What Does Genesis 10:30 Mean?

The region where they lived stretched from Mesha toward Sephar, in the eastern hill country. The geographic summary of Joktan's descendants locates them in the hill country of the eastern Arabian peninsula, the region running from somewhere called Mesha (possibly a town on the edge of the Syrian desert) to a place called Sephar (possibly a coastal hill or headland in Arabia). This eastern hill country corresponds broadly to the highlands of Yemen and the Hadhramaut plateau, the same region where several of Joktan's named sons have been traced.

The summarizing geographic note serves the Table of Nations' function as a catalog. Having listed thirteen sons with thirteen identities, the text draws a boundary around the territory they collectively occupied. The Japhethites had their coastlands; the Hamites had their territories from Africa through Canaan; the Semites had their Middle Eastern and Arabian ranges. The world was divided, but it was divided into a coherent geography that the chapter's readers could orient themselves within.

The eastern hill country of Arabia, dry and remote by the standards of Mediterranean civilizations, was not beyond God's knowledge or care. The God who made the Euphrates valley and the Nile Delta also made the Arabian highlands. The peoples in that hill country are fully accounted for in the genealogical document that grounds all of human society in one family and one Father. The distance between the eastern hill country of Joktan and the city of God at the end of Revelation is the distance redemption travels, which is the same distance grace has always been willing to go.