Genesis 11

KJV · Chapter 11/50

¹And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

²And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

³And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.

⁴And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

⁵And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

⁶And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

⁷Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

⁸So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

⁹Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

¹⁰These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:

¹¹And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.

¹²And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah:

¹³And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.

¹⁴And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber:

¹⁵And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.

¹⁶And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg:

¹⁷And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters.

¹⁸And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu:

¹⁹And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters.

²⁰And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug:

²¹And Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters.

²²And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor:

²³And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.

²⁴And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah:

²⁵And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters.

²⁶And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

²⁷Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.

²⁸And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

²⁹And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.

³⁰But Sarai was barren; she had no child.

³¹And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.

³²And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Humanity, united by a single language, tries to build a tower reaching to heaven at Babel; God confuses their languages and scatters the people over the earth; the genealogy from Shem to Abram follows.

Explanation

The Tower of Babel is the portrait of a humanity that, instead of 'replenishing the earth' as God had commanded (Genesis 9:1), unites to make a name for itself and resist being scattered — an act of collective pride. God intervenes by confusing their languages, not as a cruel punishment, but as a way to keep that unchecked ambition from deepening even further. The result, the diversity of languages and peoples, is symbolically reversed centuries later at Pentecost (Acts 2), when people of various languages understand one another through the Holy Spirit. The second half of the chapter, with the genealogy from Shem to Abram, quietly prepares the most important turning point of the book: out of a scattered and confused humanity, God will choose a single family to bless the whole world.

Fun facts

'Babel' has a sound connection to the Hebrew verb 'balal' (to confuse), an intentional wordplay in the text; the historical city of Babylon did in fact have large temple towers called ziggurats, monumental structures that archaeologists have identified in the ruins of the region.
The chapter's final genealogy (Shem to Abram) is the literary bridge that links the 'universal' history of chapters 1-11 to the 'particular' history of the people of Israel, which begins in chapter 12 — a fundamental structural turning point in the book.

Verse-by-verse explanation

Genesis 11:1Before recounting the building of the tower, the text sets the scene: all of humanity still spoke a single language, which explains how they were able to organize together for the project described next.
Genesis 11:2People migrate from the east and find a plain in the land of Shinar—the same region as Babylon, where the city of Babel will be built.
Genesis 11:3Describes the technology used in the building: baked brick instead of stone, and tar instead of mortar—materials typical of Mesopotamia, where natural stone was scarce.
Genesis 11:4Building a city and a very tall tower was, above all, a way to become a strong, well-known people before humanity spread across the whole earth. Their fear was disappearing into the crowd without a trace, which is why they wanted to “make us a name” and stay concentrated in one place. This goes directly against what God had asked back in Genesis 1—to fill the whole earth, not cluster in a single spot.
Genesis 11:5Saying that the LORD “came down to see” is an ironic way of describing the scene: however tall the tower looked to its builders, it was still too small for Him to need to stoop down to see it.
Genesis 11:6God acknowledges the power of a people united by a single language—not as something bad in itself, but recognizing that this unity was being used for a project contrary to what He had asked, which was to spread out over the earth.
Genesis 11:7Confusing the language here doesn’t mean making everyone speak gibberish—it means suddenly creating different languages, so that groups who once understood each other stop understanding one another. Unable to coordinate anything among themselves, the people stop building and scatter into groups by language—which is exactly what the text is trying to explain: why there are peoples with such different languages.
Genesis 11:8With the languages confused, the group can no longer understand each other or continue the project, and the people scatter across the earth—exactly what they feared and had tried to avoid by building the tower.
Genesis 11:9The name “Babel” sounds similar, in Hebrew, to the word for “confuse,” and it’s this similar sound that the text uses to explain the origin of the city’s name. Outside the Bible, we know that in other ancient languages of the region “Babel” meant something like “gate of the god”—so it’s quite possible the author is playing on the sound of the words to tell this story, rather than recording the name’s real origin.
Genesis 11:10Another genealogy begins, this time from Shem down to Abram at the end of the chapter—a shorter list than the one in chapter 5, but following the same pattern of ages and sons.
Genesis 11:11After fathering Arphaxad, Shem still lived 500 more years, having other sons and daughters—following the same pattern used in the earlier genealogies.
Genesis 11:12Arphaxad fathers Salah at age 35, continuing the line that connects Shem to Abram.
Genesis 11:13After fathering Salah, Arphaxad lived 403 more years, with other sons and daughters.
Genesis 11:14Salah fathers Eber at age 30—the name that, a few generations earlier in chapter 10, had already been linked to the origin of the word “Hebrew.”
Genesis 11:15After fathering Eber, Salah lived 403 more years, having other sons and daughters.
Genesis 11:16Eber fathers Peleg at age 34—the same Peleg whose name, in chapter 10, was explained as tied to the division of the peoples after Babel.
Genesis 11:17After fathering Peleg, Eber lived 430 more years, with other sons and daughters.
Genesis 11:18Peleg fathers Reu at age 30, continuing the line that draws ever closer to Abram.
Genesis 11:19After fathering Reu, Peleg lived 209 more years, having other sons and daughters—a lifespan already much shorter than that of the ancestors before the flood.
Genesis 11:20Serug is Terah’s grandfather and Abram’s great-grandfather—another link in the line that connects the flood, through Shem, directly to the patriarch God would choose.
Genesis 11:21After fathering Serug, Reu lived 207 more years, with other sons and daughters.
Genesis 11:22Serug fathers Nahor at age 30, bringing the list even closer to Abram’s birth.
Genesis 11:23After fathering Nahor, Serug lived 200 more years, having other sons and daughters.
Genesis 11:24Nahor fathers Terah at age 29—the father of Abram, who will close out this genealogy in the next verse.
Genesis 11:25After fathering Terah, Nahor lived 119 more years, with other sons and daughters, closing the second-to-last link before reaching Abram.
Genesis 11:26At age 70, Terah fathers three sons: Abram, Nahor, and Haran—the first of them, Abram, will be the protagonist of the rest of the book of Genesis.
Genesis 11:27Repeats Terah’s three sons and introduces Lot, son of Haran—the nephew who will accompany Abram through much of the journey told in the coming chapters.
Genesis 11:28Haran dies while his father is still alive, in the family’s hometown, Ur of the Chaldees—which is why Lot, his son, grows up under the care of his grandfather and later his uncle Abram.
Genesis 11:29Introduces the wives of Abram and Nahor: Sarai, who will be central to the story from here on, and Milcah, daughter of the now-deceased Haran.
Genesis 11:30A detail that will weigh on the whole story that follows: Sarai could not have children—this lack of offspring is the backdrop for the promise God makes to Abram in the next chapter.
Genesis 11:31Ur of the Chaldees was one of the great cities of Mesopotamia, quite far from Canaan—Terah’s family leaving from there was a long migration, not a quick trip. They stopped partway, in the city of Haran, and settled there for a while before the journey continued with Abram in the following chapters.
Genesis 11:32Closes the genealogy with Terah’s death, at 205 years old, in Haran—the city where the family had stopped on the way to Canaan, and from which Abram will set out alone with his household.