The tower of Babel
11
📚And from among them, after the flood, the nations of the earth were divided. And the whole earth had one language, and one speech.11:1 We do not know what this one language was.⚜
2 📚And it came about that as they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar 📖, and they lived there.
3 📚And they said to one another, “Come on 📖, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly”. And they had brick instead of stone, and they had tar instead of mortar. 4 📚And they said, “Come on, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower, the top of which will reach to heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves, so we won’t be scattered over the surface of the whole earth”.
5 📚And the LORD came down 📖 to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built. 6 📚And the LORD said, “See, the people are one and they all have one language, and they have started to do this, and so now nothing that they have planned to do will be kept from them.
11:6 In other words they would exalt themselves very highly against God and His purposes in the earth.⚜
7 📚Come, let us go down and there confuse their language so that they cannot understand one another’s speech”.
8 📚So the LORD scattered them from there over the whole surface of the earth. And they stopped building the city.
11:8 This was the very thing they did not want, but which God saw was good (v 4; Gen 9:1). God will accomplish His purposes in spite of rebellious men.⚜
9 📚Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth, and the LORD scattered them from there over the surface of the whole earth.
11:4-9 The building of Babel was contrary to God’s instructions in Gen 9:1. The language in v 4 indicates pride and self-glorification as the motive for the building of the city. Later in history Nebuchadnezzar built a very great and mighty city there which caused him to boast in his power (Dan 4:30). The name Babylon in Scripture is usually associated with man’s pride and defiance of God (Isa 47:8; Jer 50:24, 29, 32; Dan 4:30; 5:1-4; Rev 17:4-6; 18:7). Babylon was a center of idolatry and false religion and persecution of God’s people.
The name Babel may have two meanings. It probably means (as many have suggested) “the gate of God”. This is what the people who built it might have thought. Babel may also be derived from a Hebrew word meaning “to confuse”. What men boast of as a gateway to God is in God’s sight mere confusion. God will eventually destroy all such proud achievements of men and bring their pride into the dust (Lev 26:18-19; Prov 15:25; 16:18; Isa 2:17-22; 25:11; Jer 13:9; 49:16; Dan 4:37; Zeph 2:8-10; Jam 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5; Rev 18:7-8).⚜
More genealogies
10 📚These are the generations of Shem: Shem was a hundred years old, and begot 📖 Arphaxad two years after the flood. 11 📚And after he begot Arphaxad, Shem lived five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters.
12 📚And Arphaxad lived thirty-five years, and begot Salah. 13 And after he begot Salah, Arphaxad lived four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters.
14 And Salah lived thirty years, and begot Eber. 15 And after he begot Eber, Salah lived four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters.
16 📚And Eber lived four-thirty years, and begot Peleg.
11:16 The word Hebrew may have come from the word Eber.⚜
17 And after he begot Peleg, Eber lived four hundred and thirty years, and begot sons and daughters.
18 📚And Peleg lived thirty years, and begot Reu. 19 And after he begot Reu, Peleg lived two hundred and nine years, and begot sons and daughters.
20 📚And Reu lived two-thirty years, and begot Serug. 21 And after he begot Serug Reu lived two hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters.
22 📚And Serug lived thirty years, and begot Nahor. 23 And after he begot Nahor Serug lived two hundred years, and begot sons and daughters.
24 📚And Nahor lived nine-twenty years, and begot Terah. 25 And after he begot Terah, Nahor lived a hundred and nineteen years, and begot sons and daughters.
26 📚And Terah lived seventy years, and begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
27 📚Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begot Lot. 28 📚And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur 📖 of the Chaldees. 29 📚And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran who was the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. 30 📚But Sarai was barren; she had no child.
31 📚And Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they left Ur of the Chaldees together to go to the land of Canaan. And they came to Haran 📖 and lived there.
32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.