Genesis 11:1-32

The Tower of Babel

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, [a] they found a plain in Shinar [b] and settled there.

3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

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 [c] —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

From Shem to Abram

10 This is the account of Shem.

Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father [d] of Arphaxad. 11 And after he became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.

12 When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah. 13 And after he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters. [e]

14 When Shelah had lived 30 years, he became the father of Eber. 15 And after he became the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

16 When Eber had lived 34 years, he became the father of Peleg. 17 And after he became the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.

18 When Peleg had lived 30 years, he became the father of Reu. 19 And after he became the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

20 When Reu had lived 32 years, he became the father of Serug. 21 And after he became the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

22 When Serug had lived 30 years, he became the father of Nahor. 23 And after he became the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.

24 When Nahor had lived 29 years, he became the father of Terah. 25 And after he became the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

26 After Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.

27 This is the account of Terah.

Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. 28 While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. 29 Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no children.

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 together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.

32 Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.



Dig Deeper

We learned in Genesis 10:25 that the earth (or nations) was divided at the Tower of Babel over 100 years after the flood. How do we know that? It tells us that this event happened during Peleg’s life, and he was born about 100 years after the flood.


But what happened exactly during this time? Were these people so ignorant that they really thought they could make a tower that reached into heaven?


If we look at what the Hebrew text says literally, we find it says "let us build for ourselves a city and tower, and its head is the heavens." (Young’s Literal Translation). This is precisely the purpose of ancient Mesopotamian ziggurats. The top room represented heaven. Biblical expert John Whitcomb says "The inner walls, in all probability, were decorated with blue glazed tile, with the sun, the moon, and the five known planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) lined up along the plane of the zodiac. In the centre of the room would be their ‘god’ seated upon a throne. . . The pyramids of Egypt and, much later, the great Mayan temples of Central America, reflected the design of the original Tower of Babel."


This passage does not describe a bunch of backwards hillbillies who thought they could build a tower that reached heaven. Rather this was a brilliant but blasphemous engineering endeavor intended to ignore the one true God. Instead of honoring him, they decided to disobey his command to spread out. Satan nearly succeeded in dominating mankind just as he had done in the Garden of Eden and before the Flood. God caused each family clan to miraculously speak different languages so that this enterprise would be ended. God, once again, protected mankind from themselves.



Devotional Thought

Have you ever seen a group of people get together and act a whole lot worse than they probably would have if they were alone? Oftentimes groups that are up to no good will try to get more people in on their behavior. It is usually best to have a plan for what you would do if a group of your friends or co-workers tried to get you to do something you know is wrong (It might be lying, gossiping, going somewhere you shouldn’t, looking at something you shouldn’t, etc.). Spend some time today thinking about or getting some advice from a spiritually wise person about how you might handle such a situation.