^11:8So the Lord scattered them from there across the face of the entire earth, and they stopped building²¹ the city. ^11:9That is why its name was called²² Babel²³—because there the Lord confused the language of the entire world, and from there the Lord scattered them across the face of the entire earth.

The Genealogy of Shem

^11:10This is the account of Shem.

Shem was 100 old when he became the father of Arphaxad, two years after the flood. ^11:11And after becoming the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other²⁴ sons and daughters.

^11:12When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah. ^11:13And after he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other²⁵ sons and daughters.²⁶

^11:14When Shelah had lived 30 years, he became the father of Eber. ^11:15And after he became the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other²⁷ sons and daughters.

^11:16When Eber had lived 34 years, he became the father of Peleg. ^11:17And after he became the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.

^11:18When Peleg had lived 30 years, he became the father of Reu. ^11:19And after he became the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

^11:20When Reu had lived 32 years, he became the father of Serug. ^11:21And after he became the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

^11:22When Serug had lived 30 years, he became the father of Nahor. ^11:23And after he became the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.

^11:24When Nahor had lived 29 years, he became the father of Terah. ^11:25And after he became the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

^11:26When Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

The Record of Terah

^11:27This is the account of Terah.

Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. ^11:28Haran died in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans,²⁸ while his father Terah was still alive.²⁹^11:29And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai,³⁰ and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah;³¹ she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. ^11:30But Sarai was barren; she had no children.

^11:31Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (the son of Haran), and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and with them he set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. When they came to Haran, they settled there. ^11:32The lifetime³² of Terah was 205 years, and he³³ died in Haran.

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Footnotes

19 The cohortatives mirror the cohortatives of the people. They build to ascend the heavens; God comes down to destroy their language. God speaks here to his angelic assembly. See the notes on the word “make” in and “know” in , as well as 10:22–23, where an angel recounts this incident and says “And the Lord our God said to us.… And the Lord went down and we went down with him. And we saw the city and the tower which the sons of men built.” On the chiastic structure of the story, see G. J. Wenham, Genesis (), 1:.
20 Heb “they will not hear, a man the lip of his neighbor.”
21 The infinitive construct לִבְנֹת (livnot, “building”) here serves as the object of the verb “they ceased, stopped,” answering the question of what they stopped doing.
22 The verb has no expressed subject and so can be rendered as a passive in the translation.
23 Babel. Here is the climax of the account, a parody on the pride of Babylon. In the Babylonian literature the name bab-ili meant “the gate of God,” but in Hebrew it sounds like the word for “confusion,” and so retained that connotation. The name “Babel” (בָּבֶל, bavel) and the verb translated “confused” (בָּלַל, balal) form a paronomasia (sound play). For the many wordplays and other rhetorical devices in Genesis, see J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis ().
24 The word “other” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.
25 The word “other” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.
26 The reading of the is followed in vv. 11–12; the reads, “And [= when] Arphaxad had lived thirty-five years, [and] he fathered [= became the father of] Cainan. And after he fathered [= became the father of] Cainan, Arphaxad lived four hundred and thirty years and fathered [= had] [other] sons and daughters, and [then] he died. And [= when] Cainan had lived one hundred and thirty years, [and] he fathered [= became the father of] Sala [= Shelah]. And after he fathered [= became the father of] Sala [= Shelah], Cainan lived three hundred and thirty years and fathered [= had] [other] sons and daughters, and [then] he died.” See also the note on “Shelah” in ; the reading also appears to lie behind Luke 3:35–36.
27 Here and in vv. 16, 19, 21, 23, 25 the word “other” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.
28 The phrase of the Chaldeans is a later editorial clarification for the readers, designating the location of Ur. From all evidence there would have been no Chaldeans in existence at this early date; they are known in the time of the neo-Babylonian empire in the first millennium b.c.
29 Heb “upon the face of Terah his father.”
30 The name Sarai (a variant spelling of “Sarah”) means “princess” (or “lady”). Sharratu was the name of the wife of the moon god Sin. The original name may reflect the culture out of which the patriarch was called, for the family did worship other gods in Mesopotamia.
31 The name Milcah means “Queen.” But more to the point here is the fact that Malkatu was a title for Ishtar, the daughter of the moon god. If the women were named after such titles (and there is no evidence that this was the motivation for naming the girls “Princess” or “Queen”), that would not necessarily imply anything about the faith of the two women themselves.
32 Heb “And the days of Terah were.”
33 Heb “Terah”; the pronoun has been substituted for the proper name in the translation for stylistic reasons.