ואלה תולדת בני נח, שם חם ויפת, “And these are the descendants of Noach: Shem, Cham, and Yaphet.” Starting with this verse and including chapter 11 verse 1, you will find the names of seventy individuals. All of them are descendants of Noach and at the end of that paragraph the Torah states: אלה משפחות בני נח לתולדותם בגויהם ומאלה נפרדו הגוים בארץ אחר המבול “These are the families of Noach’s descendants, according to their generations by their nations; and from these the nations were separated on the earth after the flood.” We learn from this verse that the world comprises 70 nations each with its own language. Chapter 11 verse 8 tells us that the various people at the time of the Tower of Babel were scattered and that each group would have its own language The reason the Torah makes a point of enumerating seventy different nations is to contrast this fact with the seventy people, all descendants of Yaakov, who descended with him to Egypt (Genesis 46,27). This is also what Moses had in mind at the time when he blessed the Jewish people shortly before his death (Deut. 32,8), and said בהנחל עליון גוים, בהפרידו בני אדם. “When the Supreme One gave the nations their inheritance, when He separated the children of man.” The nations Moses referred to are the ones mentioned in our chapter. Starting with that period in human history, G’d allocated boundaries, גבולות, to the various nations. All of this was to correspond to the founding members of the Jewish nation who went down to Egypt. The reason Moses said in Deut. 32,8 יצב גבולות עמים למספר בני ישראל , “He established the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the children of Israel,” instead of saying למספר בני יעקב , “according to the number of the sons of Yaakov,” was to stress that the children of Israel consisted of twelve separate tribes.

It is worth recalling that the reason the Torah spends so much space on the details of this list of the descendants of Cham is to inform us about how many nations were descended from him is to make us aware that Avraham, a descendant of Shem, merited to become the father of the Jewish nation. The Torah hints that the only reason that there was a need for seventy nations in the first place was to ensure that out of all these there would emerge at least the one nation that G’d has chosen to become special to Him. Our sages (Tanchuma Vayeshev 1) have illustrated the matter by means of a parable. When someone loses a pearl on the beach, he will bring a sieve and sieve the entire sand on the beach in order to retrieve his pearl. Once he has found his pearl he throws the sand back on the beach. The parable intends to illustrate that just as all that sand on the beach only serves to yield up the one pearl, so there was no need for G’d to have all that many different nations except for that large number to eventually yield a Jewish nation. The sages said further (Bereshit Rabbah 1,8) that the concept of a Jewish nation had preceded the concept of all these other nations. We know that in G’d’s mind any end product had been carefully envisioned long before it would become manifest. This is also why the Jewish people did not appear on the stage of history until all the other nations already were in existence. Normal intelligence dictates that any end product must have been planned before it was brought into existence so that of course it existed in concept long before it was actualized. It is possible to prove this from the construction of the Holy Tabernacle where the Torah specifically instructed Betzalel (Exodus 35,32) ולחשוב מחשבות, “to plan appropriate thoughts,” (for the construction of golden and silver furnishings for the Tabernacle).

Nachmanides wrote concerning this chapter that the reason the Torah goes into all these details was to prove to its listeners that G’d preceded the establishment of the universe. It was to enable Avraham and his descendants to command their respective offspring to tell about what happened to Noach, and how his family was saved in the Ark. Avraham, who had still known Noach personally, was able to relate these matters as an eye witness to one of its survivors who had been told by Noach (and presumably by Shem). Noach’s father Lemech in turn had known Adam and so was able to relate history as someone who had heard it directly from those who had experienced it. Avraham as a witness to the creation of the first human being was only two persons removed from someone who had been expelled from Gan Eden. Yitzchak and Yaakov had both been contemporaries of Shem still. In other words even they had spoken to survivors of the deluge. Yaakov, no doubt, told all this to the people who descended to Egypt with him as well as to Pharaoh and his servants.

According to a calculation made by Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra, Noach died when Avraham was 58 years old. The very letters in the name נח amount to 58 in their numerical value.

מן הארץ ההיא יצא אשור, “from that land Ashur went forth, etc.” He was one of the sons of Shem as we are told in verse 22 that Shem’s sons were Eylam, Ashur, Arpachshad Lud and Aram. Seeing that most of the people alive during the generation of the Tower were descendants of Shem, the Torah mentioned that Ashur had left that land (the valley including Babel). He had not had part in the uprising against G’d that those people were planning in accordance with the statement by our sages in Bereshit Rabbah 37,4. the words מן הארץ ההיא mean that Ashur dissociated himself from these people and their land as he realised they were preparing to rebel against G’d. This also explains Psalms 83,9 גם אשור נלוה עמם, “also Ashur made common cause with them,” Seeing that on this occasion Ashur was on the side of G’d, the psalmist had to contrast this with a future occasion when also Ashur joined the forces of evil planning to wipe out the Jewish people.

ואת פתרוסים ואת כסלוחים אשר יצאו משם פלשתים, “and the Pathrusim and the Casluhim, whence the Philistines came forth.” The Torah stresses this in order to tell us that the nation of the Philistines have their origin in bastardy The two above-mentioned nations engaged in wife-swapping and the Philistines emerged as a result of this incest (compare Bereshit Rabbah 37,5). You will find that all these descendants of Mitzrayim have names which end with the letters ים, “sea,” an allusion to their eventual demise in the sea (Pessikta Zutrata). The first of these nations was called לודים, since they were both born in the sea and drowned in the sea.

וכנען ילד את צידון בכורו, “and Canaan begot Tzidon his firstborn.” We have now heard about ten descendants of Canaan; all of them (and their lands) were promised to Avraham when G’d promised him the Holy Land at the covenant between the pieces. We read there (Genesis 15,18-19) “to your descendants I have given this land from the river adjoining Egypt to the great river, the river Euphratus; the Kenite, the Kenizite, the Kadmoni, etc.” The Torah enumerates a total of ten Canaanite nations in that instance. The reason these nations appear with different names in chapter 15 is that in this chapter only the names given to their respective founders by their fathers are mentioned. At the time G’d promised the lands of these nations to Avraham their names had undergone changes just as they no longer spoke the same language as they had spoken at the time they were born and grew up. When you count the names of Canaan’s descendants listed here you will actually find that there are eleven. This is easily accounted for; Canaan’s firstborn Tzidon was the one who was called “the Canaanite.” He was joined with one of his brothers who never developed into a clan that qualified for the term “nation.”

Of the ten nations whose land G’d promised to Avraham only seven were subsequently conquered by the Israelites in the days of Joshua. But the three remaining ones, i.e. The Kenite, the Kenizite, and the Kadmoni, have never been conquered by the Jewish people. In other words, the passage in which G’d promised all these nations to Avraham indicates that there is a future for the Jewish people after their exile when G’d will make good His promise. G’d’s thoughts are very profound indeed. Consider for a moment why He wanted Canaan of all people to own the Holy Land before it came into possession by the Jewish people. Seeing that Canaan was the slave who became the servant of Shem at his father’s command and who acquired the Holy Land at the time all the nations were split up, there would not be the slightest complaint by anyone who would be dispossessed due to the Jewish people taking over that land. Had it not belonged to slaves who by definition do not own anything in their own right, G’d would have had to justify dispossessing such a people. Now that this land was “owned” by the Canaanites there was not even a need to justify their becoming dispossessed.