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Genesis 10-11
New American Bible (Revised Edition)

Chapter 10

Table of the Nations.[a] 1 These are the descendants of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, to whom children were born after the flood.

2 (A)The descendants of Japheth: Gomer,[b] Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech and Tiras.(B) 3 The descendants of Gomer: Ashkenaz,[c] Diphath and Togarmah. 4 The descendants of Javan: Elishah,[d] Tarshish, the Kittim and the Rodanim. 5 From these branched out the maritime nations.

These are the descendants of Japheth by their lands, each with its own language, according to their clans, by their nations.

6 The descendants of Ham: Cush,[e] Mizraim, Put and Canaan. 7 The descendants of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah and Sabteca. The descendants of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan.

8 Cush[f] became the father of Nimrod, who was the first to become a mighty warrior on earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter in the eyes of the Lord; hence the saying, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter in the eyes of the Lord.” 10 His kingdom originated in Babylon, Erech and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar.[g] 11 From that land he went forth to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir[h] and Calah, 12 as well as Resen, between Nineveh and Calah,[i] the latter being the principal city.

13 (C)Mizraim became the father of the Ludim, the Anamim, the Lehabim, the Naphtuhim, 14 the Pathrusim,[j] the Casluhim, and the Caphtorim from whom the Philistines came.

15 Canaan became the father of Sidon, his firstborn, and of Heth;[k] 16 also of the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, 17 the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, 18 the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward, the clans of the Canaanites spread out, 19 so that the Canaanite borders extended from Sidon all the way to Gerar, near Gaza, and all the way to Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, near Lasha.

20 These are the descendants of Ham, according to their clans, according to their languages, by their lands, by their nations.

21 To Shem also, Japheth’s oldest brother and the ancestor of all the children of Eber,[l] children were born. 22 (D)The descendants of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud and Aram. 23 The descendants of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether and Mash.

24 Arpachshad became the father of Shelah, and Shelah became the father of Eber. 25 To Eber two sons were born: the name of the first was Peleg, for in his time the world was divided;[m] and the name of his brother was Joktan.

26 Joktan became the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah and Jobab. All these were descendants of Joktan. 30 Their settlements extended all the way from Mesha to Sephar, the eastern hill country.

31 These are the descendants of Shem, according to their clans, according to their languages, by their lands, by their nations.

32 These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their origins and by their nations. From these the nations of the earth branched out after the flood.

Chapter 11

Tower of Babel.[n] 1 The whole world had the same language and the same words. 2 When they were migrating from the east, they came to a valley in the land of Shinar[o] and settled there. 3 They said to one another, “Come, let us mold bricks and harden them with fire.” They used bricks for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky,[p] and so make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered all over the earth.”

5 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people had built. 6 Then the Lord said: If now, while they are one people and all have the same language, they have started to do this, nothing they presume to do will be out of their reach. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that no one will understand the speech of another. 8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel,[q] because there the Lord confused the speech of all the world. From there the Lord scattered them over all the earth.

Descendants from Shem to Abraham.[r] 10 (E)These are the descendants of Shem. When Shem was one hundred years old, he begot Arpachshad, two years after the flood. 11 Shem lived five hundred years after he begot Arpachshad, and he had other sons and daughters. 12 When Arpachshad was thirty-five years old, he begot Shelah.[s] 13 Arpachshad lived four hundred and three years after he begot Shelah, and he had other sons and daughters.

14 When Shelah was thirty years old, he begot Eber. 15 Shelah lived four hundred and three years after he begot Eber, and he had other sons and daughters.

16 When Eber[t] was thirty-four years old, he begot Peleg. 17 Eber lived four hundred and thirty years after he begot Peleg, and he had other sons and daughters.

18 When Peleg was thirty years old, he begot Reu. 19 Peleg lived two hundred and nine years after he begot Reu, and he had other sons and daughters.

20 When Reu was thirty-two years old, he begot Serug. 21 Reu lived two hundred and seven years after he begot Serug, and he had other sons and daughters.

22 When Serug was thirty years old, he begot Nahor. 23 Serug lived two hundred years after he begot Nahor, and he had other sons and daughters.

24 When Nahor was twenty-nine years old, he begot Terah. 25 Nahor lived one hundred and nineteen years after he begot Terah, and he had other sons and daughters.

26 When Terah was seventy years old, he begot Abram,[u] Nahor and Haran.(F)

II. The Story of the Ancestors of Israel

Terah. 27 These are the descendants of Terah.[v] Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran begot Lot. 28 Haran died before Terah his father, in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.[w] 29 Abram and Nahor took wives; the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai,[x] and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah, daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah.(G) 30 Sarai was barren; she had no child.

31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and brought them out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to go to the land of Canaan. But when they reached Haran, they settled there.(H) 32 The lifetime of Terah was two hundred and five years; then Terah died in Haran.[y]

Footnotes

  1. 10:1–32

    Verse 1 is the fourth of the Priestly formulas (2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 11:10) that structure Part I of Genesis; it introduces 10:2–11:9, the populating of the world and the building of the city. In a sense, chaps. 4–9 are concerned with the first of the two great commands given to the human race in 1:28, “Be fertile and multiply!” whereas chaps. 10–11 are concerned with the second command, “Fill the earth and subdue it!” (“Subdue it” refers to each nation’s taking the land assigned to it by God.) Gn 9:19 already noted that all nations are descended from the three sons of Noah; the same sentiment is repeated in 10:5, 18, 25, 32; 11:8. The presupposition of the chapter is that every nation has a land assigned to it by God (cf. Dt 32:8–9). The number of the nations is seventy (if one does not count Noah and his sons, and counts Sidon [vv. 15, 19] only once), which is a traditional biblical number (Jgs 8:30; Lk 10:1, 17). According to Gn 46:27 and Ex 1:5, Israel also numbered seventy persons, which shows that it in some sense represents the nations of the earth.

    This chapter classifies the various peoples known to the ancient Israelites; it is theologically important as stressing the basic family unity of all peoples on earth. It is sometimes called the Table of the Nations. The relationship between the various peoples is based on linguistic, geographic, or political grounds (v. 31). In general, the descendants of Japheth (vv. 2–5) are the peoples of the Indo-European languages to the north and west of Mesopotamia and Syria; the descendants of Ham (vv. 6–20) are the Hamitic-speaking peoples of northern Africa; and the descendants of Shem (vv. 21–31) are the Semitic-speaking peoples of Mesopotamia, Syria and Arabia. But there are many exceptions to this rule; the Semitic-speaking peoples of Canaan are considered descendants of Ham, because at one time they were subject to Hamitic Egypt (vv. 6, 15–19). This chapter is generally considered to be a composite from the Yahwist source (vv. 8–19, 21, 24–30) and the Priestly source (vv. 1–7, 20, 22–23, 31–32). Presumably that is why certain tribes of Arabia are listed under both Ham (v. 7) and Shem (vv. 26–28).

  2. 10:2 Gomer: the Cimmerians; Madai: the Medes; Javan: the Greeks.
  3. 10:3 Ashkenaz: an Indo-European people, which later became the medieval rabbinic name for Germany. It now designates one of the great divisions of Judaism, Eastern European Yiddish-speaking Jews.
  4. 10:4 Elishah: Cyprus; the Kittim: certain inhabitants of Cyprus; the Rodanim: the inhabitants of Rhodes.
  5. 10:6 Cush: biblical Ethiopia, modern Nubia. Mizraim: Lower (i.e., northern) Egypt; Put: either Punt in East Africa or Libya.
  6. 10:8 Cush: here seems to be Cossea, the country of the Kassites; see note on 2:10–14. Nimrod: possibly Tukulti-Ninurta I (thirteenth century B.C.), the first Assyrian conqueror of Babylonia and a famous city-builder at home.
  7. 10:10 Shinar: the land of ancient Babylonia, embracing Sumer and Akkad, present-day southern Iraq, mentioned also in 11:2; 14:1.
  8. 10:11 Rehoboth-Ir: lit., “wide-streets city,” was probably not the name of another city, but an epithet of Nineveh; cf. Jon 3:3.
  9. 10:12 Calah: Assyrian Kalhu, the capital of Assyria in the ninth century B.C.
  10. 10:14 The Pathrusim: the people of Upper (southern) Egypt; cf. Is 11:11; Jer 44:1; Ez 29:14; 30:13. Caphtorim: Crete; for Caphtor as the place of origin of the Philistines, cf. Dt 2:23; Am 9:7; Jer 47:4.
  11. 10:15 Heth: the biblical Hittites; see note on 23:3.
  12. 10:21 Eber: the eponymous ancestor of the Hebrews, that is, the one to whom they traced their name.
  13. 10:25 In the Hebrew text there is a play on the name Peleg and the word niplega, “was divided.”
  14. 11:1–9 This story illustrates increasing human wickedness, shown here in the sinful pride that human beings take in their own achievements apart from God. Secondarily, the story explains the diversity of languages among the peoples of the earth.
  15. 11:2 Shinar: see note on 10:10.
  16. 11:4 Tower with its top in the sky: possibly a reference to the chief ziggurat of Babylon, E-sag-ila, lit., “the house that raises high its head.”
  17. 11:9 Babel: the Hebrew form of the name “Babylon”; the Babylonians interpreted their name for the city, Bab-ili, as “gate of god.” The Hebrew word balal, “he confused,” has a similar sound.
  18. 11:10–26 The second Priestly genealogy goes from Shem to Terah and his three sons Abram, Nahor, and Haran, just as the genealogy in 5:3–32 went from Adam to Noah and his three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth. This genealogy marks the important transition in Genesis between the story of the nations in 1:1–11:26 and the story of Israel in the person of its ancestors (11:27–50:26). As chaps. 1–11 showed the increase and spread of the nations, so chaps. 12–50 will show the increase and spread of Israel. The contrast between Israel and the nations is a persistent biblical theme. The ages given here are from the Hebrew text; the Samaritan and Greek texts have divergent sets of numbers in most cases. In comparable accounts of the pre-flood period, enormous life spans are attributed to human beings. It may be an attempt to show that the pre-flood generations were extraordinary and more vital than post-flood human beings.
  19. 11:12 The Greek text adds Kenan (cf. 5:9–10) between Arpachshad and Shelah. The Greek listing is followed in Lk 3:36.
  20. 11:16 Eber: the eponymous ancestor of the Hebrews, “descendants of Eber” (10:21, 24–30); see note on 14:13.
  21. 11:26 Abram is a dialectal variant of Abraham. God will change his name in view of his new task in 17:4.
  22. 11:27 Descendants of Terah: elsewhere in Genesis the story of the son is introduced by the name of the father (25:12, 19; 36:1; 37:2). The Abraham-Sarah stories begin (11:27–32) and end with genealogical notices (25:1–18), which concern, respectively, the families of Terah and of Abraham. Most of the traditions in the cycle are from the Yahwist source. The so-called Elohist source (E) is somewhat shadowy, denied by some scholars but recognized by others in passages that duplicate other narratives (20:1–18 and 21:22–34). The Priestly source consists mostly of brief editorial notices, except for chaps. 17 and 23.
  23. 11:28 Ur of the Chaldeans: Ur was an extremely ancient city of the Sumerians (later, of the Babylonians) in southern Mesopotamia. The Greek text has “the land of the Chaldeans.” After a millennium of relative unimportance, Ur underwent a revival during the Neo-Babylonian/Chaldean empire (625–539 B.C.). The sixth-century author here identified the place by its contemporary name. As chap. 24 shows, Haran in northern Mesopotamia is in fact the native place of Abraham. In the Genesis perspective, the human race originated in the East (3:24; 4:16) and migrated from there to their homelands (11:2). Terah’s family moved from the East (Ur) and Abraham will complete the journey to the family’s true homeland in the following chapters.
  24. 11:29 Sarai: like Abram, a dialectal variant of the more usual form of the name Sarah. In 17:15, God will change it to Sarah in view of her new task.
  25. 11:32 Since Terah was seventy years old when his son Abraham was born (v. 26), and Abraham was seventy-five when he left Haran (12:4), Terah lived in Haran for sixty years after Abraham’s departure. According to the tradition in the Samaritan text, Terah died when he was one hundred and forty-five years old, therefore, in the same year in which Abraham left Haran. This is the tradition followed in Stephen’s speech: Abraham left Haran “after his father died” (Acts 7:4).
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Genesis 9
Genesis 12
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Psalm 8
New American Bible (Revised Edition)

Psalm 8[a]

Divine Majesty and Human Dignity

1 For the leader; “upon the gittith.”[b] A psalm of David.

2 O Lord, our Lord,
    how awesome is your name through all the earth!

I will sing of your majesty above the heavens
3     with the mouths of babes(A) and infants.[c]
You have established a bulwark against your foes,
    to silence enemy and avenger.

4 When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and stars that you set in place—
5 [d]What is man that you are mindful of him,(B)
    and a son of man that you care for him?(C)
6 Yet you have made him little less than a god,[e]
    crowned him with glory and honor.
7 You have given him rule over the works of your hands,(D)
    put all things at his feet:
8 All sheep and oxen,
    even the beasts of the field,
9 The birds of the air, the fish of the sea,
    and whatever swims the paths of the seas.

10 O Lord, our Lord,
    how awesome is your name through all the earth!

Footnotes

  1. Psalm 8 While marvelling at the limitless grandeur of God (Ps 8:2–3), the psalmist is struck first by the smallness of human beings in creation (Ps 8:4–5), and then by the royal dignity and power that God has graciously bestowed upon them (Ps 8:6–9).
  2. 8:1 Upon the gittith: probably the title of the melody to which the Psalm was to be sung or a musical instrument.
  3. 8:3 With the mouths of babes and infants: the psalmist realizes that his attempts to praise such an awesome God are hopelessly inadequate and amount to little more than the sounds made by infants. Established a bulwark: an allusion to lost myth telling how God built a fortress for himself in the heavens in primordial times in his battle with the powers of chaos. This “bulwark” is the firmament. Enemy and avenger: probably cosmic enemies. The primeval powers of watery chaos are often personified in poetic texts (Ps 74:13–14; 89:11; Jb 9:13; 26:12–13; Is 51:9).
  4. 8:5 Man…a son of man: the emphasis is on the fragility and mortality of human beings to whom God has given great dignity.
  5. 8:6 Little less than a god: Hebrew ‘elohim, the ordinary word for “God” or “the gods” or members of the heavenly court. The Greek version translated ‘elohim by “angel, messenger”; several ancient and modern versions so translate. The meaning seems to be that God created human beings almost at the level of the beings in the heavenly world. Hb 2:9, translating “for a little while,” finds the eminent fulfillment of this verse in Jesus Christ, who was humbled before being glorified, cf. also 1 Cor 15:27 where St. Paul applies to Christ the closing words of Ps 8:7.
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Psalm 9
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Matthew 6:1-18
New American Bible (Revised Edition)

Chapter 6

Teaching About Almsgiving.[a] 1 “[But] take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them;(A) otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. 2 When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites[b] do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.(B) 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, 4 so that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

Teaching About Prayer. 5 “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. 7 [c]In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words.[d] 8 Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

The Lord’s Prayer. 9 [e]“This is how you are to pray:(C)

Our Father in heaven,[f]
    hallowed be your name,
10     your kingdom come,[g]
    your will be done,
        on earth as in heaven.(D)
11     [h](E)Give us today our daily bread;
12     and forgive us our debts,[i]
        as we forgive our debtors;(F)
13     and do not subject us to the final test,[j]
        but deliver us from the evil one.(G)

14 [k]If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.(H) 15 But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.(I)

Teaching About Fasting. 16 “When you fast,[l] do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 so that you may not appear to others to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.

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Footnotes

  1. 6:1–18 The sermon continues with a warning against doing good in order to be seen and gives three examples, almsgiving (Mt 6:2–4), prayer (Mt 6:5–15), and fasting (Mt 6:16–18). In each, the conduct of the hypocrites (Mt 6:2) is contrasted with that demanded of the disciples. The sayings about reward found here and elsewhere (Mt 5:12, 46; 10:41–42) show that this is a genuine element of Christian moral exhortation. Possibly to underline the difference between the Christian idea of reward and that of the hypocrites, the evangelist uses two different Greek verbs to express the rewarding of the disciples and that of the hypocrites; in the latter case it is the verb apechō, a commercial term for giving a receipt for what has been paid in full (Mt 6:2, 5, 16).
  2. 6:2 The hypocrites: the scribes and Pharisees, see Mt 23:13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29. The designation reflects an attitude resulting not only from the controversies at the time of Jesus’ ministry but from the opposition between Pharisaic Judaism and the church of Matthew. They have received their reward: they desire praise and have received what they were looking for.
  3. 6:7–15 Matthew inserts into his basic traditional material an expansion of the material on prayer that includes the model prayer, the “Our Father.” That prayer is found in Lk 11:2–4 in a different context and in a different form.
  4. 6:7 The example of what Christian prayer should be like contrasts it now not with the prayer of the hypocrites but with that of the pagans. Their babbling probably means their reciting a long list of divine names, hoping that one of them will force a response from the deity.
  5. 6:9–13 Matthew’s form of the “Our Father” follows the liturgical tradition of his church. Luke’s less developed form also represents the liturgical tradition known to him, but it is probably closer than Matthew’s to the original words of Jesus.
  6. 6:9 Our Father in heaven: this invocation is found in many rabbinic prayers of the post-New Testament period. Hallowed be your name: though the “hallowing” of the divine name could be understood as reverence done to God by human praise and by obedience to his will, this is more probably a petition that God hallow his own name, i.e., that he manifest his glory by an act of power (cf. Ez 36:23), in this case, by the establishment of his kingdom in its fullness.
  7. 6:10 Your kingdom come: this petition sets the tone of the prayer, and inclines the balance toward divine rather than human action in the petitions that immediately precede and follow it. Your will be done, on earth as in heaven: a petition that the divine purpose to establish the kingdom, a purpose present now in heaven, be executed on earth.
  8. 6:11 Give us today our daily bread: the rare Greek word epiousios, here daily, occurs in the New Testament only here and in Lk 11:3. A single occurrence of the word outside of these texts and of literature dependent on them has been claimed, but the claim is highly doubtful. The word may mean daily or “future” (other meanings have also been proposed). The latter would conform better to the eschatological tone of the whole prayer. So understood, the petition would be for a speedy coming of the kingdom (today), which is often portrayed in both the Old Testament and the New under the image of a feast (Is 25:6; Mt 8:11; 22:1–10; Lk 13:29; 14:15–24).
  9. 6:12 Forgive us our debts: the word debts is used metaphorically of sins, “debts” owed to God (see Lk 11:4). The request is probably for forgiveness at the final judgment.
  10. 6:13 Jewish apocalyptic writings speak of a period of severe trial before the end of the age, sometimes called the “messianic woes.” This petition asks that the disciples be spared that final test.
  11. 6:14–15 These verses reflect a set pattern called “Principles of Holy Law.” Human action now will be met by a corresponding action of God at the final judgment.
  12. 6:16 The only fast prescribed in the Mosaic law was that of the Day of Atonement (Lv 16:31), but the practice of regular fasting was common in later Judaism; cf. Didache 9:1.
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New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)

Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.