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Genesis · Bible in Basic English

Genesis 11 Bible in Basic English

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About BBE
  • Scholarly edition
  • OT: Masoretic Hebrew (not verified)
  • NT: Critical text (not verified)
  • Protestant (66 books)
  • Simplified language
  • 1965
  • Public domain

Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings

1 And all the earth had one language and one tongue. 2 And it came about that in their wandering from the east, they came to a stretch of flat country in the land of Shinar, and there they made their living-place. 3 And they said one to another, Come, let us make bricks, burning them well. And they had bricks for stone, putting them together with sticky earth. 4 And they said, Come, let us make a town, and a tower whose top will go up as high as heaven; and let us make a great name for ourselves, so that we may not be wanderers over the face of the earth. 5 And the Lord came down to see the town and the tower which the children of men were building. 6 And the Lord said, See, they are all one people and have all one language; and this is only the start of what they may do: and now it will not be possible to keep them from any purpose of theirs. 7 Come, let us go down and take away the sense of their language, so that they will not be able to make themselves clear to one another. 8 So the Lord God sent them away into every part of the earth: and they gave up building their town. 9 So it was named Babel, because there the Lord took away the sense of all languages and from there the Lord sent them away over all the face of the earth. 10◆ These are the generations of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old when he became the father of Arpachshad, two years after the great flow of waters; 11◆ And after the birth of Arpachshad, Shem went on living for five hundred years, and had sons and daughters: 12◆ And Arpachshad was thirty-five years old when he became the father of Shelah: 13◆ And after the birth of Shelah, Arpachshad went on living for four hundred and three years, and had sons and daughters: 14◆ And Shelah was thirty years old when he became the father of Eber: 15◆ And after the birth of Eber, Shelah went on living for four hundred and three years, and had sons and daughters: 16◆ And Eber was thirty-four years old when he became the father of Peleg: 17◆ And after the birth of Peleg, Eber went on living for four hundred and thirty years, and had sons and daughters: 18◆ And Peleg was thirty years old when he became the father of Reu: 19◆ And after the birth of Reu, Peleg went on living for two hundred and nine years, and had sons and daughters: 20◆ And Reu was thirty-two years old when he became the father of Serug: 21◆ And after the birth of Serug, Reu went on living for two hundred and seven years, and had sons and daughters: 22◆ And Serug was thirty years old when he became the father of Nahor: 23◆ And after the birth of Nahor, Serug went on living for two hundred years, and had sons and daughters: 24◆ And Nahor was twenty-nine years old when he became the father of Terah: 25◆ And after the birth of Terah, Nahor went on living for a hundred and nineteen years, and had sons and daughters: 26◆ And Terah was seventy years old when he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. 27 These are the generations of Terah: Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran was the father of Lot. 28 And death came to Haran when he was with his father Terah in the land of his birth, Ur of the Chaldees. 29 And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30 And Sarai had no child. 31 And Terah took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, the wife of his son Abram and they went out from Ur of the Chaldees, to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran, and were there for some time. 32 And all the years of Terah's life were two hundred and five: and Terah came to his end in Haran.

People & places in this chapter

From this site's family tree and Bible maps, only where those guides cite this chapter.

People

  • Arphaxad

    Son of Shem

    Born two years after the flood, a link from Shem toward Abraham.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 10:22–24; 11:10–13

  • Eber

    Namesake of the Hebrews

    The name behind the word 'Hebrew,' father of Peleg.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 10:24–25; 11:14–17

  • Haran

    Father of Lot

    Abraham's brother who died young in Ur, leaving his son Lot.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:26–31

  • Iscah

    Daughter of Haran

    A daughter of Haran and the sister of Milcah, named only in the account of Terah's family.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:29

  • Lot

    Abraham's nephew

    Abraham's nephew who chose the plain of Jordan and settled near Sodom.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 11–14; 19

  • Milcah

    Wife of Nahor, daughter of Haran

    Haran's daughter and the sister of Iscah, who became the wife of Nahor.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:29; Genesis 22:20; Genesis 22:23

  • Nahor

    Abraham's grandfather

    The grandfather of Abraham, standing just before Terah in the line.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:22–25

  • Nahor

    Son of Terah, brother of Abram

    Terah's son and the brother of Abram and Haran, who took Milcah, the daughter of Haran, as his wife.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:26; Genesis 11:27; Genesis 11:29

  • Peleg

    Son of Eber

    In his days, Scripture says, the earth was divided.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 10:25; 11:16–19

  • Reu

    Son of Peleg

    A link in the generations descending toward Abraham.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:18–21

  • Serug

    Son of Reu

    Great-grandfather of Abraham in the line from Shem.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:20–23

  • Shelah

    Son of Arphaxad

    A quiet link in the line from Shem to Eber and Abraham.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 10:24; 11:12–15

  • Shem

    Ancestor of the Hebrews

    Noah's blessed son, ancestor of the Semitic peoples and of Abraham.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 9:18–10:31; 11:10–26

  • Terah

    Father of Abraham

    He left Ur with his family and journeyed toward Canaan, settling in Haran.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:24–32

Places

  • Haran

    Today: Southern Turkey (Upper Mesopotamia)

    A caravan city in Upper Mesopotamia and the family's waypoint between Ur and Canaan. Abraham departed from here for Canaan; Jacob later sojourned with Laban nearby.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:31; Genesis 12:4; Genesis 28:10

  • Ur

    Today: Southern Iraq (near the Euphrates)

    Traditionally the southern Sumerian city (Tell el-Muqayyar) with its famous ziggurat, though some scholars argue for a northern Ur (location debated). Abraham set out from here.

    Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:31; Genesis 15:7; Nehemiah 9:7

Cross references (23)

Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.

  1. 1 Acts 2:6; Zephaniah 3:9; Isaiah 19:18
  2. 2 Daniel 1:2; Genesis 10:10; Genesis 14:1; Isaiah 11:11; Zechariah 5:11
  3. 3 Genesis 14:10; Exodus 1:14; Exodus 2:3; James 5:1; Hebrews 10:24
  4. 4 Deuteronomy 1:28; John 5:44; Luke 1:51; Deuteronomy 9:1; Daniel 4:30
  5. 5 Psalm 33:13–14; Genesis 18:21; John 3:13; Hebrews 4:13; Jeremiah 23:23–24
  6. 6 Psalm 2:1–4; Genesis 3:22; Genesis 11:1; Ecclesiastes 11:9; Luke 1:51
  7. 7 Psalm 33:10; Job 5:12–13; Genesis 1:26; Psalm 55:9; 1 Corinthians 14:2–11
  8. 8 Luke 1:51; Genesis 10:32; Genesis 10:25; Deuteronomy 32:8; Genesis 11:4
  9. 9 Genesis 10:10; Genesis 10:5; Acts 17:26; Genesis 10:20; 1 Corinthians 14:23
  10. 10 1 Chronicles 1:17–27; Luke 3:34–36; Genesis 11:27; Genesis 10:21–22
  11. 11 Genesis 9:7; Psalm 144:12; Genesis 1:28; Genesis 5:4–32; Psalm 127:3–4
  12. 12 Luke 3:36
  13. 16 Luke 3:35; Numbers 24:24; Genesis 10:21; 1 Chronicles 1:19; Genesis 10:25
  14. 18 Luke 3:35
  15. 20 Luke 3:35
  16. 22 Joshua 24:2
  17. 24 Luke 3:34; Joshua 24:2
  18. 26 Joshua 24:2; Genesis 12:4–5; 1 Chronicles 1:26–27; Genesis 22:20–24; Genesis 29:4–5
  19. 27 Genesis 14:12; Genesis 12:4; Genesis 11:31; 2 Peter 2:7; Genesis 13:1–11
  20. 28 Genesis 15:7; Genesis 11:31; Acts 7:2–4; Nehemiah 9:7
  21. 29 Genesis 17:15; Genesis 22:20; Genesis 24:15; Genesis 20:12
  22. 30 Judges 13:2; Genesis 25:21; 1 Samuel 1:2; Luke 1:7; Luke 1:36
  23. 31 Nehemiah 9:7; Acts 7:2–4; Genesis 12:4; Joshua 24:2–3; Genesis 15:7

Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences

Why does my Bible say something different?

What the Fathers said

Passages from the Church Fathers that expound or quote this chapter, verbatim from the public-domain Schaff edition (19th-century English translations).

How these were chosen

“Commentary” is the opening of a homily or exposition on this chapter (John Chrysostom’s homilies, Augustine’s tractates, sermons and expositions of the Psalms). “Quotes” are sentences where the edition’s own footnotes identify a quotation of a verse here, kept only when the wording matches the verse. Only works whose authorship is not in doubt are used. Psalms follow the Hebrew/English numbering (Augustine numbers them as the Septuagint does: his Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 here).

  1. Quotes verse 11:1–9 Augustine of Hippo, The City of God (Book XVI, Chapters 3–4)

    Therefore the name of it is called Confusion; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and the Lord God scattered them thence on the face of all the earth." This city, which was called Confusion, is the same as Babylon, whose wonderful construction Gentile history also notices.

    Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 2 (1887)

  2. Quotes verse 11:6 Augustine of Hippo, The City of God (Book XVI, Chapters 5–8)

    The words, "Nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do," are assuredly not meant as an affirmation, but as an interrogation, such as is used by persons threatening, as e.g., when Dido exclaims, "They will not take arms and pursue?" We are to understand the words as if it had been said, Shall nothing be restrained …

    Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 2 (1887)

  3. Quotes verse 11:27–29 Augustine of Hippo, The City of God (Book XVI, Chapters 12–15)

    And 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." This Iscah is supposed to be the same as Sarah, Abraham's wife.

    Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 2 (1887)