1 Erat autem terra labii unius, et sermonum eorumdem. 2 Cumque proficiscerentur de oriente, invenerunt campum in terra Sennaar, et habitaverunt in eo. 3 Dixitque alter ad proximum suum: Venite, faciamus lateres, et coquamus eos igni. Habueruntque lateres pro saxis, et bitumen pro cæmento: 4 et dixerunt: Venite, faciamus nobis civitatem et turrim, cujus culmen pertingat ad cælum: et celebremus nomen nostrum antequam dividamur in universas terras. 5 Descendit autem Dominus ut videret civitatem et turrim, quam ædificabant filii Adam, 6 et dixit: Ecce, unus est populus, et unum labium omnibus: cœperuntque hoc facere, nec desistent a cogitationibus suis, donec eas opere compleant. 7 Venite igitur, descendamus, et confundamus ibi linguam eorum, ut non audiat unusquisque vocem proximi sui. 8 Atque ita divisit eos Dominus ex illo loco in universas terras, et cessaverunt ædificare civitatem. 9 Et idcirco vocatum est nomen ejus Babel, quia ibi confusum est labium universæ terræ: et inde dispersit eos Dominus super faciem cunctarum regionum. 10◆ Hæ sunt generationes Sem: Sem erat centum annorum quando genuit Arphaxad, biennio post diluvium. 11◆ Vixitque Sem, postquam genuit Arphaxad, quingentis annis: et genuit filios et filias. 12◆ Porro Arphaxad vixit triginta quinque annis, et genuit Sale. 13◆ Vixitque Arphaxad, postquam genuit Sale, trecentis tribus annis: et genuit filios et filias. 14◆ Sale quoque vixit triginta annis, et genuit Heber. 15◆ Vixitque Sale, postquam genuit Heber, quadringentis tribus annis: et genuit filios et filias. 16◆ Vixit autem Heber triginta quatuor annis, et genuit Phaleg. 17◆ Et vixit Heber postquam genuit Phaleg, quadringentis triginta annis: et genuit filios et filias. 18◆ Vixit quoque Phaleg triginta annis, et genuit Reu. 19◆ Vixitque Phaleg, postquam genuit Reu, ducentis novem annis: et genuit filios et filias. 20◆ Vixit autem Reu triginta duobus annis, et genuit Sarug. 21◆ Vixit quoque Reu, postquam genuit Sarug, ducentis septem annis: et genuit filios et filias. 22◆ Vixit vero Sarug triginta annis, et genuit Nachor. 23◆ Vixitque Sarug, postquam genuit Nachor, ducentis annis: et genuit filios et filias. 24◆ Vixit autem Nachor viginti novem annis, et genuit Thare. 25◆ Vixitque Nachor, postquam genuit Thare, centum decem et novem annis: et genuit filios et filias. 26◆ Vixitque Thare septuaginta annis, et genuit Abram, et Nachor, et Aran. 27 Hæ sunt autem generationes Thare: Thare genuit Abram, Nachor et Aran. Porro Aran genuit Lot. 28 Mortuusque est Aran ante Thare patrem suum, in terra nativitatis suæ, in Ur Chaldæorum. 29 Duxerunt autem Abram et Nachor uxores: nomen uxoris Abram, Sarai: et nomen uxoris Nachor, Melcha filia Aran, patris Melchæ, et patris Jeschæ. 30 Erat autem Sarai sterilis, nec habebat liberos. 31 Tulit itaque Thare Abram filium suum, et Lot filium Aran, filium filii sui, et Sarai nurum suam, uxorem Abram filii sui, et eduxit eos de Ur Chaldæorum, ut irent in terram Chanaan: veneruntque usque Haran, et habitaverunt ibi. 32 Et facti sunt dies Thare ducentorum quinque annorum, et mortuus est in Haran.
Genesis 11 Clementine Vulgate
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
People & places in this chapter
From this site's family tree and Bible maps, only where those guides cite this chapter.
People
Arphaxad
Born two years after the flood, a link from Shem toward Abraham.
Cited in the guide: Genesis 10:22–24; 11:10–13
Eber
The name behind the word 'Hebrew,' father of Peleg.
Cited in the guide: Genesis 10:24–25; 11:14–17
Haran
Abraham's brother who died young in Ur, leaving his son Lot.
Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:26–31
Iscah
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 who chose the plain of Jordan and settled near Sodom.
Cited in the guide: Genesis 11–14; 19
Milcah
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
The grandfather of Abraham, standing just before Terah in the line.
Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:22–25
Nahor
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
In his days, Scripture says, the earth was divided.
Cited in the guide: Genesis 10:25; 11:16–19
Reu
A link in the generations descending toward Abraham.
Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:18–21
Serug
Great-grandfather of Abraham in the line from Shem.
Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:20–23
Shelah
A quiet link in the line from Shem to Eber and Abraham.
Cited in the guide: Genesis 10:24; 11:12–15
Shem
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
He left Ur with his family and journeyed toward Canaan, settling in Haran.
Cited in the guide: Genesis 11:24–32
Places
Haran
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
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 Acts 2:6; Zephaniah 3:9; Isaiah 19:18
- 2 Daniel 1:2; Genesis 10:10; Genesis 14:1; Isaiah 11:11; Zechariah 5:11
- 3 Genesis 14:10; Exodus 1:14; Exodus 2:3; James 5:1; Hebrews 10:24
- 4 Deuteronomy 1:28; John 5:44; Luke 1:51; Deuteronomy 9:1; Daniel 4:30
- 5 Psalm 33:13–14; Genesis 18:21; John 3:13; Hebrews 4:13; Jeremiah 23:23–24
- 6 Psalm 2:1–4; Genesis 3:22; Genesis 11:1; Ecclesiastes 11:9; Luke 1:51
- 7 Psalm 33:10; Job 5:12–13; Genesis 1:26; Psalm 55:9; 1 Corinthians 14:2–11
- 8 Luke 1:51; Genesis 10:32; Genesis 10:25; Deuteronomy 32:8; Genesis 11:4
- 9 Genesis 10:10; Genesis 10:5; Acts 17:26; Genesis 10:20; 1 Corinthians 14:23
- 10 1 Chronicles 1:17–27; Luke 3:34–36; Genesis 11:27; Genesis 10:21–22
- 11 Genesis 9:7; Psalm 144:12; Genesis 1:28; Genesis 5:4–32; Psalm 127:3–4
- 12 Luke 3:36
- 16 Luke 3:35; Numbers 24:24; Genesis 10:21; 1 Chronicles 1:19; Genesis 10:25
- 18 Luke 3:35
- 20 Luke 3:35
- 22 Joshua 24:2
- 24 Luke 3:34; Joshua 24:2
- 26 Joshua 24:2; Genesis 12:4–5; 1 Chronicles 1:26–27; Genesis 22:20–24; Genesis 29:4–5
- 27 Genesis 14:12; Genesis 12:4; Genesis 11:31; 2 Peter 2:7; Genesis 13:1–11
- 28 Genesis 15:7; Genesis 11:31; Acts 7:2–4; Nehemiah 9:7
- 29 Genesis 17:15; Genesis 22:20; Genesis 24:15; Genesis 20:12
- 30 Judges 13:2; Genesis 25:21; 1 Samuel 1:2; Luke 1:7; Luke 1:36
- 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?
- Genesis 5 and 11: why the patriarchs’ ages differ
In the Greek Septuagint most patriarchs in Genesis 5 and 11 become fathers about 100 years later than in the Hebrew text, and Genesis 11 adds a second Cainan, whom St Luke also names (Luke 3:36). The result is a world history over a thousand years longer. The Byzantine calendar was built on the Greek numbers. No doctrine depends on either set.
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).
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)
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)
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)