Nation, nations
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(Gen. 10:5) (Deut. 32:6, Acts 17:26 and others). “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation,” says the holy Apostle Paul to the Athenians on the Areopagus (Acts 17:26). Concerning the beginning of the formation and division of the nations, Holy Scripture itself gives us a brief account in its table of nations after the flood (Gen. ch. 10). This table constitutes a chief and inexhaustible source for the historian.
According to it, all nations, differing from one another in languages and other features, arose and were formed from the families and generations of one common ancestor. The common ancestor of the whole human race is Adam (Gen. 3:20), and since the antediluvian world was destroyed by God in the universal flood, except for Noah and his family, Noah and his sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—became the ancestors of all nations (Gen. 6:17, 18, 9:1 and others). They gave their names both to the peoples who descended from them and to the countries where their descendants settled.