111 Before the Tower of Babel was constructed, all humans spoke the same language. 2 At this time, everyone on earth traveled to the plain of Shinar and lived there. 3 They said to each other,
4 Let's get some brick and slime and build a tower that reaches to heaven. We need to make ourselves famous, so we aren't scattered all over the face of the earth.
5 God came down to see the tower that the people had built. 6 And he said,
These people are unified and have one language. If they can build a tower, they can do anything.
7 Let's go down and confuse their speech so they can't understand each other.
8-9 So God confounded the language of the people who were building the tower and scattered them over the face of the earth.
Building the Tower of Babel
The genealogy from Shem to Abraham
26 When Terah was seventy years old, he became the father of Abraham, Nahor, and Haran.
Terah's familiy
27-28 Haran, Lot's father, died before his father in Ur of Babylonia.
31-32 Terah, Abraham, Sarah, and Lot left Ur and traveled to Haran, where Terah died when he was 205 years old.
A few more words about this episode
Noah, the drunk and naked (9:20)
Noah was a just and perfect preacher of righteousness according to Genesis 6:9, 7:1, and 2 Peter 2:5, yet here we see him drunk and naked, cursing his grandson (Canaan) and all of his grandson's descendants with slavery because his son (Ham) saw him naked.
The curse of Canaan (9:22-27)
Noah (and presumably God) cursed his grandson Canaan - and all of Canaan's descendants with slavery. And since blacks were thought to have descended from Ham, this curse was used to justify slavery and racism.
The story about Noah's drunkenness and the curse of Canaan was obviously made up to justify the mistreatment and God-assisted slaughter of the Canaanites by the Israelites.
The descendants of Japheth, Ham, and Shem (10:1-24)
I'm leaving out this genealogy, since it the usual series of begats. But there are a few things I'd like to point out about it.
Canaan, who was cursed by his grandfather Noah, was the fourth son of Ham. (10:6)
Nimrod, who was "a mighty hunter before the Lord," was the son of Ham's first son, Cush. He was also the king of Babel - the tower of which will be covered in the next episode. (10:8-10)
And, according to this chapter, many languages existed before the Tower of Babel. (10:5, 20, 31)
When Terah was seventy years old, he became the father of Abraham, Nahor, and Haran. (11:26)
Like Noah who waited 500 years to have a family and then had three sons in one year, Abraham's father Terah waited seventy years and then had three sons in one year.
You might be wondering how long it was between Noah and Abraham. It turns out that the genealogy that we skipped in Genesis 11:10-26 has the answer!
Here's what it says:
Shem was 100 years old when his son Arphaxad was born. This was, according to v.10, two years after the flood.
[There's a slight discrepancy here, since Shem was born with Noah was 500 years old (5:32) and the flood happened when Noah was 600 years old (7:6). But maybe when you figure in gestation periods, it'd all work out.]
Araphaxad was 35 years old when Salah was born (v.12)
