NOTES for Gn 10:1-32
By the sons of Noah, according to St. Augustine, entire peoples are meant. Here a genealogical table of these peoples is presented, grouped not so much on the basis of ethnic kinship as on the basis of historical and geographical proximity. The sons of Japheth inhabit Asia Minor and the islands of the Mediterranean Sea; the sons of Ham inhabit the southern countries: Egypt, Ethiopia, Arabia, and Canaan, probably in connection with Egyptian domination over it. In the territory located between the places where these ethnic groups settled, the descendants of Shem settled: Elamites, Assyrians, Arameans, and the ancestors of the Jews. Summing up his knowledge of the world around him, the sacred writer affirms the unity of the human race, descended from one ancestor. The scattering is presented, on the one hand, as a consequence of God's blessing and, on the other hand, as a consequence of the human choice that seeks power over a world in which there is no place for God.