Genesis 11:2-12

2 They moved to the east and found a broad valley in Babylonia. There they settled down.
3 They said to each other, "Come. Let's make bricks and bake them well." They used bricks instead of stones. They used tar to hold the bricks together.
4 Then they said, "Come. Let's build a city for ourselves. Let's build a tower that reaches to the sky. We'll make a name for ourselves. Then we won't be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.
6 The LORD said, "They are one people. And all of them speak the same language. That is why they can do this. Now they will be able to do anything they plan to.
7 Come. Let us go down and mix up their language. Then they will not understand each other."
8 So the LORD scattered them from there over the whole earth. And they stopped building the city.
9 The LORD mixed up the language of the whole world there. That's why the city was named Babel. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

The Family Line of Shem

10 Here is the story of Shem. It was two years after the flood. When Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad.
11 After Arphaxad was born, Shem lived 500 years. And he had other sons and daughters.
12 When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah.

Genesis 11:2-12 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.

Holy Bible, New International Reader's Version® Copyright © 1995, 1996, 1998 by Biblica.   All rights reserved worldwide.