Family
Strife – The World in Turmoil – Part Two
At the close
of Part One of this discussion on “Family Strife – The World in Turmoil”,
I had cited excerpts from Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Genesis Chapter 11.
For context, note that following the world-wide
flood, the LORD had sent forth Noah and his family out of the Ark. Then the
Scripture added: “ And God blessed Noah and his
sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the
earth. (Genesis 9: 1) (Emphasis
added) If those words sound familiar, they
were also spoken by God after He created the first man Adam and gave him
dominion over the Earth. (Genesis 1: 26-28) As Matthew Henry pointed out, in spite of
man’s evil, wickedness and the violence that led the LORD to destroy all
mankind except for this one family, His love for His favored creation man
remained.
Now
in Chapter 11, the collective families / descendants of the sons of Noah
(Japheth, Shem and Ham) had gathered in Babel. This was in direct defiance of the LORD’s instructions
that they spread throughout the Earth. The Scripture recorded this: “And the
whole earth was of one language, and of one speech….And they said,
Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven;
and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon
the face of the whole earth. (Genesis 11: 1 and 4) Note the pronouns “us” and “we”, as men’s
focus was solely on themselves, notwithstanding
the Mercy and Grace shown by the LORD who had saved their families. Unfortunately, not much has changed in the thousands
of years since then.
Even after God intervened to confound their
speech and scatter them, the families refused to acknowledge Him. At that
point, the unity of the “family of mankind” had been broken. Following Babel, the “three families” of
Noah and their descendants separated and
chose their own paths of migration… and worship…and their separate “gods”
through various idols. (See: https://share.google/J1NANWJh80TwjWrvO .
Each segment
of the divided family then resumed the behavior that had led to man’s earlier
downfall. The door had been opened for the Enemy to take advantage of the
curses that Noah had placed on his grandson Canaan. (Genesis 9:
25-27) In looking ahead, the Bible placed
a greater focus on the two families / descendants of Shem and Ham / Canaan.
Later the family / descendants of Japheth
would play a more prominent role.
That brings
me to the timeliness of the title of this post, with a focus on the “World” being
in “Turmoil”. Over the past many
years since Israel was recognized as an independent Nation State in 1948,
people worldwide have watched the hostility / warfare between Israel and its
Arab neighbors. (https://www.gov.il/en/pages/declaration-of-establishment-state-of-israel )
Primarily the
combatants have been the descendants of the families of Shem and Ham /
Canaan. Most knowledgeable people understand
that the strife / hatred between them began in Biblical times. (More on
that will be discussed below.) Remember
that because of Israel’s rejection of our Lord Jesus as their Messiah, in 70
A.D. God allowed the Romans to destroy their Temple in Jerusalem… and the
people were either killed or dispersed throughout the known world.
But as
prophesied in the Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 37, Israel would
return to their homeland. However their return was met by the same hostility from
its Arab neighbors as previously encountered some two thousand years earlier. From our earlier study we know that the
primary source of their intra-family strife was which side would “own”
contested land.
But now
today, we have seen the impact of the introduction into the hostility by the
descendants of the “third part of Noah’s family”…that of the elder son Japheth.
(As an aside, you might consider what
the Scripture has said about some of the “first-born”, such as Ishmael and
Esau.)
Of
great importance is
that their interests seem to lie in the natural resources found the land…especially
oil and other petroleum products, and access to them. Further, that motivation by a descendant of
Japheth has been sufficient to join the “new family” of Israel in attacking Iran,
another member of the family / descendants of Shem (Elam). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Iran )
The
result of that attack by the United States and Israel has been the disruption
of oil / petroleum supplies, and economic stabilty throughout the world. (The True Enemy is ecstatic!!!)
Now to this
point I have jumped / “leap-frogged” from the Bible’s discussion of some of
man’s history following the Great Flood of Noah’s time;…over the critical
intervening history of these families;…to discuss the current world
situation. In Part Three
of this discussion I will highlight some of that intervening history that brought
the earlier strife / war between the
descendants of Shem and Ham / Canaan, and the “new family” of Israel to the
world’s attention.
In the
meantime, I hope that every Christian and other Bible students will read the words
of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Book of Matthew, Chapter 24. It is the lens through which we need to keep
these current events into focus.
Dr. W. A.
(Bill) Robinson
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