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Genesis · Literal Standard Version

Genesis 11 Literal Standard Version

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About LSV
  • Protestant
  • OT: Masoretic Hebrew
  • NT: Majority (Byzantine) text
  • Protestant (66 books)
  • Very literal
  • 2020
  • CC BY-SA 4.0

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

1 And the whole earth is of one language, and of the same words, 2 and it comes to pass, in their journeying from the east, that they find a valley in the land of Shinar and dwell there; 3 and they each say to his neighbor, “Give help, let us make bricks, and burn [them] thoroughly”: and the brick is to them for stone, and the bitumen has been to them for mortar. 4 And they say, “Give help, let us build for ourselves a city and tower with its head in the heavens, and make for ourselves a name, lest we be scattered over the face of all the earth.” 5 And YHWH comes down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men have built; 6 and YHWH says, “Behold, the people [is] one, and one language [is] to them all, and this it has dreamed of doing; and now, nothing is restrained from them of that which they have purposed to do. 7 Give help, let us go down there and confuse their language, so that a man will not understand the language of his companion.” 8 And YHWH scatters them from there over the face of all the earth, and they cease to build the city; 9 therefore [one] has called its name Babel, for there YHWH has confused the language of all the earth, and from there YHWH has scattered them over the face of all the earth. 10◆ These [are] the generations of Shem: Shem [is] a son of one hundred years, and begets Arphaxad two years after the flood. 11◆ And Shem lives after his begetting Arphaxad five hundred years, and begets sons and daughters. 12◆ And Arphaxad has lived thirty-five years [[or one hundred and thirty-five years]], and begets Salah. 13◆ And Arphaxad lives after his begetting Salah four hundred and three years [[or four hundred and thirty years]], and begets sons and daughters. 14◆ And Salah has lived thirty years [[or one hundred and thirty years]], and begets Eber. 15◆ And Salah lives after his begetting Eber four hundred and three years [[or three hundred and thirty years]], and begets sons and daughters. 16◆ And Eber lives thirty-four years [[or one hundred and thirty-four years]], and begets Peleg. 17◆ And Eber lives after his begetting Peleg four hundred and thirty years [[or three hundred and seventy years]], and begets sons and daughters. 18◆ And Peleg lives thirty years [[or one hundred and thirty years]], and begets Reu. 19◆ And Peleg lives after his begetting Reu two hundred and nine years, and begets sons and daughters. 20◆ And Reu lives thirty-two years [[or one hundred and thirty-two years]], and begets Serug. 21◆ And Reu lives after his begetting Serug two hundred and seven years, and begets sons and daughters. 22◆ And Serug lives thirty years [[or one hundred and thirty years]], and begets Nahor. 23◆ And Serug lives after his begetting Nahor two hundred years, and begets sons and daughters. 24◆ And Nahor lives twenty-nine years [[or seventy-nine years]], and begets Terah. 25◆ And Nahor lives after his begetting Terah one hundred and nineteen years [[or one hundred and twenty-nine years]], and begets sons and daughters. 26◆ And Terah lives seventy years, and begets Abram, Nahor, and Haran. 27 And these [are] the generations of Terah: Terah has begotten Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran has begotten Lot; 28 and Haran dies in the presence of Terah his father, in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldees. 29 And Abram and Nahor take to themselves wives; the name of Abram’s wife [is] Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife [is] Milcah, daughter of Haran, father of Milcah, and father of Iscah. 30 And Sarai is barren—she has no child. 31 And Terah takes his son Abram, and Lot, son of Haran, his son’s son, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, wife of his son Abram, and they go out with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go toward the land of Canaan; and they come to Haran, and dwell there. 32 And the days of Terah are two hundred and five years, and Terah dies 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

  • 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)