Where would a Biblical account of ethnicity and nations begin? Well, Paul, speaking on Mars Hill in Athens told those gathered that God:
“made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way towards him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,”
So, we begin from the assumption that the entirety of humanity can trace its lineage back to one man, Adam. This is central to the theology of the Gospel. Paul in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians will contrast how sin and death came to all through one man Adam but salvation and life through one man, Jesus. Not only can we trace our ancestry back to Adam but also post the Flood to Noah.[1]
After the Flood, Noah’s sons were meant to spread out and repopulate the earth. However, Genesis 11 tells us that they attempted to gather in one place and build a tower, in order to make a name for themselves. The sense is that as Adam had sought to rival God, so too, Noah;s descendants sought to rival his name and fame. God comes down to inspect their work, judges them and then cause their languages to become confused. This leads to them dividing and scattering. The Hebrew word translated at “language” used here also has the idea of common purpose and some have suggested of ideology and worship. It’s not just about communication but about believe and ideology.
Just before the account of Babel, we are given one of the “These are the Generations” lists in Genesis 10. It lists the descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth. It is sometimes referred to as “The Table of Nations” because the names were associated with tribal and national identities during the Old Testament period. There are 70 in all and the Jews tended to think in terms of there being 70 nations. However, the number may point towards the idea of completeness and perfection rather than indicating an exhaustive list.
Towards the end of Deuteronomy as Moses retells the Law before the Israelites enter the land, he sings a song that includes these lyrics:
“remember the days of old;
consider the years of many generations;
ask your father, and he will show you,
your elders, and they will tell you.
8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders[a] of the peoples
according to the number of the sons of God.[b]
9 But the Lord’s portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted heritage.[2]
These words are being picked up now to suggest that they point to nationhood and national borders as something that God in his providence ordains. They foreshadow Paul’s words in Acts 17. Notice though, two things. First that the identified nations in Deuteronomy with the link to “the numbers of the Sons of God” suggests that we are meant to assume that the same names are in mind as the 70 in Genesis 10. Whilst that list might have reflected known people groups at the time, it does not give us an exhaustive and detailed list of all ethnic groups and national borders that have existed at any given time. It probably shouldn’t even be regarded as an exhaustive list of the nations existing in Moses’ day.
The other thing to spot is that God’s sovereign providence over nations and borders isn’t actually the focus in either Deuteronomy or Acts. In Deuteronomy 32, the goal of God’s providential sovereignty is that he himself should have a portion or inheritance, namely the people of Israel. In Acts, God’s aim is that people will find their way to him. In other words, both passages are about God’s plant to call one people to himself. We should be cautious about developing a full blooded doctrine of nationhood and ethnicity from Scripture that seeks to develop a different argument.
In Acts 2, the gift of tongues means that people hear the praises of YHWH in their own languages. In popular thinking, the events of Pentecost are often considered to symbolise a reversal of Babel. I think, to some extent we can think in those terms with some qualifications. First, Pentecost doesn’t reverse a diversification of languages, instead people are able to understand in their own languages. We see a uniting to worship and the barrier of confusion overcome. Second, whilst scattering and confusion is presented in Genesis 11 as curse, the prefixing of the Bable account with the Table of Nations has been seen by some scholars as evidence that the scattering was not meant to be seen as wholly negative, as just curse. Rather, it was always God’s purpose that people should spread out and fill the earth and we might have expected that over time to create ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity.
In his vision on Patmos, John tells us that:
“after this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands[3]
It is telling that eschatologically we don’t see the wiping out of ethnic, cultural or linguistic identity. However, it seems unlikely that this is intended as an affirmation of national distinctions and borders into eternity. Rather, we see rich language pointing to the scope of who is included in God’s people, around the throne. God will have worship from every nation. This is important because the immediate context has listed 144,000 from the tribes of Israel. We might observe a mirror pattern to Deuteronomy 32. There, we started with God’s sovereignty over all nations in order to focus in on his purpose for one nation. Here we see God’s purpose for one nation being for the salvation of people from every nation. God’s plan was always to be beyond his portion Israel; his plan was always about all nations and Revelation 7 points to the fruition of that plan.
We would be unwise to attempt to develop a dogmatic theology of ethnic-nationalism from Scripture that is intended to teach about something different. We should also be careful to ensure that our theology concerning nations and ethnicity does not clash with the very point that those texts make.
[1] I personally believe that Biblical accounts point us to real, historical people in Adam. Noah and Abraham.
[2] Deuteronomy 32:7-9.
[3] Revelation 7:9.
