up settling in Harran instead.
I just have a lot of questions about this story now, but I know that the coming chapters are about Abram, so I'm sure everything will get answered. However, I'm following a chronological reading plan, and now I'm supposed to go to Job. So Abram's on hold for the time being.
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What are your impressions from the story of The Sons of Noah? Why do you think Noah was so mad with Ham? What lesson do you get from the story, or do even get a lesson at all?
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