Genesis 11
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 11
An Attempt at Unity.[a] 1 The whole world had only one language, everyone using the same words. 2 Migrating from the east, men came upon a plain in the land of Shinar where they settled.
3 They said to each other, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them in a fire.” These bricks were what they used instead of stone, and bitumen in place of cement.[b] 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build a city and a tower so high that it touches the heavens.[c] We shall make a name for ourselves and not be scattered all throughout the earth.”
5 But the Lord came down and saw the city and the tower that these men were building. 6 The Lord said, “Behold, they are a single people and they have only one language. This is only the beginning of what they will do. Now nothing that they think up will be impossible for them. 7 Let us go down and confuse their language so that they will not understand each other when they speak.”
8 The Lord scattered them over the whole earth[d] and they ceased building their city. 9 This is why it is called Babel,[e] for there the Lord confused everyone’s language. It was also from there that the Lord scattered people over the whole earth.
10 Genealogy of Abraham.[f] The descendants of Shem are as follow:
Shem was one hundred years old when he had Arpachshad two years after the flood. 11 Shem, after he had Arpachshad, lived another five hundred years and had other sons and daughters.
12 Arpachshad was thirty-five years old when he had Shelah. 13 Arpachshad, after he had Shelah, lived another four hundred and three years and had other sons and daughters.
14 Shelah was thirty years old when he had Eber. 15 Shelah, after he had Eber, lived another four hundred and three years and had other sons and daughters.
16 Eber was thirty-four years old when he had Peleg. 17 Eber, after he had Peleg, lived another four hundred and thirty years and had other sons and daughters.
18 Peleg was thirty years old when he had Reu. 19 Peleg, after he had Reu, lived another two hundred and nine years and had other sons and daughters.
20 Reu was thirty-two years old when he had Serug. 21 Reu, after he had Serug, lived another two hundred and seven years and had other sons and daughters.
22 Serug was thirty years old when he had Nahor. 23 Serug, after he had Nahor, lived another two hundred years and had other sons and daughters.
24 Nahor was twenty-nine years old when he had Terah. 25 Nahor, after he had Terah, lived one hundred and nineteen years and had other sons and daughters.
26 Terah was seventy years old when he had Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
27 These are the descendants of Terah.
Terah had Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran had Lot. 28 Haran then died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.[g] 29 Abram and Nahor both married. The wife of Abram was Sarai, and the wife of Nahor was Milcah who was a daughter of Haran (the father of Milcah and Iscah). 30 Sarai was barren and did not have any children.
31 Then Terah took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, and Sarai, his daughter-in-law and the wife of Abram his son, and he left Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan. They went as far as Haran where they settled.[h]
32 Terah lived to be two hundred and five years old. Terah died in Haran.
Footnotes
- Genesis 11:1 After having presented in the list of peoples what might be called the mission field of the People of God, the biblical narrative dwells on a fundamental aspect of this field, one that is always alive in the various human groups, namely, the insistent need for unity. The passage, from the Yahwist source, makes use of an ancient popular story that seems to copy in an ironic way Mesopotamian texts on the dedication of its well-known temple towers.
The story concerns a migrating people who come down from the mountains into a vast plain and feel the need of establishing a city center with a skyscraper tower that will guarantee the maintenance of their unity. Make a name for ourselves means to establish a power that will foster their cohesion and their own political identity. But, as happens in human undertakings, a moment comes in which intentions diverge, so that the unity of the people is broken, as if they were speaking different languages. The tradition sees in this occurrence an explicit manifestation of God, the author of human nature. The direction events take always depends on God. - Genesis 11:3 Bricks . . . instead of stone, and bitumen in place of cement: stone and cement were used as building materials in Canaan. Stone was scarce in Mesopotamia, however, so bricks and bitumen were used (as indicated by archaeological excavations).
- Genesis 11:4 Tower so high that it touches the heavens: this is a direct reference to the most important temple tower (ziggurat) found in Babylon, which goes by the name of “the house that lifts high its head.” Scholars regard the ziggurats of Babylonia as the earliest skyscrapers.
- Genesis 11:8 Scattered them over the whole earth: God countered their prideful rebellion at its very origin. They had chosen to settle, but he forced them to scatter. This account relates how it was that the families of the earth were separated, “each clan in the nations with their own language” (Gen 10:5) and were “divided up to become all the nations on the earth after the flood” (Gen 10:32).
- Genesis 11:9 Babel (i.e., Babylonia), according to a popular etymology, meant “gate of god” or “gate of the gods.” The sacred writer, having told of the failure of the human undertaking (and the failure also of the gods who wanted to be worshiped on the Mesopotamian towers), asks us to read the name “Babel” as a reminder of that failure: he suggests a connection with the root bll, “to confuse,” from which the form balbel and then, by contraction, babel, would supposedly be derived.
- Genesis 11:10 These verses are from the Priestly tradition, a continuation of the genealogy begun in chapter 5, except for verses 28-30, which are Yahwist. Beginning perhaps with Arpachshad, named as son of Shem, the list of names here is a real genealogy, a document of the family of Abraham; only the numbers continue to be symbolic and conventional, without any strictly historical value. Abraham comes from a seminomadic family or clan that has settled in the city of Ur, at that time on the shores of the Persian Gulf and already rich and powerful, especially in the 21st and 20th centuries B.C.
Abraham and his family travel up the valley of the Euphrates and settle in upper Mesopotamia. The period of these events may be around 1850 B.C. - Genesis 11:28 Ur of the Chaldeans: Ur was an ancient city of the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia as well as a populous and prosperous one. In this case, the phrase is an anachronism, because the Chaldeans were not known to history until some thousand years after Abraham.
- Genesis 11:31 Abraham traveled along the Euphrates to Haran, a trading town in northern Mesopotamia or Syria. This was the best route from which to reach Canaan and bypass the great desert with its people and animals (see Gen 12:4; Acts 7:2-4).
Genesis 11
King James Version
11 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
10 These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:
11 And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.
12 And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah:
13 And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.
14 And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber:
15 And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.
16 And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg:
17 And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters.
18 And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu:
19 And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters.
20 And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug:
21 And Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters.
22 And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor:
23 And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.
24 And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah:
25 And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters.
26 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
27 Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
28 And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.
29 And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, 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 son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.
Genesis 11
Expanded Bible
The Languages Confused
11 At this time the whole world spoke one language, and everyone used the same words. 2 As people ·moved [migrated] ·from the east [or eastward; 2:8; 4:16], they found a plain in the land of ·Babylonia [L Shinar] and settled there.
3 They said to each other, “Let’s make bricks and ·bake [burn; fire] them ·to make them hard [thoroughly; C in ancient times builders used mudbrick].” So they used bricks instead of stones, and ·tar [bitumen] instead of mortar. 4 Then they said to each other, “Let’s build a city and a tower for ourselves, whose top will reach high into ·the sky [heaven; C a ziggurat or stepped pyramid at whose top was a temple thought to be in heaven]. We will ·become famous [L make for ourselves a reputation/name]. Then we will not be scattered over all the earth.”
5 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the ·people [L sons of man] had built. 6 The Lord said, “Now, these people are ·united [L one], all speaking ·the same [L one] language. This is only the beginning of what they will do. ·They will be able to do anything they want [L Nothing they want to do will be impossible for them]. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language [L there] so they will not be able to understand each other.”
8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they ·stopped [ceased] building the city. 9 The place is called Babel [C sounds like the Hebrew word for “confused”] since that is where the Lord confused the language of the whole world. So the Lord caused them to spread out from there over the whole world.
The Story of Shem’s Family
10 This is the ·family history [L book of the generations; 2:4] of Shem [9:18; 10:21–31]. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, his son Arphaxad [10:22] was born. 11 After that, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.
12 When Arphaxad was 35 years old, his son Shelah [10:24] was born. 13 After that, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.
14 When Shelah was 30 years old, his son Eber [10:21, 24] was born. 15 After that, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.
16 When Eber was 34 years old, his son Peleg [10:25] was born. 17 After that, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.
18 When Peleg was 30 years old, his son Reu was born. 19 After that, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.
20 When Reu was 32 years old, his son Serug was born. 21 After that, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.
22 When Serug was 30 years old, his son Nahor was born. 23 After that, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.
24 When Nahor was 29 years old, his son Terah was born. 25 After that, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.
26 After Terah was 70 years old, his sons Abram, Nahor, and Haran were born.
The Story of Terah’s Family
27 ·This is the family history [L These are the generations; 2:4] of Terah. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran was the father of Lot. 28 While his father, Terah, was still alive, Haran died in Ur [C a major city in southern Mesopotamia] ·in Babylonia [L of the Chaldeans; C Chaldea was another name for Babylon], where he was born. 29 Abram and Nahor both ·married [L took wives]. Abram’s wife was named Sarai, and Nahor’s wife was named Milcah. She was the daughter of Haran, who was the father of both Milcah and Iscah. 30 Sarai ·was not able to have children [was barren; had no children].
31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (Haran’s son), and his daughter-in-law Sarai (Abram’s wife) and moved out of Ur of ·Babylonia [L the Chaldeans; 11:28]. They had planned to go to the land of Canaan, but when they reached the city of Haran [C a city in northern Syria], they settled there.
32 Terah lived to be 205 years old, and then he died in Haran.
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