The Days of Peleg, the Scattering of Nations, and the Rebellion of Babel

The first generations born after the Flood entered a world still fresh with memory. The mountains of Ararat bore the marks of the waters that had covered the earth, the plains of Shinar shimmered with new rivers cut by retreating floods, and the terraced highlands of the north still held the altars erected by Noah and Shem (Genesis 8:4; Upper Tigris EB I–II archaeological sites; Wilkinson, Settlement Histories of the Tigris). But while the land remembered judgment, the hearts of men soon forgot it.

These were the days of Peleg, of whom it is written, “in his days was the earth divided” (Genesis 10:25). Ancient interpreters understood this not only as the division of languages at Babel but also as the division of the earth’s landmasses and the scattering of its peoples (Genesis Rabbah 37:7; Jubilees 8:8–11; Book of Jasher 7:19–26). Many early writers recorded that before the division the earth was one land, one covenant community, and one tongue; afterward the peoples were dispersed across continents, and the lands themselves shifted and broke according to the decree of God (Cave of Treasures 25; Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis).

This era—roughly 2248 to 2008 B.C. in Ussher–Masoretic chronology—corresponds archaeologically to the Early Dynastic I–III periods in Mesopotamia, the rise of the early Egyptian dynasties, and the formation of tribal kingdoms across Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the Levant (ED II–III royal inscriptions; Nissen, Early Ancient Near East; Bryce, Kingdom of the Hittites; Sagona, Archaeology of the Caucasus). The world was reorganizing itself, not only through divine judgment but through social, linguistic, and political upheaval.

The sons of Japheth spread to the north and west, settling the highlands of Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the regions around the Black Sea (Genesis 10:2–5; Josephus, Antiquities 1.6.1). Their early settlements match the Kura–Araxes culture—agrarian, pastoral, and kin-based societies distinct from the urban centers of Shinar (Sagona, Archaeology of the Caucasus; Kohl, Bronze Age Eurasia; Wilkinson, Tigris Settlements). The early Hatti peoples of central Anatolia, likewise kin-organized and agrarian, reflect Japheth’s line as it expanded westward (Bryce, Kingdom of the Hittites; Gurney, The Hittites; Mellink, AJA 1965).

Ham’s descendants, however, built cities. Egypt under Mizraim developed into a powerful civilization in the First and Second Dynasties, marked by divine kingship, monumental architecture, and a priestly class that fused political power with religious authority (Genesis 10:6,13–14; Josephus, Antiquities 1.6.2; Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt). Cush’s line spread southward and eastward, forming the early Nubian and Arabian kingdoms, while Canaan’s sons filled the Levant with fortified settlements and city-states that foreshadowed later Phoenician and Amorite polities (Genesis 10:15–19; Amarna proto-urban sites).

From Cush came the most infamous figure of the age: Nimrod, “a mighty one in the earth,” a hunter of men rather than beasts, a builder of cities and empires (Genesis 10:8–12). Ancient texts portray him as the first tyrant after the Flood, a man who ruled through fear, forced labor, and the centralization of power. Jasher records that Nimrod donned a leopard skin as the emblem of kingship and conquered the tribes of Shinar, appointing himself ruler of all (Jasher 7:23–33). Jubilees describes him as one who taught the nations to make war and led a rebellion against the order established by Noah and Shem (Jubilees 10:18–27).

In the days of Nimrod the cities of Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh rose from the plains—monuments of baked brick, labor, and ambition (Genesis 10:10). Archaeologically these correspond to the great urban centers of Early Dynastic and pre-Akkadian Mesopotamia, including the ziggurat of Eridu, the temple complexes of Uruk, and the fortified precincts at Shuruppak and Kish (ED II–III urban strata; Steinkeller, City-States of Mesopotamia; Liverani, Uruk: The First City). Their clay tablets speak of kings who demanded tribute, priests who controlled labor, and temples that stood at the center of economic and political life. These match precisely the world described in Genesis—an age of centralized rule, pooled resources, urban consolidation, and the beginnings of empire.

But not all the world followed Nimrod. Many among the households of Shem and Japheth remembered the covenant given through Adam and renewed through Noah. They chose to remain in the highlands—dwelling in tents, working the soil, tending flocks, and worshiping at altars of unhewn stone. Archaeological remains from the Ararat, Zagros, and Upper Tigris regions show small agrarian settlements, terraced fields, and early high-altitude pastoral villages dating to this era, matching the life preserved by the faithful remnant (Upper Tigris EB I–II; Sagona, Archaeology of the Caucasus; Wilkinson, Upper Tigris).

Yet as cities multiplied and wealth increased, a spirit of centralization took hold. Nimrod drew the tribes of Shinar together under a single dominion. He introduced taxation, conscripted labor, and raised armies—the first military apparatus of the post-Flood world (Jasher 7:25–33; Jubilees 10:20–27). His rule transformed the plains of Shinar into the first empire of mankind.

It was in this atmosphere of ambition and rebellion that the people resolved to build a single city and a tower “whose top may reach unto heaven,” declaring, “Let us make us a name, lest we be scattered upon the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4). This was not an innocent construction project but a deliberate inversion of God’s command. The Lord had commanded the families of the earth to “be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth” (Genesis 9:1), to spread across the land, to establish righteous households, and to preserve the Ancient Order. Nimrod’s design, however, was the creation of a centralized dominion that would bind the tribes into one empire under his rule (Jubilees 10:18–27; Jasher 9:20–32).

The Tower of Babel was built of baked brick and bitumen—materials characteristic of the urban centers of southern Mesopotamia (Genesis 11:3; ED II–III construction texts; Uruk and Eridu ziggurat foundations). Its structure reflected not only engineering but theology: a giant ziggurat, imitating the sacred mountains of the north but dedicated to the worship of the heavens, the constellations, and the powers Nimrod sought to control (Liverani, Uruk: The First City; Steinkeller, The Ziggurat Tradition).

Jasher records that the tower reached a height at which the builders on its top could no longer hear the words of those below, and Jubilees states that the project lasted forty-three years before judgment fell (Jasher 9:27–29; Jubilees 10:22). During this era Nimrod consolidated power, subdued surrounding tribes, and sought to elevate himself as the divine ruler of all the earth.

But God had decreed otherwise. At the moment of Nimrod’s greatest ambition, the Lord confounded the language of the builders, scattering them “upon the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:7–9). Ancient writers describe this event as the dividing of the nations, the fracturing of the one tongue into seventy languages, and the dispersal of mankind into the regions appointed to the sons of Noah (Jubilees 10:22–34; Genesis Rabbah 38:6; Book of Jasher 9:32–38). The languages were divided according to the seventy families listed in the Table of Nations (Genesis 10:1–32), a division echoed in Jewish and Christian tradition (Philo, On the Confusion of Tongues; Augustine, City of God XVI.11).

At the same time, ancient patriarchal texts record that not only the languages but the very lands of the earth were divided. Before the days of Peleg, the continents had been one connected landmass, and afterward the earth was “divided and rent,” its foundations shifted and separated (Genesis 10:25; Jubilees 8:8–11; Cave of Treasures 25; Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis). Geological upheavals preserved in Mesopotamian strata—sediment disruptions, basin shifts, and fluvial realignments—correspond to this same period (Shuruppak flood layer: Safar, Mustafa & Lloyd, “Shuruppak Excavations,” *Sumer* 1949; Early Dynastic destruction horizons: Nissen, Early Ancient Near East; Weiss & Courty, “Third Millennium Collapse,” *Science* 1993; Wilkinson, Alluvial Archaeology of Mesopotamia).

Thus the rebellion of Babel ended not in triumph but in scattering. The unity that Nimrod sought to forge through compulsion dissolved in an instant. The peoples were divided into nations, the languages multiplied, and the tribes of the earth were driven to their appointed inheritances (Genesis 11:8–9; Deuteronomy 32:8 LXX).

This event reshaped the entire world. Japheth’s tribes moved further north and west, settling Europe and the northern Mediterranean. Ham’s descendants spread through Egypt, Cush, the Levant, and Arabia. Shem’s lineage—a line of prophets, patriarchs, and covenant keepers—remained centered in the highlands of Mesopotamia and the hill country that would later be called Canaan (Genesis 10:21–32; Josephus, Antiquities 1.6.1–4).

Though the nations scattered, Shem did not. He remained a fixed point of order in a world fractured and in turmoil. He continued to dwell in the northern highlands, between Ararat and the upper Tigris, preserving the Ancient Order that had passed from Adam to Noah and from Noah to him (Jubilees 10:12–17). He taught his children the original language, preserved the genealogies and priesthood records, and maintained the rites of sacrifice exactly as they had been given at the beginning (Book of the Bee 21; Genesis Rabbah 46:7).

In contrast, the nations descending from Ham—particularly Nimrod’s line—continued building cities. Their settlements grew into early kingdoms with temples, priesthoods, and standing armies (Genesis 10:8–12; ED III texts of Kish and Uruk; Akkadian administrative tablets). These became the first political empires of the post-Flood world.

The sons of Japheth, though initially agrarian and pastoral, gradually established trade routes, metallurgy centers, and fortified tribal chiefdoms across Anatolia and the Pontic regions (Kura–Araxes sites; early Hatti settlements; Mellink, AJA 1965). Their cultures remained distinct from the urban centers of the south, retaining kin-based authority and decentralized clans, reflecting the inheritance Noah had given them.

But among all the descendants of Noah, only Shem preserved the full pattern of the Ancient Order: covenant family, priesthood stewardship, consecration of the land, and the law of sacrifice (Genesis 9:26–27; Jubilees 7:20–29). From his house the light of righteousness continued to shine while the nations drifted into idolatry and ambition.

It was during the height of this scattering, and in the generation immediately following the rebellion of Babel, that Shem—as Melchizedek—began to establish a sanctuary and gathering place for all who sought the Most High God. This place would become Salem, the city of peace.

After the dispersal from Babel, the scattered tribes carried fragments of the ancient knowledge with them—distorted memories of the patriarchs, corrupted versions of the covenant, and imperfect traces of the original worship. In Egypt, the priestly class imitated the rituals of sacrifice but married them to the worship of created things: the sun, the Nile, animals, and kings (Genesis 10:6,13–14; Coffin Texts; Pyramid Texts; James, Egyptian Religion). In Mesopotamia, the Sumerian priesthood preserved astronomical cycles and temple rites, yet these were severed from the living God and redirected toward idols and celestial powers (Uruk priest-kings; ED III temple archives; Samuel Noah Kramer, History Begins at Sumer).

Canaan’s sons filled the Levant with fortified settlements and high places, mixing remnants of patriarchal truth with idolatry, fertility cults, and blood rituals (Genesis 10:15–19; Amarna pre-urban strata). The tribes of Cush developed the first Nubian and Arabian city-states along the Nile and the Red Sea, shaping what would later become Ethiopia and the kingdoms of the south (Genesis 10:7; Nubian A-Group sites; Arabian Bronze Age settlements).

Yet through all these shifting cultures, only Shem preserved the unbroken chain of revelation. He alone held the covenant garment of Adam, the tablets of the fathers, and the priesthood rites received from Noah (Book of the Bee 21; Jubilees 8:19; Cave of Treasures 14–16). While the nations erected temples of brick and stone, Shem maintained altars of earth and unhewn rock, as commanded in the beginning (Exodus 20:25 echoes this ancient pre-Flood pattern; Jubilees 7:1–5).

Shem’s house remained the gathering point for those who refused the dominion of Nimrod and the seductions of empire. His lineage continued to dwell in the northern highlands, preserving the original tongue, the genealogies, and the laws given from Adam onward (Genesis 10:21; Jubilees 10:12–17). From this sanctuary of righteousness, Shem instructed the remnant in covenant family, stewardship of the land, consecration of increase, and the true order of sacrifice.

In time, as the tribes of Japheth grew into warrior societies and the sons of Ham built the first nations, Shem laid the foundations for a holy city—not a city of oppression like those of Shinar, but a place of refuge, teaching, and divine order. Ancient traditions identify this sanctuary as the earliest form of Salem, “the city of peace,” which would later become the dwelling place of the Most High (Genesis 14:18; Genesis Rabbah 46:7; Targum Jonathan on Genesis 14:18).

Thus, while Babel fell into confusion and the nations spread in darkness, Shem—Melchizedek—prepared a center of light. As the world fractured into languages, tribes, and kingdoms, he preserved unity by the covenant. As the first empires rose through pride and domination, he upheld the priesthood through humility and sacrifice. And as the memories of Eden dimmed among the scattered peoples, he kept alive the Ancient Order that had begun with Adam and had passed unbroken from father to son.

These were the days of Peleg: days of scattering, division, migration, and the beginning of nations. But for those who sought righteousness, they were also days of gathering around the tents of Shem, where the Most High dwelt and where the priesthood of the fathers remained unchanged.

In the generations that followed, men would speak of Melchizedek as the “King of Salem” and “Priest of the Most High God,” but in these early centuries after the Flood he was known simply as Shem, the firstborn of the new earth, the guardian of the covenant, and the watchman set over the nations. The stage was now set for the next era, when Abraham—son of Terah, descendant of Shem—would seek this ancient priesthood and receive the blessings of the fathers.