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Noah Blesses God and Maps the Earth for His Sons

After the flood, Noah stood on the mountain and blessed the God who made him the hinge of history, then divided the whole world between his sons.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Man Who Stood at the Hinge
  2. The Survey and the Lots
  3. Shem, Ham, and Japheth at the Table
  4. The Prophecy in the Blessing

The Man Who Stood at the Hinge

The earth had been scrubbed clean. Every road, every city, every name given to a valley or a river bend was gone. The animals had scattered to their corners of the renewed world and Noah stood on the mountain where the ark had settled and he understood, in his body, what had happened. He was the hinge on which all of human history had turned. Behind him, everything. Ahead of him, everything again, starting over.

He did not simply go back to farming. He stood on the mountain and he blessed the God of gods, the one who had put the words of prophecy into his mouth and preserved him through the flood and brought him to this moment. The Book of Jubilees records this blessing with a specificity that the Torah does not provide. Noah spoke his gratitude aloud and as he spoke, the shape of what came next was already being arranged.

The Survey and the Lots

The land division that followed was not arbitrary. Noah walked the borders of the known world in his mind: from the mountains of Ararat to the Red Sea, from India to Lebanon, from the Tigris to the shores of the Egyptian sea. He understood every territory. He had just watched the whole of it go under water and come back. He was the only human being alive who had seen the world from outside, who had survived its total destruction and could now see its total geography as a thing to be divided fairly.

He cast lots. Not because he did not know his own mind but because the lots were the mechanism through which the angels participated. Each son received according to what the lot declared, and Noah watched each lot fall and recognized in each outcome the fingerprint of the God who had told him to build the ark in the first place. Nothing here was politics or favoritism. The distribution was God's decision expressed through the fall of the lots.

Shem, Ham, and Japheth at the Table

Shem received the center, the land of balanced climate, the portion that held the holiest geography in creation. Ham received the south, the broad warm territories that stretched toward the heat. Japheth received the north, the cold lands reaching toward the sea. Each son stood in front of his father and received what the lot had given him, and the angels stood witness, and it was recorded in the heavenly tablets, and it was binding.

Noah blessed them. He blessed Shem and called on the Lord, the God of Shem, to dwell in the dwelling places of Shem. He blessed Japheth with the blessing of enlargement. He cursed Canaan who was not yet standing there in the room, who had not yet been born into his transgression, but whom Noah already saw in the lot that had been cast, saw the son who would look at the good land and refuse to honor the boundary.

The Prophecy in the Blessing

The Book of Jubilees presents Noah's blessing as a prophetic act. He was not merely distributing land. He was speaking the future that the lots had revealed. Every blessing contained a covenant. Every boundary contained a warning. The world Noah mapped that day on the mountain was the world the Torah would spend the next several books moving through, charting the consequences of boundaries honored and violated, of sons who stayed within their portions and a grandson who did not.

Noah's blessing of the God who put prophecy in his mouth is the moment he acknowledges what he has been. Not a builder. Not a righteous man who happened to survive. A vessel. A hinge. The mechanism through which the world passed from before to after and came out the other side still capable of holding the promise.

NoahShemJaphethHamEarthBlessingJubileesNations
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From the tradition

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Book of Jubilees 8:30Book of Jubilees

Book of Jubilees turns to Shem's Sacred Inheritance Includes the Garden of Eden.

The Book of Jubilees, in chapter 8, describes the division of the world among Noah's sons after the flood. This wasn't just a geographical exercise; it was a divinely ordained allocation, a sacred trust. And what fell to Shem, the ancestor of the Israelites? A portion to be held "forever unto his generations for evermore." A pretty big deal. Noah, overjoyed by this outcome, recalled his own prophetic words: "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, And may the Lord dwell in the dwelling of Shem." This wasn't just a blessing; it was a recognition of a special relationship between God and Shem's descendants. But it gets even more intriguing.

Because the text then goes on to pinpoint specific locations… locations considered the most holy of holies. According to Jubilees, Noah knew that three places held unique significance: the Garden of Eden, Mount Sinai, and Mount Zion. Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden – the very place where humanity first walked with God. Then, Har Sinai, Mount Sinai – where the Torah was given, and the covenant between God and Israel was forged. And finally, Har Tzion, Mount Zion – the heart of Jerusalem, the site of the Temple, the earthly dwelling place of the Divine Presence.

The text emphasizes that these three holy places "were created as holy places facing each other." What does that mean, “facing each other?" Some interpret this spatially – literally, geographically. But perhaps it speaks more to a spiritual alignment, a connection of purpose. Eden representing the original, perfect relationship with God; Sinai representing the renewed covenant; and Zion representing the ongoing, present connection.

What's so powerful here is the linking of these three sites – Eden, Sinai, and Zion. It creates a kind of spiritual map, a constellation of holiness. It suggests a continuity, a through-line connecting the beginning of humanity's relationship with God to its ongoing development and expression.

The passage also alludes to eretz yisrael, the Land of Israel, being at the “centre of the navel of the earth.” This imagery, also found in other Jewish texts, highlights the centrality and importance of the land in the divine plan.

These weren't just random locations. They were, and are, points of connection, focal points where the earthly and the divine intersect. And according to the Book of Jubilees, they are all intimately connected to the legacy of Shem and his descendants. It makes you wonder, doesn't it? How can we connect to these places, even if we can't physically be there? How can we cultivate that sense of holiness in our own lives, wherever we may be?

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Book of Jubilees 8:37Book of Jubilees

It's an ancient Jewish text, considered apocryphal by some, pseudepigraphal by others. Basically, it's an "outside book," a text that exists outside the traditionally accepted biblical canon. But it offers a unique, richly detailed retelling of biblical history from creation to Moses, all framed within a cosmic calendar. It’s considered canon in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Within its pages, we find a very specific breakdown of how Noah, after the great flood, divided the earth among his three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

A small slice of that division, as it’s described in Jubilees, chapter 8. It's less about the "why" behind the division and more about the "where."

First up, there’s Japheth. His portion, according to Jubilees, includes "all the region beyond the sea, which is beyond the mountains of Asshur towards the north, a blessed and spacious land, and all that is in it is very good." Think vast, northern territories. A "blessed and spacious land." It’s a pretty glowing description, isn't it? A land of promise and potential.

Then comes Ham. His share is described as "beyond the Gihon towards the south to the right of the Garden, and it extendeth towards the south and it extendeth to all the mountains of fire, and it extendeth towards the west to the sea of ’Atêl and it extendeth towards the west till it reacheth the sea of Mâ’ûk --that (sea) into which everything which is not destroyed descendeth."

Okay, let's unpack that a bit. The Gihon is one of the rivers of Paradise, mentioned in Genesis. So, Ham's territory starts south of the Garden of Eden. "Mountains of fire" suggests volcanic regions, doesn’t it? And then we have these two seas: the sea of ’Atêl and the sea of Mâ’ûk. The sea of Mâ’ûk is particularly interesting: "that (sea) into which everything which is not destroyed descendeth." What does that even mean? Is it a symbolic description of a region associated with destruction or a literal place where things are mysteriously preserved? It’s one of those details that sparks the imagination.

Of course, pinpointing these locations precisely on a modern map is a challenge. The geography of the ancient world, as understood by the author of Jubilees, might not perfectly align with our modern understanding. And some of these place names are obscure, their exact locations lost to time. But that's part of the beauty, isn't it? It invites us to imagine, to speculate, to delve deeper into the worldview of the text.

These geographical descriptions in Jubilees aren’t just dry facts. They’re clues. Clues into how ancient people understood their world, their place in it, and the destinies of nations descended from Noah's sons. They remind us that even the seemingly mundane details of a story can hold layers of meaning, waiting to be uncovered.

So, next time you look at a map, remember the Book of Jubilees. Remember Noah and his sons, and the ancient division of the earth. And remember that every place has a story, a history, a mythology woven into its very soil.

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