The tower of Babel
1 The whole world had one language and a com mon speech.
2 As people moved from east, they found a plain in the country of Shinar where they settled.
3 They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them in fire.” They used brick for stone and bitu men for mortar.
4 They said also, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top reaching heaven; so that we may become a great people and not be scattered over the face of the earth!”
5 Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of man were building,
6 and Yahweh said, “They are one people and they have one language. If they carry this through, nothing they decide to do from now on will be impossible.
7 Come! Let us go down and confuse their language so that they will no longer understand each other.”
8 So Yahweh scattered them over all the earth and they stopped building the city.
9 That is why it was called Babel, because there Yahweh confused the lan guage of the whole earth and from there Yahweh scattered them over the whole face of the earth.
10 These are Shem’s descendants:
When Shem was a hundred years old he became the father of Arpachshad, two years af ter the flood. After the birth of Arpachshad,
11 Shem lived five hundred years and he had more sons and daughters.
12 When Arpachshad was thirty-five years old he became the father of Shelah.
13 After the birth of Shelah, Arpachshad lived four hundred and three years and he had more sons and daughters.
14 When Shelah was thirty years old he became the father of Eber. After the birth of Eber,
15 Shelah lived four hundred and three years and he had more sons and daughters.
16 When Eber was thirty-four years old he became the father of Peleg. After the birth of Peleg,
17 Eber lived four hundred and thirty years and he had more sons and daughters.
18 When Peleg was thirty years old he became the father of Reu;
19 Peleg lived two hundred and nine years and he had more sons and daughters.
20 When Reu was thirty-two years old he became the father of Serug;
21 Reu lived two hundred and seven years and he had more sons and daughters.
22 When Serug was thirty years old he became the father of Nahor. After the birth of Nahor,
23 Serug lived two hundred years and he had more sons and daughters.
24 When Nahor was twenty-nine years old he became the father of Terah. After the birth of Terah,
25 Nahor lived a hundred and nineteen years and he had more sons and daughters.
26 When Terah was seventy years old he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.
27 These are Terah’s descendants: Terah be came the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.
Haran became the father of Lot.
28 Haran died before his father Terah in his native land, Ur of the Chaldeans.
29 Abram and Nahor both married: Abram’s wife was called Sarai; Na hor’s wife was called Milcah, the daughter of Haran, father of Milcah and Iscah.
30 Sarai was barren, having no child.
31 Terah took his son Abram, his grand son Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law, the wife of Abram, and made them leave Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan. But on arrival in Haran they settled there.
32 Terah lived two hundred and five years; then he died in Haran.
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Comments Genesis, Chapter 11
• 11.1 It would be easy to show that the Tower of Babel story, reproduces in part, legends about Babel, or Babylon, the most famous capital of the time, with its brick buildings and its strange, unfinished-looking towers. In 11:7 the biblical author retains an ambiguous expression from these pagan legends: the gods were afraid of the arrogance of humans who were threat ening them in their celestial dwellings.
God has given us the mission to occupy the land and make it fruitful. People often prefer their own security to being creative.
The great projects for which the legitimate rights of millions of slaves have been lightly sacrificed remain unfinished. Resentment and oppression have contributed to irreparable divisions for the following generations or the next century.
God alone can bring us together: the first promise to Abraham was that he would gather all the nations around his offspring (Gen 12:3). When the Holy Spirit would come into the hearts of believers on Pentecost (Acts 2), he would enable them to understand one another in the unique language of love. One people: this will be the Church. While the sinful work alone and develop an oppressive and sterile male-centered culture, the believer builds through intercommunication and communion in the same Spirit (Eph 2:14-22).
The diversity of human languages aroused interest at the time, as did the diversity of cultures. Today it is accepted that people have spoken for several tens of thousands of years; but language is continually in evolution, more so when there is no writing. At a time when fewer human groups, scattered over the continents, lived with little con tact with one another, a few generations suf ficed for languages to multiply infinitely.
• 26. Terah became the father of Abram. Abraham was at first called Abram. We must understand that the account of Abraham is not historical in every detail. it is like a faith book in which we are shown the most typical stages and trials which any believer goes through at one time or another in his life. We see these played out by Abraham.
On a map we can see the crescent formed by the fertile valleys of Mesopotamia and the plains of Canaan. Inside this fertile crescent were tablelands and deserts where half-starved, nomadic tribes traveled, looking for pastures for their sheep and donkeys.