This chapter begins that historically. It is a general history of the local planting of the nations of the earth; a date of an event—the geographical arrangement of the world. It looks back, and sees the earth partitioned out, and traces the families from their sources.
The world is here ethnologically arranged, as to races and families; morally, in chapter II: 1-9, and at the same time nationally, as distinct countries. We have here the central family before God; but there is another fact, the earth was divided (v. 25).
5. Parad (separated)—not palag (divided). They separated from one another, and so settled; this verse is evidently after the confusion of tongues, so verse 32. Verse 19 shows it to be of Moses's time, only Nimrod and Peleg are as special facts noticed on the way.
It is remarkable how Noah entirely disappears after his fall and prophecy. Headship over the world there was none; but first association, and then individual energy.
6-8. We have Ham, Cush, Nimrod.
8. I do not think Nimrod was the immediate son of Cush, it may be, he was of his family The chapter takes up the different families, as Mizraim, Philistine, etc.; then Nimrod is singled out from his beginning an empire. But Babel was there before he began, as beknown there to this day.
10. I suppose Nimrod was after the dispersion; Babel was the beginning of his kingdom. It does not appear if the division of the earth was before or after. The dispersion was judgment—the division, arrangement, and man's life shortened by half. Conquest may have been after this, or the arrangement consequent on Nimrod's violence; in Scripture they are independent facts. The first fact is Nimrod—imperial energy; the second, general ethnological location as a fact. The judgment on the family of men, is what brought the ethnological division about, verse 5.
22-25. Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, Eber, Peleg. If Ham's family had the same length of life, Nimrod was long contemporary with Peleg. Peleg was born some sixty years or more after him; but up to Peleg the ages were, say 430 years. Peleg lived only 239 years, he died, according to Hebrew chronology, 340 years after the Flood, he was born 149 years before the death of Noah. Nimrod with similar ages died 87 years after Peleg and was contemporary with him all his days. The whole period of the lives of the members of Shem's family is not noted, so that the Spirit would draw our attention to it there, chapter 11; here the change is the important thing.
25. I suppose, with many others, the division of Peleg to be a distinct thing. According to Hebrew chronology, Noah died 10 years after Peleg. The Sept. Chron. of course alters their relative dates; according to this, Peleg was born 401 after the Flood; I think Nimrod lived say from 267 to 576, Peleg to 510. If we accept the Hebrew chronology, this division was in Noah's lifetime, indeed long before his death; if that of the Sept., not so; at any rate, I apprehend, after the dispersion. It seems a kind of orderly settlement—a distribution. Remark how Noah has disappeared; his authority was lost. Where was he when the tower was set about? The dividing, besides their record, is the great subject of this chapter.
NOTE.—All the present mighty ones are Japheth. Of the four empires, Persia (Elam) alone was Shem, and favored the Jews; and, as the Rationalists say, Shem was monotheistic, which is true—“Jehovah, God of Shem." They did not know the true God without revelation surely, but providentially were not Jovists—mere mythological heathen, i.e., of the four, for the Assyrians were idolators, and were of Shem.
After Nimrod and Mizraim, for Ham began, the great powers of later days have been Japheth; Asshur was Shem, but he never pulled down Jerusalem, nor built it up as others did; perhaps Nebuchadnezzar was Ham, the first Chaldean empire was. I suppose " went forth Asshur " (v. 11) is right, for certainly they had Asshur for their first great god in Assyria. They had really the longest, and, on the whole, greatest empire; but though a rod for Israel, they never came into collision with God's throne in Jerusalem, nor supplanted it; Sennacherib would have done so. As far as Assyria is concerned, the alleged monotheism of Shem is a fable; they were idolators as the rest.