This is the account of Noah’s sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who also had sons after the flood.
1. These are the generations . If any one pleases more accurately to examine the genealogies related by Moses in this and the following chapter, I do not condemn his industry. For ample information on this interesting subject, which the general plan of Calvin’s Commentary scarcely allowed him fully to investigate, the reader cannot do better than consult Dr. Wells’ Geography of the Old Testament, chap.
Moses begins with Japheth's family, either because he was the eldest, or because his family lay remotest from Israel and had least concern with them at the time when Moses wrote, and therefore he mentions that race very briefly, hastening to give an account of the posterity of Ham, who were Israel's enemies and of Shem, who were Israel's ancestors; for it is the church...
Commenting on Genesis 10:1-5
Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah,.... The genealogy of them, and which is of great use to show the original of the several nations of the world, from whence they sprung, and by whom they were founded; and to confute the pretended antiquity of some nations, as the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Chinese, and others; and to point out the particular people, which...