THE DESCENDANTS OF SHEM

THE DESCENDANTS OF SHEM
Genesis 10:21-31          The descendants of Shem settled the northern area of Persian Gulf and westward into toward the Indian Ocean. Included in this area are the lands of Syria, Chaldea and parts of Assyria, Persia and the Arabian peninsula. The spiritual blessing promised by Noah, came to all people on Earth through the lineage of Shem to the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

PELEG AND THE DIVISION OF THE EARTH
Genesis 10:25         In this verse we find a simple statement that Shem had a son named Eber, and he had a son named Peleg, and in his time the earth was divided. Peleg was the fifth generation after the Flood and places the division of languages with in his generation.
         Some associate this phrase as referring to the division of the nations. Others see it as a reference of not only the division of nations caused by the confusion of languages, but of the dividing of the world into the present day continents.
        Peleg's name comes from the root word "palag", which means to split (literally or figuratively) "to divide". The form or the word, "Peleg", used here means "earthquake".⁽³⁾
Geologists today have generally concluded that the continents were once connected in one giant super continent they have named "Pangaea". Computer imaging has shown how all the continents appear to fit together. As an example the eastern shores of North and South America conform to the western shore lines of Europe and Africa. Geologist call have named this the "Continental Drift Theory". The conclude that from the contour of the continents fitting so perfectly together, the rifts on the ocean floor and the present measurable movements of the continents that in the past, at some time the continent were one large land mass.
        All of these evidences lead to the conclusion that if the continents did divide this dividing could have occurred in relation to the division of the languages after the Tower of Babel. Possibly, some time after the migrations caused by the confusion of languages, when the people when sufficiently dispersed, God caused the continents of move apart. This would account for man, and animals being on the isolated continents of North and South America and Australia. There were people on the continents when they moved. It appears that God not only divided the people by confusing their languages, He also divided in the land so the dispersion would continue. The division of the land precluded that the people on earth could have physically come back together had they been able to overcome the language barriers.
        It is also interesting to note that this event was some five generations after the Flood. Many of the geological mysteries which are difficult to understand in relationship to the Floor could be explain by a second world wide catastrophic event such as would be caused by the sudden global shifting of the continents. Great earthquakes, volcanic activity, uplifts, flowed and sinking of vast land areas and mountain forming would be expected to accompany such vast changes in the earth's surface.

THE CONCLUDING STATEMENT
Genesis 10:32          The concluding statement of Chapter Ten makes it clear that everyone on earth today is a descendent of one of Noah's sons. When we look at all the different types of people on earth today it is at first difficult to understand. People are so different all over the world. How can it be explained?
        The answer is simple. From each of Noah's sons came the three divisions of called the "races". Anthropologists divide all the world's peoples into three races, Caucasian (white), Mongoloid (yellow) and Negroid (black). Further within each of the sons was the potential to produce all the variations that is evident within the three races of man.