Genesis 10 is a pretty expansive, world encompassing chapter, and Genesis 11 will bring it back down into focus - on one man, Abram. After the Re-Creation post-Flood, and the sorting of the world into descendents of evil (Ham) and descendents of good (Shem, and in a more minor way Japheth) once again, we see how from these people the ancient Hebrews organized their world and the peoples they knew. Some were at least potentially good, some were known to be evils and enemies of the people of good, but all came from the same source...Noah.
The list starts with the people "way out there" on the fringes of the world. They had some hope of being converted to calling on God's name, but they were all far away. The descendents of Japheth represent, according to notes in my Bible (the NAB), peoples that were on the fringes of the known world to the ancient Hebrews. Madai represents the Medes, predecessors of the Persians from Iran, and Javan represents the Greeks. His children include the Rhodanim, the people of the island of Rhodes (probably essentially all the Greek islanders), Elishah and the Kittim, representing the people of Cyprus, and Tarshish, a city of ancient Turkey and the home city of Paul, representing the Ionian Turkish Greek people. Gomer and Magog represent people way up north around the Black Sea, including the Scythians. Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras represent areas of northern and northeastern Turkey, Armenia, and the Caucasus. These were all people way out there, people who were generally Gentiles. The interesting thing is, these very people, like Paul, the son of Tarshish in Cilicia, were later to hear Jesus' message and be some of the most fervent converts. These people were why Japheth is considered to be eventually on Shem's side, "mixed among his tents".
Ham's descendents were more southwest, and represented many of the enemies and "outsiders" for the ancient Hebrews. Cush was in Nubia, in the Sudan type area along the southern Red Sea. Mizraim represents the Egyptians, and may be another name for Menes, the legendary first king of Egypt. And we all know where Canaan is...but his nation doesn't settle where the others do, in northern Africa and Arabia. They steal Palestine from Shem's people. Put is farther out in Africa, where Libya is today. Sheba, the ancestor of the nation that sent her Queen to see Solomon, is somewhere near Yemen in Arabia, and most of the other peoples listed as children of Cush live in Arabia, along the Red Sea. This family also creates the Philistines, another great enemy of the Israelites. So far, this family, rooted in evil, sends out a lot of very evil and oppressive branches, but they are also very impressive when looked at as part of world history.
I love the Bible's many layers...you can understand it in so many ways. In terms of actual literal world history, it does a great job of showing the scope of how people went from hunting and gathering to farmers and milk-and-wool animal tenders, then began animal husbandry in earnest. It indicates how a small band of humans spread out and formed tribes all over the known world. Above all this, we get to read all this in terms of how God saw it and the covenants he made with humanity. As He watches the descendents of Noah spread out in the world, He watches their hearts.
When Nimrod, the "mighty hunter", comes to be, God watches his power grow with building arrogance and self-reliance until he establishes the oldest actual empires/civilizations that we in modern days have come to know. We know it because the people of his empire invented writing. His empire starts in Shinar (Sumeria), then comes to include Accad (Akkadians) , Babylon, and then Assyria, with its great capital of Nineveh. This empire, no matter what it is called, is always both the cradle of Abram and the major threatening shadow over his people. Nimrod builds up his own glory and the cities of his people will represent for the rest of time man's desire to make himself awesome and glorious and thumb his nose at God.
People again wandered east, farther away from the entrance to Eden and God's presence and favor. They picked a place in Shinar, in the very earliest place of empire and civilization and decide to build a tower, a ziggurat probably with a temple to a deity on top, tall so everyone could see how incredibly great the people were who built it. Instead of seeking Him out on "the holy mountain" where he is, they wanted to create an artificial "holy mountain" to find a God they themselves made. They did so to make a name, a "Shem" for themselves. They wanted to make their culture and empire a direct rival to the one God wanted, with Him at it's head. God wanted all the world to be a family with him at the head, but instead of calling His name, they began to praise each other by name.
I think the Tower of Babel story is a really good explanation for why humanity has so many languages, but I still don't quite fully understand God's wisdom in foiling the plan this way. He wants us to be a family, but our single language, our unity of purpose, was being turned to bad use. We figured that, in our united strength, we could equal God. Of course this isn't true, and our gift of being a global family was going to destroy us. Thus, like when other good gifts go bad (sex and relationships of intimacy, authority of all kinds), they are turned into a shadow of what once was. God didn't "destroy" a good gift he had given us with one language, global unity...he watched as it fell apart in our hands.
Symbolically enough, Shem's family too is divided between good and bad, and the Tower of Babel story stands between the sons of Joktan and Peleg (division). Like the previous list of the people from Adam to Noah, the line of goodness from Noah to Abraham is detailed. We see their ages get less and less, though Shem himself is still presumably around to see the day his family left civilization and pagan idolatry, and their names become more Sumerian. Then, one day, this one family, this one blessed family "wakes up" and plucks itself out of Ur, a Chaldean city where their artificial gods and goddesses were worshipped on ziggurats like Babel. They leave it behind, leave behind all the "comforts" and "excitement" of the city, all dreams of worldly success, to follow God and remain faithful to the covenant He made.
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