Atlas Biblica

    Genesis · 32 verses

    Genesis 11

    Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.

    The chapter

    What happens here

    Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.

    A tower meant to reach the heavens requires the LORD to come down to inspect it; then its builders lose the single language that made the grand scheme possible.

    The tower and the scatteringvv. 1–9

    The whole world begins with one language, and the people settle on a plain in Shinar. Their ambition is grand, but their materials are wonderfully down to earth: baked brick and tar. They plan a city and a tower reaching the heavens, chiefly so that they may make a name and avoid being scattered. The LORD comes down to inspect this heavenward construction, confuses their speech, and scatters them after all. The city stops, and the place is called Babel—a name bestowed by linguistic mishap upon a project designed to prevent precisely that sort of dispersal.

    From Shem to Terahvv. 10–32

    The story now proceeds by fathers, sons, ages, and an impressive supply of other sons and daughters. Shem fathers Arphaxad; the line runs through Shelah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, and Nahor to Terah. Terah fathers Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran dies in Ur of the Chaldeans, leaving Lot, while Abram marries Sarai and Nahor marries Milcah, Haran’s daughter; Iscah is named as Haran’s other daughter. Sarai has no children. Terah then leads Abram, Lot, and Sarai out from Ur of the Chaldeans toward Canaan, but the family settles in Haran, where Terah dies. The chapter thus ends not at the promised destination, but at an unexpected stopping place.

    The text

    Read it

    Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.

    1. Gen 11:1Now the whole world had one language and a common form of speech.

    2. Gen 11:2And as people journeyed eastward, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

    3. Gen 11:3And 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. Gen 11:4“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.”

    5. Gen 11:5Then the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men were building.

    6. Gen 11:6And 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.

    7. Gen 11:7Come, let Us go down and confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

    8. Gen 11:8So the LORD scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

    9. Gen 11:9That 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.

    10. Gen 11:10This is the account of Shem. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad.

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

    12. Gen 11:12When Arphaxad was 35 years old, he became the father of Shelah.

    13. Gen 11:13And after he had become the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

    14. Gen 11:14When Shelah was 30 years old, he became the father of Eber.

    15. Gen 11:15And after he had become the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

    16. Gen 11:16When Eber was 34 years old, he became the father of Peleg.

    17. Gen 11:17And after he had become the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.

    18. Gen 11:18When Peleg was 30 years old, he became the father of Reu.

    19. Gen 11:19And after he had become the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

    20. Gen 11:20When Reu was 32 years old, he became the father of Serug.

    21. Gen 11:21And after he had become the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

    22. Gen 11:22When Serug was 30 years old, he became the father of Nahor.

    23. Gen 11:23And after he had become the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.

    24. Gen 11:24When Nahor was 29 years old, he became the father of Terah.

    25. Gen 11:25And after he had become the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

    26. Gen 11:26When Terah was 70 years old, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

    27. Gen 11:27This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot.

    28. Gen 11:28During his father Terah’s lifetime, Haran died in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

    29. Gen 11:29And 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.

    30. Gen 11:30But Sarai was barren; she had no children.

    31. Gen 11:31And 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.

    32. Gen 11:32Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.

    01 — Also here

    Who else the chapter reaches

    Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.

    Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.

    Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.

    02 — Read alongside

    Where this is echoed

    Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 162 passages were voted onto 23 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.

    • 1Acts 2:6And when this sound rang out, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking his own language.
    • 1Zephaniah 3:9For then I will restore pure lips to the peoples, that all may call upon the name of the LORD and serve Him shoulder to shoulder.
    • 4Deuteronomy 1:28Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying: ‘The people are larger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the heavens. We even saw the descendants of the Anakim there.’”
    • 4John 5:44How can you believe if you accept glory from one another, yet do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?
    • 6Psalms 2:1–4Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
    • 8Luke 1:51He has performed mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who are proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
    • 5Psalms 33:13–14The LORD looks down from heaven; He sees all the sons of men.
    • 5Genesis 18:21I will go down to see if their actions fully justify the outcry that has reached Me. If not, I will find out.”
    • 7Psalms 33:10The LORD frustrates the plans of the nations; He thwarts the devices of the peoples.
    • 31Nehemiah 9:7You are the LORD, the God who chose Abram, who brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham.
    • 5John 3:13No one has ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven—the Son of Man.
    • 9Genesis 10:5From these, the maritime peoples separated into their territories, according to their languages, by clans within their nations.
    • 9Genesis 10:10His kingdom began in Babylon, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
    • 4Deuteronomy 9:1Hear, O Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities fortified to the heavens.
    • 4Daniel 4:30the king exclaimed, “Is this not Babylon the Great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?”
    • 9Genesis 10:20These are the sons of Ham according to their clans, languages, lands, and nations.

    Onward

    Keep reading

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