(will have new article to post tomorrow. meantime . . .
Genesis 10:19 says, “And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha."
This territory is what's called today Palestine. The Canaanites lived in Israel’s land, or the land God gave to Abraham, telling him, “Walk out in that land; it's yours!”
“The reason he mentions the Canaanites in Genesis 9, and Canaan the descendant of Ham, is to draw attention to the curse that was on the occupants of the land that Israel was going to go in there," explains Richard Jordan."Over and over and over again God tells Israel to go in there and throw the Canaanites out. That curse and the justification for that, and the understanding of why that was to be done in Israel’s history, Moses is writing this when those orders were being given to Israel and he writes this thing in Genesis 9 and God the Holy Spirit puts it here to cause Israel in Moses’ day to understand why it is that that was a cursed people. They were ‘outlandish people,’ as they’re called in Nehemiah.
"They didn’t belong where they were and they had settled there against the wishes of the Lord. We’re going to see in Genesis 11 that these are the people that do that kind of thing!
*****
“You understand that term ‘a servant of servants’ is not a derogatory or pejorative kind of a description. In the Hebrew language, when they wanted to say something in the superlative, they would repeat it.
“You heard it said in Genesis 2 when the Lord said unto Adam, ‘The day you eat of the Tree of Good and Evil thou shalt surely die.’ For years I’ve heard preachers say, ‘Well, that means ‘dying thou shalt die,’ and that’s what it says in the Hebrew. People say, ‘Well, see that means dying spiritually you’re going to die physically.’ That isn’t what that means at all!
“What that is is understanding the exact thing that he says in Hebrew without understanding the language and the grammar of the language that’s being dealt with.
"In the Hebrew language, when they wanted to make something in the superlative, they repeat it. We would say, ‘You’re going to surely die.’ In other words, there isn’t any way to get around it and you see that in Hebrew constantly like that. Well here it’s the same kind of thing.
“He’s saying he’s going to be a servant par excellence. There’s nobody gonna beat this guy at serving. He’s going to be the best there is. He’s going to render extraordinary service to mankind and he does it in the area of mechanical skills and technology; getting the job done. Ham’s descendants are to make a tremendous contribution to mankind in that area.
“Japheth (verse 29) is going to spread out and be a developer, an expander, an explorer. He’s going to have the power of technology (the skills developed by the other two brothers and their respective descendants) to expand it out.
“Shem takes care of religion. Every major world religion comes from the tents of Shem. You know, when Ham develops a religion it’s spurious. When Japheth develops a religion it’s a phony and there’s something about you just say, ‘Eehh, there’s something about that that just doesn’t . . .’
“Ham develops a religion and you get something like voodoo. The Mambo-Jambo stuff and the Spiritism. Japheth develops a religion and you get something like Christian Science or the Mormons.
"But when Shem develops a religion, you come up with Mohammedism, Islam or the Baha’is or Confucianism or Buddhism. If you ever read about the Buddhists and those guys, and you begin to see, you know these guys are onto something. There’s something a little more authentic about that.
*****
“They used to say, ‘The English ruled the waves, the French ruled the land and the Germans ruled the air.’ They were the thinkers in Europe. Well, when you get to messing with Shem, Shem is in his head. He’s thinking.
“I’ll give you an illustration about why you need to understand this; how it will help you in politics and in international affairs. The U.S. went into Korea and got the britches beat off of them. You know why? They didn’t understand Shem.
“Ten years later they went to Vietnam and Shem cleaned their clocks; cleaned our plow! You know why? Japheth isn’t equipped to deal with Shem because he doesn’t think like Shem thinks. Shem looks at that hill out there . . .
"In WW II there was something you were trying to take. You took a city and you could see strategic advantage to it and all that. You go fight Shem and there’s this hill out over there; got nobody living on it but the whole battle, the whole war, depends on taking that hill and keeping it. Well, see that’s in his head! There’s a mental attitude about that thing.
“That’s the same thing that happened in Vietnam. You go up against Shem and there isn’t but one or two things to do. One is to go in there and you just beat him into a pulp, soundly, the first time you mess with him or two, you leave him alone. That’s the only two options you’ve got. You don’t have the option of a limited engagement or that kind of stuff. You know why? He’ll beat you; you just don’t have sense enough to know it yet! He beats you and waits ‘til it dawns on you and that’s just the way he is and you see that all through the Scripture.
“These three men’s descendants are designed to have all those characteristics that are wonderful, good and positively blended together, not in a melting pot but in a divinely ordained system, or nationalism, where all of their contributions were functioning and working and then blended together for the good of the whole. Genesis 10 records the spread
of these men.
*****
“Now the problem comes up that, shortly after they begin to spread out on the earth, rebellion came in. Satan’s policy of evil is to destroy God-instituted nationalism and bring in internationalism and have a one-world government, one-world religion and one-world race. And God’s purpose was not those things.
"God set out these families and He put them in nations and determined they would have geographic and political boundaries between them for the purpose of ‘if happily they might seek after the Lord and find Him.’
“Gen. 10:2. Japheth’s descendants go up; when they leave the Ark they move out north and they go up into Europe and Japheth becomes the Indo-European people. Verse 6: Ethiopia is Cush, Mizriam is Egypt, Phut is Libya and Canaan didn’t make it down there like he ought to have.
“Look at cross-references over in the Book of Psalms. Psalms 105 and 106 are where Egypt is called the Land of Ham and Ham goes down south and into Africa and that’s Ham’s land. Verse 21. Shem’s descendants go toward the East. Verse 30.
“Shem’s the guy God picks up now from here on out because in chapter 11:10, and the reason he picks up Shem is in verse 11:26: ‘And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.’
“Terah lives 70 years and begat Abram and there’s the guy that the rest of the story is all about! You’re going to get these quick genealogies, but the one they’re going to focus on from now on is Shem and you need to notice the things about Ham and Japheth.
“There’s nothing particularly outstanding about Japheth there except maybe verse 10:5: ‘By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.’ If it’s after their tongue, then obviously the divisions and so forth take place after the Tower of Babel destruction because they were just one tongue prior to that.
“I guess the one descendant of Ham you probably ought to notice the most is in verse 10:14: ‘And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,)
and Caphtorim.’
“The Philistines are descendants of Ham. You need to remember that. You get over into Israel’s history and you know they constantly have trouble with the Philistines. You remember Sampson fell in love with a little Philistine gal and so forth?
“You want to remember who they came from, where they came from and what they’re doing. They give you a little insight into the makeup of the controversies that are going on over there. There’s a lot of ‘cosmopolitan’ activity going on in your Bible that sometime you miss.
“Esau went and married a bunch of Canaanite women, and when he saw that the Canaanite women, and him marrying them, made his momma and daddy unhappy, he went and married another one!
"You see, there’s things going on there that you don’t want to miss about what’s happening and what was making him unhappy. It isn’t that much different than what goes on in the 20th Century, see? Not that much different at all.”
*****
“They used to say, ‘The English ruled the waves, the French ruled the land and the Germans ruled the air.’ They were the thinkers in Europe. Well, when you get to messing with Shem, Shem is in his head. He’s thinking.
“I’ll give you an illustration about why you need to understand this; how it will help you in politics and in international affairs. The U.S. went into Korea and got the britches beat off of them. You know why? They didn’t understand Shem.
“Ten years later they went to Vietnam and Shem cleaned their clocks; cleaned our plow! You know why? Japheth isn’t equipped to deal with Shem because he doesn’t think like Shem thinks. Shem looks at that hill out there . . .
"In WW II there was something you were trying to take. You took a city and you could see strategic advantage to it and all that. You go fight Shem and there’s this hill out over there; got nobody living on it but the whole battle, the whole war, depends on taking that hill and keeping it. Well, see that’s in his head! There’s a mental attitude about that thing.
“That’s the same thing that happened in Vietnam. You go up against Shem and there isn’t but one or two things to do. One is to go in there and you just beat him into a pulp, soundly, the first time you mess with him or two, you leave him alone. That’s the only two options you’ve got. You don’t have the option of a limited engagement or that kind of stuff. You know why? He’ll beat you; you just don’t have sense enough to know it yet! He beats you and waits ‘til it dawns on you and that’s just the way he is and you see that all through the Scripture.
“These three men’s descendants are designed to have all those characteristics that are wonderful, good and positively blended together, not in a melting pot but in a divinely ordained system, or nationalism, where all of their contributions were functioning and working and then blended together for the good of the whole. Genesis 10 records the spread
of these men.
*****
“Now the problem comes up that, shortly after they begin to spread out on the earth, rebellion came in. Satan’s policy of evil is to destroy God-instituted nationalism and bring in internationalism and have a one-world government, one-world religion and one-world race. And God’s purpose was not those things.
"God set out these families and He put them in nations and determined they would have geographic and political boundaries between them for the purpose of ‘if happily they might seek after the Lord and find Him.’
“Gen. 10:2. Japheth’s descendants go up; when they leave the Ark they move out north and they go up into Europe and Japheth becomes the Indo-European people. Verse 6: Ethiopia is Cush, Mizriam is Egypt, Phut is Libya and Canaan didn’t make it down there like he ought to have.
“Look at cross-references over in the Book of Psalms. Psalms 105 and 106 are where Egypt is called the Land of Ham and Ham goes down south and into Africa and that’s Ham’s land. Verse 21. Shem’s descendants go toward the East. Verse 30.
“Shem’s the guy God picks up now from here on out because in chapter 11:10, and the reason he picks up Shem is in verse 11:26: ‘And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.’
“Terah lives 70 years and begat Abram and there’s the guy that the rest of the story is all about! You’re going to get these quick genealogies, but the one they’re going to focus on from now on is Shem and you need to notice the things about Ham and Japheth.
“There’s nothing particularly outstanding about Japheth there except maybe verse 10:5: ‘By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.’ If it’s after their tongue, then obviously the divisions and so forth take place after the Tower of Babel destruction because they were just one tongue prior to that.
“I guess the one descendant of Ham you probably ought to notice the most is in verse 10:14: ‘And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,)
and Caphtorim.’
“The Philistines are descendants of Ham. You need to remember that. You get over into Israel’s history and you know they constantly have trouble with the Philistines. You remember Sampson fell in love with a little Philistine gal and so forth?
“You want to remember who they came from, where they came from and what they’re doing. They give you a little insight into the makeup of the controversies that are going on over there. There’s a lot of ‘cosmopolitan’ activity going on in your Bible that sometime you miss.
“Esau went and married a bunch of Canaanite women, and when he saw that the Canaanite women, and him marrying them, made his momma and daddy unhappy, he went and married another one!
"You see, there’s things going on there that you don’t want to miss about what’s happening and what was making him unhappy. It isn’t that much different than what goes on in the 20th Century, see? Not that much different at all.”
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