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10 Now this is the account about the development of groups of people who descended from Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah. Sons[a] were born to them after the flood.

The Descendants of Japheth

The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshek, and Tiras.[b]

The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.

The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittim, and the Dodanim.[c]

The islands and coastlands were divided into different lands among these peoples on the basis of their languages, their ethnic groups, and their nations.

The Descendants of Ham

The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim,[d] Put, and Canaan.

The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Ra’amah, and Sabteca.

The sons of Ra’amah were Sheba and Dedan.

Cush became the father of Nimrod. He was the first to be a mighty warrior on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. That is why the saying is “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.” 10 The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Uruk, Akkad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar.[e] 11 From that land he went to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, 12 and Resen between Nineveh and Calah, the great city.

13 Mizraim[f] became the father of the Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, 14 Pathrusim, Casluhim (from whom the Philistines descended), and the Caphtorim.

15 Canaan became the father of Sidon (his firstborn) and Heth, 16 as well as the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, 17 the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, 18 the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the families of the Canaanites spread out. 19 Then the borders of the Canaanites extended from Sidon, southward toward Gerar, as far as Gaza; from there it extended eastward toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.

20 These were the sons of Ham, according to their ethnic groups, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

The Descendants of Shem

21 Sons were also born to Shem, the older brother of Japheth,[g] the father of all the descendants of Eber.

22 The sons of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram.

23 The sons of Aram were Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash.[h]

24 Arphaxad became the father of Shelah.[i] Shelah became the father of Eber. 25 To Eber two sons were born. The name of one was Peleg, because in his days the earth was divided.[j]

Eber’s brother’s name was Joktan. 26 Joktan became the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan. 30 Their dwelling was from Mesha all the way to Sephar, in the hill country of the east.

31 These were the descendants of Shem according to their ethnic groups, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

32 These are the families and groups of peoples descended from the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations. From these, nations spread out over the earth after the flood.

Footnotes

  1. Genesis 10:1 In these tables, sons in some cases includes descendants. Fathers in some cases means ancestors or forefathers.
  2. Genesis 10:2 Some of these names are the names both of ancestral individuals and of ethnic groups that were derived from them. Some of the names also serve as names of geographic places.
  3. Genesis 10:4 The names ending in –im are peoples rather than individuals. Usually we render these names with the suffix -ites, except for a few primordial groups whose names also occur as names of geographic places, such as the Valley of Rephaim. The name Kittim is retained because it is common in literature about the Bible.
  4. Genesis 10:6 Mizraim is the Hebrew name for Egypt.
  5. Genesis 10:10 That is, Babylon
  6. Genesis 10:13 Mizraim is the Hebrew name for Egypt.
  7. Genesis 10:21 Or whose older brother was Japheth, but this translation does not fit the Hebrew construction as well as the translation above does.
  8. Genesis 10:23 The Greek text and 1 Chronicles 1:17 read Meshek.
  9. Genesis 10:24 Some manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament have an extra generation (Cainan or Kenan) between Arphaxad and Shelah. See the note on Genesis 11:13.
  10. Genesis 10:25 Peleg means division.