Study Desk

Deep water was still everywhere, and the dove could not find a place to land. So it flew back to the boat. Noah held out his hand and helped it back in.

After Noah and his family had gone out of the boat,

God said to Noah and his sons: I am giving you my blessing. Have a lot of children and grandchildren, so people will live everywhere on this earth.

Again, God said to Noah and his sons:

Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, came out of the boat. Ham later had a son named Canaan.

One day he got drunk and was lying naked in his tent.

Ham entered the tent and saw him naked, then went back outside and told his brothers.

Shem and Japheth put a robe over their shoulders and walked backwards into the tent. Without looking at their father, they placed it over his body.

When Noah woke up and learned what his youngest son had done,

he said, "I now put a curse on Canaan! He will be the lowest slave of his brothers.

I ask the Lord my God to bless Shem and make Canaan his slave.

I pray that the Lord will give Japheth more and more land and let him take over the territory of Shem. May Canaan be his slave."

Shem's descendants had their own languages, tribes, and land. He was the older brother of Japheth and the ancestor of the tribes of Eber. Shem was the ancestor of Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. Aram was the ancestor of Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. Arpachshad was the father of Shelah and the grandfather of Eber, whose first son was named Peleg, because it was during his time that tribes divided up the earth. Eber's second son was Joktan. Joktan was the ancestor of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. Their land reached from Mesha in the direction of Sephar, the hill country in the east.

Two years after the flood, when Shem was one hundred, he had a son named Arpachshad. He had more children and died at the age of six hundred. This is a list of his descendants:

After Terah was seventy years old, he had three sons: Abram, Nahor, and Haran, who became the father of Lot. Terah's sons were born in the city of Ur in Chaldea, and Haran died there before the death of his father. The following is the story of Terah's descendants.

Terah decided to move from Ur to the land of Canaan. He took along Abram and Sarai and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran. But when they came to the city of Haran, they decided to settle there instead.

Abram was seventy-five years old when the Lord told him to leave the city of Haran. He obeyed and left with his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions and slaves they had gotten while in Haran. When they came to the land of Canaan,

The crops failed, and there was no food anywhere in the land. So Abram and his wife Sarai went to live in Egypt for a while. But just before they got there, he said, "Sarai, you are really beautiful!

The king's officials told him about her, and she was taken to his house.

Because of Sarai, the Lord struck the king and everyone in his palace with terrible diseases.