11:1__9 __The Tower of Babel. This episode is significantly more important than its length suggests. It presents a unified humanity using all its resources to established a city that is the antithesis of what God intended when he created the world. The tower is a symbol of human autonomy, and the city builders see themselves as determining and establishing their own destiny without any reference to the Lord. (The tower story may also be a polemic against Mesopotamian mythology. Eridu Genesis, a fragmentary text found at Ur, Nippur, and Nineveh, describes the goddess Nintur's calling for humanity to build cities and to congregate in one place. Her desire, according to this text, is that humans be sedentary and not nomadic. Yahweh demands just the opposite, so that the earth would become populated.)
11:1 _The opening desciption of the whole earth having one language indicates that the present episode is not placed chronologically after the events narrated in chapter 10, which specifically mention nations and languages. This incident, however, may have occured during the broad period covered in chapter 10, especially if it is linked to the naming of Peleg in 10:25 (See 10:21__32).
11:2__4 _Come, let us build ourselves a city . . .and let us make a name for ourselves. The Babel enterprise is all about human independence and self-sufficiency apart from God. The builders believe that they have no need of God. Their techology and social unity give them confidence in their own ability. and they have high aspirations, constructing a tower with its top in the heavens (11:4). Contrary to God's plan that people should fill the earth (1:22, 28; 9:1, 7), the city-building project is designed to prevent the population from being dispersed over the face of the whole earth (11:4). By showing God's continued interest in his creatures, this episode provides the setting for the call of Abram out of this very region, to be the vehicle of blessing to the whole world.
11:5__8 _With irony, the narrator points out that it was necessary for the Lord to come down in order to see the city and the tower (verse 5). Acknowledging the potential danger of a unified, self-confident humanity (verse 6), God intervenes by confusing their language so that they cannot understand one another. This has the desired effect of dispersing the people thoughout the world (verses 8__9).
11:9 _This verse links the name of the city, Babel (HEBREW babel), with the verb balal, which means "to confuse, to mix, to mingle." But babel is also the name used in the OT for the city of Babylon. As a city, Babylon symbolizes humanity's ambition to dethrone God and make the earth its own (See REVELATION 17__18).
11:10__26 _Shem's Descendants. Resembling the list of Adam's descendants in 5:3__31, the present linear genealogy traces Noah's line through Shem down to Terah, the father of Adam, Nahor, and Haran. While the pattern is almost identical to that used in chapter 5, the final element, "Thus all the days of A were Z years, and he died," is missing. Also unlike chapter 5, no additional information is inserted. Consequently, the list moves swiftly from Shem to Terah. While the periods mentioned are still unusually long, they gradually become somewhat shorter. The length of time during which these men live is much shorter than is recorded for men living before the flood (5:1__32). This is similar to the pattern found in a clay tablet from the Mesopotamian city of Uruk, called the Sumerian king list (See 5:1__32). It was inscribed by a scribe during the reign of king Utukhegal, about 2100 B. C. it tells of kings who reigned for extremely long times. A flood then came, and subsequent kings ruled for vastly shorter times.
11:26 _The regular pattern of the genealogy is broken with the naming of Terah's three sons. Before this, only the son through whom the linear genealogy is traced is specifically named in each generation. Abram comes first in the list because the ongoing family line is traced through him.
11:27__50:26 _Patriarchal History. The narrative now moves from the general survey of humanity to the specific family from which Israel comes. The narrative style becomes severely matter-of-fact. The narrator devotes much more time to describing the lives of the characters: whereas chapters 1__11 covers many generations in only 11 chapters, the patriarchal history deals with only four generations in 39 chapters. It begins with Abraham and goes on to his son Isaac, and Isaac's two sons Jacob and Esau; the final section focuses on Jacob's sons, especially Joseph. Here the specifics of being Israel are made clear: the land, the people, the blessing, and the calling. The Sinai (or Mosaic) covenant, which the first audience for the chapters receives, will provide the setting in which Israel is to put these patriarchal promises into practice. Thoughout these chapters the readers will see how God has preserved the members of his chosen family, whose calling it is to walk with him, to be the headwaters of a special people and to be the channel by which blessing comes to the entire world.
11:27__25:18 _Terah's Descendants. A new heading identified by the expression "these are the generations of," introduces the next main section of Genesis (See 2:4). These chapters focus on the immediate family of Terah. Special attention is given to Abraham because the unique family line of Genesis is continued through him.
11:27__32 _A Brief introduction to Terah's Family. Various details pertinent to understanding the subsequent narrative are given: the death of Lot's father, Haran (verse 28); the relocation of the family from southern to northern Mesopotamia (verse 31); and the inability of Abram's wife to have children (verse 30).
# :27 _Abram will later have his name changed to "Abraham" (See verse 17:5).
11:28 _Ur of the Chaldeans is unquestionably the ancient city in Southern Babylonia, the remains of which are located at Tell el-Muqayyar in modern Iraq. Archaeological investigations by Leonard Woolley from 1922-1934 uncovered evidence of a highly developed urban culture in the time of Abram, a culture that developed around 2000 B. C. The term "Chaldeans" probably dates from the period 1000-500 B. C. and has been added to distinguish this Ur from similarly named cities in northern Mesopotamia "Chaldeans" refer to the Kaldu people who settled in southern Babylonia from about 1200 B. C. onward.
11:29 _The name Sarai is later changed to "Sarah" (verses 17:15). Sarai's barrenness is an obvious barrier to the continuation of Abram's family line. The initial barrenness of the patriarchs wives is a recurring motif in (See Genesis 25:21; 29:31).
11:31__32 _According to the Kultepe Texts from the nineteenth century B. C. (texts composed be Assyrian traders who clearly understood such matters), Haran was an important crossroads and commercial center in the ancient Near East.
11:31 _Although Terah's ambition is to move his family from Ur to Canaan they do not complete the journey, but settle in northern Mesopotamia at Haran (the location in Turkey is now called Eskiharran, "old Harran"). The spelling of the town name "Haran" in Hebrew is quite distinct from the name of Terah's third son. (This is the Bible's first reference to "the land of Canaan."But the Ebla archives, found in northern Syria in the 1970s, contain day tablets dating to c. 2300 B. C. They make mention of certain geographical places found in Scripture, such as Sodom and Zeboiim, two cities in the episode of the war of the kings [GENESIS 14:1__16]. In addition, the first time the name "Canaan" is used in extrabiblical literature is at Ebla, in tablets that predate the biblical writings by centuries).
11:32 _By way of completing this short introduction to Terah's family, the narrative records his death at the age of 205. If Abram was born when Terah was 70 years old (See verse 26), and if Abram was 75 years old when he departed for Canaan (See verse 12:4), then Terah died 60 years after Abram's departure (70 + 75 + 60 = 205). In ACTS 7:4, however, Stephen says that Abram left Haran after the death of Terah. A simple way to resolve the chronological difficulty is to suppose that Stephen was following an alternative text (represented today in the Samaritant Pentateuch), which says that Terah died at the age of 145.
