A. Overall Lesson Objective

B. Learning Competencies

C. Lesson

The post-Flood world began with one family. The earth changed; the climate was changing. However, the nature of people had not changed. While Noah was declared righteous, he was not sinless—apart from Jesus no one has ever been. And the seed of the same disobedience and sin that began with Adam and Eve will continue to bear fruit in Noah’s descendants, which includes us. It did not take long for the sin nature to corrupt the human situation after the Flood. Genesis verses 9:1-11:9 are a record of the generations and key events in the early post-Flood period, including God’s intervention to halt the progress of extreme evil at the Tower of Babel, which will be covered in the next lesson. This is the last recorded event in which God does something that affects all men in a dramatic way until the birth of Jesus Christ. God intervenes repeatedly in human affairs between this event and the birth of Jesus Christ, but the effects are deliberately confined to individual people, kingdoms, and nations. It includes some physically miraculous events. This Babel event, on the other hand, accomplishes a worldwide directive from God that does three things:

As a side effect, by isolating groups of genes within populations that no longer intermarry, this dispersion provided the conditions through which the groups we call ‘races’ became apparent. All groups of people are now known to be extremely closely related. We all have the same basic skin color, for instance, only different amounts of it (melanin). [Research Note: how did all the different races arise?]

Please read Genesis 9:1-11:9. Provide a sentence that summarizes the subject matter for each of the following sections of verses: 9:1-17; 9:18-28; and 10:1-32. At the conclusion of this exercise, go through the notes below. Answer or discuss the questions in bold.

Verse 1 is a repeated command that is listed in the previous verses. However, verse 2 is new and is another instance of God’s directed change in the creatures that He created. Read verse 2 again. Answer the following questions:

In a discussion, summarize the event that takes place among Noah’s sons. This is the only recorded event in the remainder of Noah’s life that leads to Noah’s blessing and cursing noted in verses 25-27. The last verses of this section record Noah’s years following the Genesis Flood and his death.

Verse 10:25 says that the earth was divided in Peleg’s day. When we say, ‘the whole earth will watch this event,’ we mean not the physical earth, but the people of the earth. The Hebrew word for ‘earth’ here is “eretz” – just like its English equivalent – which can mean the physical earth, or the nations/people of the earth. Given the context of the division of peoples at Babel, it seems obvious that the latter meaning is intended.

The generations descended from Noah’s family multiplied rapidly. Note verse 32. Population growth after the Genesis Flood is noted in chapter 10. It has been estimated by creation scientists that somewhere between 1000 and 10000 people were living when the Tower of Babel event took place, but the event has no precise date recorded beyond the context of the generations noted in Chapter 10.

The record of the generations says more than might be obvious at first glance. The “earth divided” (discussed above) involved more than one element. The first, of course, is the dispersion of peoples in Peleg’s day (around the period of the Tower of Babel incident, which is discussed in the next lesson). This probably took place along a combination of language and family lines. The second element is the condition of the earth in the centuries following the Flood. It took centuries for volcanism, sea temperatures, and geologic instabilities to settle. At the same time, smaller groups headed outward that needed to find food, shelter, and a reasonable region to live. Climates were still unsettled. It was a stressful period. Did they remember why the Flood took place to begin with? Did they remember the cause of God’s judgement and then His pointed encouragement to multiply and fill the earth? Did they remember Creator God at all, His purposes for man made in His image, or His intentions to have a relationship with us?

God’s sovereign steps to ensure the lineage of Christ and the preservation of the Record of events through His chosen people is a merciful stopgap or redeeming action to preserve a record of creation, the Fall, and the Genesis Flood. Outside of this line of people, however, there is little record that mankind remembers the lessons of the Flood. In the New Testament, our forgetfulness – not unlike the forgetfulness of the generations following the Flood – is real evidence that we tend to avoid painful truth: we need a change of heart. In the next lesson, as we examine the incident at the Tower of Babel, we will take a closer look at a prime example of man’s forgetfulness and nature.

D. Assignment

Read Genesis 11:1-9. Describe the project that is conceived by people and the intended results or purpose of the project.

E. Learning Activity

🦕 CT? With the generations noted in Genesis 10, discuss the following questions as if you were one of the first generation of children of Noah’s family members before the Tower of Babel, so everyone understood the language of everyone else:

F. Concluding Assessment

The population expanded rapidly following the disembarkation from the ark, but human nature had not changed.