Genesis 11:5-15

5 Then the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which they had built,
6 and he said, "Now then, these are all one people and they speak one language; this is just the beginning of what they are going to do. Soon they will be able to do anything they want!
7 Let us go down and mix up their language so that they will not understand each other."
8 So the Lord scattered them all over the earth, and they stopped building the city.
9 The city was called Babylon, because there the Lord mixed up the language of all the people, and from there he scattered them all over the earth.
10 These are the descendants of Shem. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he had a son, Arpachshad.
11 After that, he lived another 500 years and had other children.
12 When Arpachshad was 35 years old, he had a son, Shelah;
13 after that, he lived another 403 years and had other children.
14 When Shelah was 30 years old, he had a son, Eber;
15 after that, he lived another 403 years and had other children.

Genesis 11:5-15 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 11

This chapter gives an account of the inhabitants of the earth before the confusion of tongues at Babel, of their speech and language, which was one and the same, and of the place where they dwelt, Ge 11:1,2 and of their design to build a city and tower, to make them a name and keep them together, which they put in execution, Ge 11:3,4 of the notice the Lord took of this affair, and of the method he took to put a stop to their designs, by confounding their speech, and dispersing them abroad upon the face of the earth, Ge 11:5-9 then follows a genealogy of Shem's posterity down to Abraham, Ge 11:10-26 and a particular relation is given of Terah, the father of Abraham, and his family, and of his going forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, in order to go into the land of Canaan, and of his death at Haran by the way, Ge 11:27-32.

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. babylon: [This name sounds like the Hebrew for "mixed up."]
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.