The Seventy Nations Set by the Number of Israel

"And the sons of Noah were" (Genesis 9:18-19). This is what Scripture says: "He set the borders of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel" (Deuteronomy 32:8). "And the sons of Noah were": Japheth and his sons numbered fifteen, Ham and his sons thirty-two, and Shem and his sons twenty-seven; from these the whole earth was scattered abroad. They were seventy-four, yet the world was divided only into seventy: "He set the borders of the peoples" corresponds to Jacob and his sons, who at his descent to Egypt were seventy. Say therefore that Shem, Arpachshad, Shelah, and Eber were righteous men and were not counted among the nations. "And the sons of Noah who went forth from the ark": they entered in peace and went out in peace. "And Ham is the father of Canaan" (Genesis 9:18), the father of disgrace.