Church 11
Seventy Nations, Seventy Sons?
Was Genesis Counting More Than People?
If you've ever read Genesis chapter 10, you probably skimmed it. I mean it's a genealogy. A long list of male names.
Sons.
Grandsons.
Nations.
Not exactly the part of Scripture most people highlight in Bible studies. In fact, it is boring to just read without context... I used to do the same thing but then I started asking a simple question.
Why did the biblical authors preserve this list?
Genealogies in the ancient world weren't written simply to satisfy curiosity of the people. No, they explained identity.
Inheritance.
Land.
Relationships.
Authority.
In many ways, they were maps back then. Not just of people but of the world.
Before We Read
When modern readers hear the word "nation," we picture political borders butAncient Israelites didn't.
A nation was often understood through its ancestors.
Its land.
Its language.
Its customs.
Its king.
Its relationship to neighboring peoples.
In other words, Genesis isn't giving us a modern atlas as we know it... It's giving us Israel's map of the human family and understanding that changes how we read what comes next.
The Table of Nations
Genesis 10 is often called The Table of Nations.
It traces the descendants of Noah's three sons:
Shem.
Ham.
Japheth. (My fav)
From those families come the peoples known to Israel.
Genesis 10:32
Hebrew
אֵלֶּה מִשְׁפְּחֹת בְּנֵי־נֹחַ לְתוֹלְדֹתָם בְּגוֹיֵהֶם וּמֵאֵלֶּה נִפְרְדוּ הַגּוֹיִם בָּאָרֶץ אַחַר הַמַּבּוּל׃
Transliteration
ʾĒlleh mišpeḥōṯ bənê Nōaḥ lətōlədōṯām bəḡôyêhem; ûmēʾēlleh nip̄rədû haggôyim bāʾāreṣ ʾaḥar hammabbûl.
Literal Translation
"These are the families of the sons of Noah according to their generations, in their nations. From these the nations were divided over the earth after the flood."
One word appears again.
גּוֹיִם (gôyim)
Usually translated:
"Nations."
The word simply refers to peoples or national groups. The emphasis isn't race. It's identity.
Does the Number Matter?
Here's where things become interesting to myself at least. If you count the nations listed in Genesis 10, many traditions arrive at the number seventy. Some count slightly differently depending on textual tradition and method, which is why scholars don't all agree on the exact total.
That detail is important.
We're interested in evidence, not forcing numbers here. Still, the tradition of seventy nations became enormously influential within ancient Judaism if you recall.
The question isn't merely whether there were exactly seventy.
The better question is:
Why did later Jewish writers care about that number? 🤔
We'll come back to that.
Removing Our Modern Glasses
Today we usually think of maps first. Ancient people though... they often thought of families first. Territory followed ancestry. Land belonged to clans. Kings ruled peoples more than lines drawn on parchment. When Genesis maps humanity, it isn't trying to satisfy modern geography. It's telling Israel where the nations came from and how they relate to one another. That's a very different purpose...
A Historical Rabbit Hole
Here's something that surprised me while looking into this many cultures in the ancient Near East connected political order with the cosmic order. Egypt organized the world around Pharaoh. Mesopotamia spoke of cities receiving divine patronage. The Hittites carefully defined territories through treaty obligations. Israel also understood the world as ordered but instead of beginning with empire, Genesis begins with one family after another.
History starts at the dinner table before it reaches the throne room...
That's a remarkably different and REALLY profound way of seeing civilization.
Did You Notice?
Genesis spends an entire chapter naming nations. Then, in Genesis 11, humanity gathers into one place. Immediately afterward, humanity is scattered. Then, without warning, Genesis narrows its focus from all nations...
...to one man.
Abram.
The camera keeps zooming in. From humanity. To nations. To one family. That literary movement feels intentional. The obvious question anyone at this point would ask is why...
My Working Thoughts (This Point)
I used to think Genesis 10 was little more than background information and now I wonder if it's laying the foundation for everything that follows.
The biblical story doesn't ignore the nations and I love that it carefully introduces them before introducing Abraham. Almost as though Israel's story can only be understood in relation to the rest of humanity. Whether that's true remains to be tested but I can no longer treat Genesis 10 as filler. It's doing important work here.
Let's Collect the Clues
So far we've observed:
Genesis intentionally maps the nations.
The story of Babel explains their scattering.
Genealogies function as more than family records.
Ancient readers thought in terms of peoples and inheritances rather than modern nation-states.
The narrative immediately shifts from all nations to one chosen family.
None of those observations proves anything by itself. I admit that... Together, however, they prepare us for a question the next biblical writer will ask in a very different way. What happened to those nations after they were divided?
Where the Investigation Leads Next
The next stop isn't another genealogy. It's a poem. One of the oldest poems in the Hebrew Bible. Hidden deep inside it is a textual difference preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint, and the Masoretic Text.
At first glance, it's only a few words but those few words may completely change how we understand the division of the nations. Whether they do is exactly what we'll investigate next.
Inheritance Was Never Just About Land
Before we open Deuteronomy, I think we need to slow down and put on our glasses. We need the ancient isrealite pov here.
One of the easiest mistakes we make is assuming ancient people understood inheritance the way we do. We hear the word and immediately think about money.
A house.
A will.
A bank account.
An Israelite would have heard something much bigger. Inheritance wasn't simply about wealth. It was about identity.
More Than Property
Imagine asking an ancient Israelite,
"What belongs to you?"
They probably wouldn't begin with possessions.
They would begin with their family.
Their father's house.
Their tribe.
Their land.
Their covenant.
Their people.
Inheritance wasn't just something you received.
It told you where you belonged.
To lose your inheritance wasn't simply to become poor.
It was to lose part of your identity.
The Hebrew Matters
Several Hebrew words will become important as we continue this investigation.
We'll study them carefully when we reach Deuteronomy 32, but it's helpful to meet them now.
חֵלֶק (ḥēleq)
Usually translated:
"Portion."
"Share."
"Assigned part."
It describes something allocated to someone.
Not taken.
Assigned.
נַחֲלָה (naḥălāh)
Usually translated:
"Inheritance."
"Possession."
"Heritage."
The word often describes land passed from generation to generation.
But it can also describe something received because of relationship.
Already, you can see why these words matter. They're not simply financial. They're relational.
Removing Our Modern Glasses
Today, we often ask,
"What do I own?"
Ancient Israelites were more likely to ask,
"To whom do I belong?"
Those are very different questions.
Individual ownership existed.
But identity was rooted in family, tribe, and covenant. Land wasn't valuable merely because it could be sold. It was valuable because it connected generations. The land remembered your family. Your family remembered the covenant. Everything was connected.
A Window Into Their World
Many ancient cultures believed land ultimately belonged to the gods.
Kings ruled it. Families worked it but ultimate ownership remained divine. Israel shared that basic worldview yet it transformed it. Instead of Pharaoh owning everything. Instead of the emperor owning everything.
The land ultimately belonged to YHWH.
Even Israel held it as a covenant trust rather than absolute private property. That idea will become incredibly important later.
A Historical Rabbit Hole
One of the most fascinating discoveries from the ancient Near East is how seriously inheritance was protected. At places like Nuzi and Mari, archaeologists have uncovered legal tablets describing adoption, inheritance disputes, boundary agreements, and family obligations. These documents reveal something remarkable. Ancient people weren't obsessed with possessions. They were obsessed with continuity. Who carries the family forward? Who receives responsibility? Who preserves the household? Those questions shaped entire civilizations.
Did You Notice?
Genesis has already prepared us for this. Adam receives a garden.
Noah's sons receive the earth. Genesis 10 maps the nations. Genesis 12 introduces Abram. The story keeps moving through inheritance... The lens narrows... POV narrows... Not merely land. Calling. Responsibility. Promise. Each generation receives something and passes something on. Inheritance is becoming one of the Bible's central themes long before Israel enters Canaan.
My Working Thoughts
I used to think inheritance was just another boring legal topic you try to avoid but now I wonder if it's one of the keys to understanding the Bible. Logic here is that if inheritance defines belonging... And Genesis defines the nations... Then perhaps the next question isn't simply,
"Who inherited what?"
Perhaps it's,
"Who assigned the inheritance?"
That question will take us to one of the oldest poems in Scripture. Going there, we'll discover that one small manuscript difference has shaped this entire investigation.
When the Most High Divided the Nations
That surprised me. I am a nerd. Also, I am rarely surprised. So I decided this was an interesting thing to explore. Looking at religion and the past I assumed there was simply "the Hebrew Bible."
In reality, the history is more interesting and before we can ask what Deuteronomy 32 means, we first have to ask:
Which reading are we actually looking at?
That isn't skepticism. That's good history. It is so 😝
Before We Read
One of the easiest mistakes we make is imagining that ancient scribes worked like modern photocopiers. They didn't. That would've been cool AF though, Every manuscript was copied by hand. Writing like that hurt like hell. It was done patiently. Carefully. Often with astonishing accuracy in my opinion but over centuries, differences emerged. A copy of a copy of a copy...
Most are tiny I admit... A spelling change here... A missing letter...
A different word order. Very few affect meaning. A handful do.
Deuteronomy 32 is one of those places.
The remarkable thing isn't that the manuscripts differ. No... Think about it bro. The remarkable thing is that we still possess witnesses old enough to compare them.
The Passage
Alright, now let's begin with the traditional Hebrew text used in most modern Bibles.
Masoretic Text (Deuteronomy 32:8–9)
Hebrew
בְּהַנְחֵל עֶלְיוֹן גּוֹיִם
בְּהַפְרִידוֹ בְּנֵי אָדָם
יַצֵּב גְּבֻלֹת עַמִּים
לְמִסְפַּר בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
כִּי חֵלֶק יְהוָה עַמּוֹ
יַעֲקֹב חֶבֶל נַחֲלָתוֹ׃
Transliteration
Behanḥēl ʿElyôn gôyim,
behaprîdô benê ʾādām,
yaṣṣēḇ gəḇulōṯ ʿammîm
lemispar benê Yiśrāʾēl.
Kî ḥēleq YHWH ʿammô;
Yaʿăqōḇ ḥeḇel naḥălāṯô.
Literal Translation
"When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
when He divided humanity,
He fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the sons of Israel.
For YHWH's portion is His people,
Jacob is the lot of His inheritance."
At first glance, it seems straightforward. Then history complicates the picture. Glasses power activate.
The Dead Sea Scrolls
Among the discoveries at Qumran was a manuscript known as 4QDeutʲ.
It predates the oldest complete Masoretic manuscripts by roughly a thousand years.
In this verse, it reads differently.
Instead of:
בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
"sons of Israel"
it preserves:
בְּנֵי אֱלֹהִים
"sons of God."
That is a very different reading. Not a different paragraph.
Two different words.
Or as I say... 2 Banditos 😂 .... (Inside joke, sorry 
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Yet they change how many readers understand the passage.
The Septuagint
The ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, produced several centuries before the time of Jesus, also preserves a different reading from the Masoretic Text.
It reads:
Greek
κατὰ ἀριθμὸν ἀγγέλων θεοῦ
Transliteration
kata arithmon angelōn Theou.
Literal Translation
"According to the number of the angels of God."
Notice something important.
The Septuagint does not literally translate "sons of God."
Instead, it interprets the phrase as "angels of God."
Many scholars believe the translators were explaining what they understood the Hebrew expression to mean for their Greek-speaking audience. Whether that interpretation is correct is another question.
The important point is this:
The Septuagint does not support the Masoretic reading "sons of Israel."
It points in the same general direction as the Dead Sea Scrolls.
What About the Samaritan Pentateuch?
The Samaritan Pentateuch preserves its own ancient textual tradition.
In Deuteronomy 32, however, it generally aligns with the Masoretic tradition in this verse rather than preserving the "sons of God" reading.
That doesn't automatically make one reading right and another wrong. It simply reminds us that ancient textual history is rarely simple. Each witness deserves to be heard before we decide how to weigh it.
Removing Our Modern Glasses
Today, we often assume that if two manuscripts differ, someone must have been trying to change the Bible. Usually, that isn't the case at all... Ancient textual transmission is far more complex.
Scribes copied what they received... Sometimes traditions diverged and sometimes they were harmonized. Sometimes explanatory readings entered the text.
Textual criticism isn't about accusing scribes of corruption. no.. I feel it's about comparing witnesses to understand how a text was transmitted through history. That process has actually increased my confidence in the Bible, (Yes... I LOVE the bible) not weakened it.
We possess enough ancient evidence to ask these questions honestly. Many ancient books don't.
A Historical Rabbit Hole
One of the reasons the Dead Sea Scrolls created such excitement wasn't because they "rewrote" the Bible. It was because they demonstrated that multiple textual traditions were already circulating before the time of Jesus. You see... some passages agreed closely with the later Masoretic Text. Others aligned more closely with the Septuagint yet, others reflected readings unique to the Qumran community.
In other words, the biblical text has a history. Studying that history isn't attacking Scripture. I feel it's learning how Scripture came down to us.
Did You Notice?
All three traditions agree on something that is very remarkable.
The Most High divides the nations.
The peoples receive boundaries.
YHWH receives Jacob.
None of that is disputed.
The disagreement concerns one phrase.
According to the number of...
The manuscripts diverge there oddly... Everything else remains surprisingly stable.
That observation matters.
Because it keeps us from exaggerating what the textual difference actually is.
My Working Thoughts at this point
This is where I first realized I needed to slow down. Slowing down is so hard!
When I saw "sons of God" in one manuscript and "sons of Israel" in another, my first instinct was to ask:
"Which one is right?"
Now I think there's a better question.
Why do these traditions differ?
Could one preserve an earlier reading? Did another scribe update the language for later readers? Was one attempting to clarify a difficult passage? Those are historical questions. Not theological ones and as such they deserve historical methods.
Let's Collect the Clues
So far we've observed:
The Masoretic Text reads "sons of Israel."
The Dead Sea Scrolls preserve "sons of God."
The Septuagint reflects a similar tradition with "angels of God."
The Samaritan Pentateuch generally follows the Masoretic reading here.
All traditions agree that the Most High divides the nations and that YHWH receives Jacob as His portion.
Those are the facts.
What they mean is still open for investigation.
Where the Investigation Leads Next
We've compared the manuscripts.
Now it's time to examine the words themselves.
Who is עֶלְיוֹן (ʿElyôn), "the Most High"?
What does it mean to "divide" the nations?
What is a portion?
What is an inheritance?
And why does the poem distinguish between the Most High and YHWH in the first place?
Those questions may be even more important than the manuscript differences.
The God Heist: A Magical Little Mystery Ride
One of the biggest lessons this investigation has taught me is that history is rarely as tidy as we imagine.
The Bible didn't fall from heaven bound in leather.
It was copied.
Preserved.
Read.
Studied.
Protected.
The fact that we can compare ancient manuscripts isn't a threat to faith.
It's one of the greatest gifts history has given us.
Because before we ask what we believe, we should first ask:
What did the earliest witnesses actually preserve?
Next: Who Is the Most High?
Before we identify anyone in Deuteronomy 32, we'll investigate one title on its own terms. We'll trace עֶלְיוֹן (ʿElyôn) through Genesis, the Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Second Temple literature, asking a simple question: How did ancient Israelites understand "the Most High"?
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