Genesis 11: Verse-by-Verse Commentary (with Videos)

¹Now the whole world had one language and a common form of speech.

²And as people journeyed eastward, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

³And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” So they used brick instead of stone, and tar instead of mortar.

⁴“Come,” they said, “let us build for ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of all the earth.”

⁵Then the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men were building.

⁶And the LORD said, “If they have begun to do this as one people speaking the same language, then nothing they devise will be beyond them.

⁷Come, let Us go down and confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

⁸So the LORD scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

⁹That is why it is called Babel, for there the LORD confused the language of the whole world, and from that place the LORD scattered them over the face of all the earth.

¹⁰This is the account of Shem. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad.

¹¹And after he had become the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹²When Arphaxad was 35 years old, he became the father of Shelah.

¹³And after he had become the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁴When Shelah was 30 years old, he became the father of Eber.

¹⁵And after he had become the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁶When Eber was 34 years old, he became the father of Peleg.

¹⁷And after he had become the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁸When Peleg was 30 years old, he became the father of Reu.

¹⁹And after he had become the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁰When Reu was 32 years old, he became the father of Serug.

²¹And after he had become the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

²²When Serug was 30 years old, he became the father of Nahor.

²³And after he had become the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁴When Nahor was 29 years old, he became the father of Terah.

²⁵And after he had become the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁶When Terah was 70 years old, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

²⁷This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot.

²⁸During his father Terah’s lifetime, Haran died in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

²⁹And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. Abram’s wife was named Sarai, and Nahor’s wife was named Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, who was the father of both Milcah and Iscah.

³⁰But Sarai was barren; she had no children.

³¹And Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai the wife of Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan. But when they arrived in Haran, they settled there.

³²Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.