Genesis 11

6. and now nothing will be restrained from them--an apparent admission that the design was practicable, and would have been executed but for the divine interposition.

7. confound their language--literally, "their lip"; it was a failure in utterance, occasioning a difference in dialect which was intelligible only to those of the same tribe. Thus easily by God their purpose was defeated, and they were compelled to the dispersion they had combined to prevent. It is only from the Scriptures we learn the true origin of the different nations and languages of the world. By one miracle of tongues men were dispersed and gradually fell from true religion. By another, national barriers were broken down--that all men might be brought back to the family of God.

28. Ur--now Orfa; that is, "light, or "fire." Its name probably derived from its being devoted to the rites of fire-worship. Terah and his family were equally infected with that idolatry as the rest of the inhabitants ( Joshua 24:15 ).

31. Sarai his daughter-in-law--the same as Iscah [ Genesis 11:29 ], granddaughter of Terah, probably by a second wife, and by early usages considered marriageable to her uncle, Abraham.
they came unto Haran--two days' journey south-southeast from Ur, on the direct road to the ford of the Euphrates at Rakka, the nearest and most convenient route to Palestine.