| person does not guarantee that offspring will be trichotomous. The worst case in this chapter is Ham, who's descendents grew more and more self centered with each generation. The end result was Nimrod, Cush's son, who built the tower of Babel, trying to be as the Most High. Thus, the progression was from an attempt to defile the image of God to an attempt to defile the very home of God. In the preceding chapter mention was made to Havilah and Ophir and their locations. In the Hammond map there are two Havilah locations and two Ophir locations. This could create problems in deciding which location for Havilah was being cited if we stopped there. However, search of the scriptures leads the decision towards selection of the Descendents of Shem, who settled the western tip of Arabia. Scripture quoted thus far would lean towards a common tongue, family and nation amongst the descendents of Shem. The other pair contains the family of Havilah descended from Ham and Ophir descended from Shem, a disparate pair. There is a geologic phenomenon of faulting on the African continent known as rifting. A rift occurs when a major block of rock strata subsides. Two major examples of a rift are the Red Sea and the Dead Sea. When we consider this fact beside scripture then the river description in Genesis 2 would also tend to reinforce the Shemite location of Havilah. The actual location of Havilah, then could be off the coast of Ethiopia in the Red Sea, formerly high and dry. The missing Pison river then would be part of the Red Sea. Further speculation could be supported from the statement about the natures of the Pison and Gihon Rivers. These rivers are described as compassing the areas that they run through. This description brings to mind the Great Sand Dunes National Monument when spring run off is occurring. The stream flow is extremely broad and shallow, forming rivulets and networks of wet and dry. A sheet flow. If it were not for the dunes and the seasonal flow, then the rivulets could possibly extend over a much broader area of say a mile or two, with a patchwork of wet and dry lands covering the terrain. The wet lands 63 ______________________________________________________________________________ could even contain bogs. Sounds just like the area around Sodom and Gommorah before their destruction. Other rift valleys are developing on the African continent at present. They present a similar topography. It could be speculated that the Gihon with part of Ethiopia is likewise in the Red Sea. Ham's descendents ended up being disenfranchised, and as such there is no wonder at the deep seated hatreds between the two blood lines, the nation of Israel and her neighbors. It would seem to me that the human rift was formed far before the first incursion into the 'promised land'. Beyond the curse of Noah on his son Ham, is the compound curse of God on all Noah's descendents through Nimrod and the tower of Babel. Genesis 11:1-9: "And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go let us make brick and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go 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. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of the earth.". How quickly one who had been a cousin became a hated foreigner, who couldn't be understood or trusted. Uncles became alien to nephews. Oh Ham, why couldn't you have emulated your father, with only his foibles? Your devotion to self set the stage for the world as we know it today, with man under an additional curse. 64 ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ |
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