The Table of Nations: A Geographic Odyssey

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According to the Book of Genesis, after the great flood receded, Noah’s three sons disembarked from the ark, and “from them the whole world branched out” (9:19). Genesis 10 then provides a detailed account of where Noah’s descendants settled. It presents a genealogical list of names known as the Table of Nations, with each name representing a different group of people.1 For instance, Javan signifies the Ionians or Greek groups in the northwest, Madai indicates the Medes in the northeast, and Hazarmaveth represents the people of Hadramaut, located in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, among many others spanning […]

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Endnotes

1. For an in-depth study of this topic, see Guy Darshan, “From Lists to Historiography: The Table of Nations (Genesis 10) in Its Eastern Mediterranean Context,” in Mait Kõiv, ed., Making Lists in the Ancient World: Memory, Status, Identity (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, forthcoming).

2. See Wayne Horowitz, “The Isles of the Nations,” in J.A. Emerton, ed., Studies in the Pentateuch (Leiden: Brill, 1990), pp. 35–43; and Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), p. 30 n. 12.

3. Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Vol. II: From Noah to Abraham: Genesis VI 9–XI 32 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1964), pp. 193–194.

4. See Reinhold Merkelbach and Martin L. West, eds., “Fragmenta Selecta,” in F. Solmsen, ed., Hesiodi, Theogonia, Opera et Dies, Scutum, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990); and G.W. Most, ed., Hesiod, The Shield, Catalogue of Women, Other Fragments, 2nd ed. (Loeb Classical Library 503; Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2018).

5. See Guy Darshan, Stories of Origins in the Bible and Ancient Mediterranean Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2023).