Genesis 11
11
The Tower of Babel
1Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2#Ge 10:10; 14:1As the people journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
3#Ge 14:10; Ex 1:14They said to each other, “Let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone and tar for mortar. 4#Dt 1:28; 9:1Then they said, “Come, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top will reach to heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
5#Ge 18:21; Ex 19:11But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men built. 6#Ge 11:1The Lord said, “The people are one and they have one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; now nothing that they propose to do will be impossible for them. 7#Ge 1:26; 42:23Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
8#Lk 1:51; Ge 10:25So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9#Ge 10:10; 10:5Therefore the name of it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. From there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
Shem’s Descendants
Ge 10:21–31; 1Ch 1:17–27
10#1Ch 1:17–27These are the generations of Shem.
Shem was a hundred years old, and two years after the flood he became the father of Arphaxad. 11Shem lived after the birth of Arphaxad five hundred years, and had other sons and daughters.
12Arphaxad lived thirty-five years, and became the father of Shelah. 13Arphaxad lived after the birth of Shelah four hundred and three years, and had other sons and daughters.
14Shelah lived thirty years, and became the father of Eber. 15Shelah lived after the birth of Eber four hundred and three years, and had other sons and daughters.
16Eber lived thirty-four years, and became the father of Peleg. 17Eber lived after the birth of Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and had other sons and daughters.
18Peleg lived thirty years, and became the father of Reu. 19Peleg lived after the birth of Reu two hundred and nine years, and had other sons and daughters.
20#Lk 3:35Reu lived thirty-two years, and became the father of Serug. 21Reu lived after the birth of Serug two hundred and seven years, and had other sons and daughters.
22Serug lived thirty years, and became the father of Nahor. 23Serug lived after the birth of Nahor two hundred years, and had other sons and daughters.
24#Lk 3:34Nahor lived twenty-nine years, and became the father of Terah. 25Nahor lived after the birth of Terah one hundred and nineteen years, and had other sons and daughters.
26#Jos 24:2Now Terah lived seventy years, and became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
Terah’s Descendants
27#Ge 11:31; 12:4These are the generations of Terah.
Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran became the father of Lot. 28#Ge 15:7Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29#Ge 17:15; 22:20Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milkah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milkah and the father of Iskah. 30But Sarai was barren; she had no child.
31#Ne 9:7; Ge 24:10Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Harran, they settled there.
32The days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Harran.
Military Bible Association
Genesis 11
11
People tried to build a tall building called Babel
1You know, at first everyone talked the same language. 2And as people moved from place to place in the east, they got to some flat country in Babylonia, and they stayed there. 3-4Then they said to each other, “Look, we can make bricks here. So come on, let’s do that. We will bake them properly so that they are good strong bricks, and we will use them to build a city here. So come on, let’s build a big tall building in that city. It will be so tall that it will go right up into the sky.” You see, they had bricks and tar instead of stones and cement. And they said, “If we do that, everyone will think we are smart. Then we will not go and live all over the earth, but we will stay together right here.”
God made people talk in different languages
5So the people started to build a city and a really tall building, and God came down to look at those things. 6He said, “These people can all talk to each other in the same language, so they can do anything they want. If they keep on going this way, nothing will stop them from doing anything. 7Come on, let’s go down to these people, and we will make them talk in different languages. Then they will not understand each other, and they will be all mixed up. They will not work things out with each other, so they will not keep on building this city.”
8So God made all the people talk in different languages. None of them could understand anything the other people were saying. So they stopped building their big city. 9They all left that city and went to live in lots of different places, all over the world. That’s how God got people to be in different tribes all over the world. And they called that city Babel. That means mixed up. They gave it that name because God mixed up their languages at that time.
The story of Shem’s family
10This is the story about Shem’s family.
Shem was 100 years old when he had a son called Arfaxad. That was 2 years after the big flood. 11Shem lived for 500 years after he had Arfaxad, and he had more sons and daughters.
12Arfaxad was 35 years old when he had a son called Shelah. 13Arfaxad lived for 403 years after he had Shelah, and he had more sons and daughters.#Genesis 10:24; Luke 3:35-36
14Shelah was 30 years old when he had a son called Eber. 15Shelah lived for 403 years after he had Eber, and he had more sons and daughters.
16Eber was 34 years old when he had a son called Peleg. 17Eber lived for 430 years after he had Peleg, and he had more sons and daughters.
18Peleg was 30 years old when he had a son called Reyu. 19Peleg lived for 209 years after he had Reyu, and he had more sons and daughters.
20Reyu was 32 years old when he had a son called Serug. 21Reyu lived for 207 years after he had Serug, and he had more sons and daughters.
22Serug was 30 years old when he had a son called Nahor. 23Serug lived for 200 years after he had Nahor, and he had more sons and daughters.
24Nahor was 29 years old when he had a son called Terah. 25Nahor lived for 119 years after he had Terah, and he had more sons and daughters.
26Terah had 3 sons after he was 70 years old. Their names were Abram, Nahor and Haran.
The story of Terah’s family
27This is the story about Terah’s family. Terah had 3 sons, called Abram, and Nahor, and Haran.
Haran had a son called Lot. 28-29And he also had 2 daughters called Milcah and Iscah. After that, Haran died, while his father, Terah, was still alive. He died in Ur, in Chaldia country, the place where he was born.
Nahor, Haran’s brother, married Milcah. And Abram married a woman called Sarai, 30but Abram and Sarai didn’t have any kids. Sarai just couldn’t have a baby.
31Then Terah went away from Ur, in Chaldia country, and he took some of his family with him. They were his son Abram, and Abram’s wife Sarai, and his grand-son Lot. They all left Ur, and they started to go to the country called Canaan. But they stopped half-way, at a place called Haran, and they stayed there.
32Terah lived until he was 205 years old. Then he died there in Haran.
© 2021, Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc. All rights reserved.