OUR FATHER'S WORD
"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."
Psalm 119:105

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Genesis

  A Message For The End Time

by Jim Lisenby

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CHAPTER 11

The Generations Of Shem
[NOTE:  The following introductory paragraphs are a revision of the original opening statement after chapter 11 was first published.  It occurred to me while working a later chapter that Abraham's family and kin may have departed the area before the great catastrophic event at Babel happened.  It also occurred to me that the event, or at least the effects of it, may have been much more widespread than we have been led to believe.  With those things in mind I came back and revised the introduction to chapter 11.]

The first nine verses of this chapter deal with the great catastrophe that occurred at Babel, that is, the fall of the city and the well-known tower.  Concerning what happened at Babel, we don't really know to a certainty when the tower was built or when the catastrophic event occurred because it is not revealed in Genesis.  Neither is the method of destruction, the severity of it, or how widespread it was.

As to when it happened, other sources indicate that it was during the time of Abraham.  If that is true then it begs the question     did Terah and his family leave the area and head toward Canaan before or after the fall of Babel?  I believe it is entirely possible that they left before the event took place.  Keep this idea in mind when you study verses 27 - 32 below.

Gen 11:1  And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

This verse is another example illustrating why we should be careful in taking the Bible too literally.  The author, even if it was Moses, could not know firsthand about what languages were spoken throughout the entire planet.  This verse, if taken in a strictly narrow literal sense becomes suspect and unbelievable.  But it should not be a problem if you will remember that the author's focus is upon the children of Noah, and you apply it in that way.

The word earth here is the Hebrew word 'erets (Strong's No. 776) and is actually referring to the people in the land, so this verse taken in context with the book so far, and especially with the preceding 10th chapter, logically applies to the descendants of Noah.  They have been the primary subject in Genesis since the 6th chapter, and they are the ones he is referring to here who all spoke the same language.

Language, any language, changes almost from day-to-day and when the author wrote this verse there had been different races of men on the Earth for at least 4,000 years.  Surely after four millenia had passed, each tribe, family, or group spoke their own native tongue, especially if they were isolated one from another.

My country is the U.S.A. which officially became a nation a mere 230 years ago, but it is doubtful that I could clearly understand speech from the year 1776 because of changes in the English language in America.  Cultural morphing, ethnic influences, and technobabble have changed the common spoken word here considerably even within my lifetime.

In fact, what I just stated proves that fact.  When I was young nobody used the terms morphing or technobabble, they didn't exist.
 
Gen. 11:2  And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

It is entirely possible that Noah and his three sons never left the general area where the ark had settled, but most of their progeny did.  But don't assume from the wording of this verse that they were all traveling westward en masse because they weren't.  What they were doing was spreading across the face of the land like ripples on water.  They were multiplying rapidly and spreading generally westward, and they were building and settling in towns and cities as they went.  Some of those families  eventually arrived at a location which the writer specifies as the land of Shinar.  That locus is generally agreed to have been within what is modern Kuwait and Iraq.

They were settling and building along the Tigris and Euphates rivers, and in the delta region near the Perian Gulf where the two rivers  converge.  That area of the world was part of the so-called fertile crescent in those days and it was wonderfully lush and verdant.

At this point in Genesis approximately 300 years have now passed since Noah and his family left the ark and the time that their descendants settled in Shinar.  An awful lot can happen in three centuries and their way of life was changing with time and distance as they moved westward.  Things were happening to them all along the way.  Like Nimrod for instance, who was a truly major influence on them.

Gen. 11:3  And 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.

The word slime here is taken by some scholars, including Dr. Strong, to be referring to asphalt or bitumen, and there is some evidence that bitumen was used for mortar in that area.  One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the hanging gardens that Nebuchadnezzar had built in Babylon 1,500 years later, were also said to have been constructed using asphalt for mortar.  Another of its usages in construction was for waterproofing, and it is also said to be an exceedingly strong adhesive.

In those days, sun dried bricks were commonly used for construction.  So why the emphasis here on fired bricks?  The Companion Bible says that the clause and burn them throughly actually reads brick bricks, and burn a burning in the Hebrew.  It appears that they wanted to build something very strong and they were in a hurry to do it.

Gen. 11:4  And 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.

Again, according to The Companion Bible, "whose top may reach unto heaven" should read "and its top with the heavens".  The literal translation in Green's Interlinear says, "with its top, the heavens".  That could mean, and it is likely that it does, that the heavens (i.e., the signs of the zodiac as they existed then) were somehow depicted at the top of the tower.  They were likely laid out on the ceiling of the tower in similar fashion to the way they were in the ancient temples of Denderah and Esneh in Egypt.  Work with it.

Actually, there is a lot more to these verses than first meets the eye.  They indicate a strong desire and  determination to build something remarkable, and it seems, if you can imagine it, that they were about to construct their own seminal version of a one world order.  They were all Adamic, except for some  possible embedded hybrids, and they were all of one speech, and apparently had been brainwashed into being of one mind.  Undoubtedly Nimrod had prevailed over them and was bringing them together under one great leader, himself, and one universal government.

Sound familiar?  Do we have one superpower today whose influence pervades the entire world?  Do we promote and seek after globalism today?  You betcha.

So, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this city and tower of Babel thing is the first mention in the Bible of an attempt by the evil one to construct a beast like the one mentioned in Revelation 13.  Open your mind and try to visualize that idea if you can.   Try to see Nimrod as a type of antichrist  creating a beast system of government, ruling by mind control through the use of religion and propaganda, but using overwhelming force when necessary.
 
Gen. 11:5  And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

Now, I gotta tell ya, that it had to be an extremely important thing for God Himself to come down in person to see what was going on.  This tower of Babel thing was really big.  The last clause of this verse should read:  which the children of Adam were building.

Concerning this so-called tower, or ziggurat, the following is taken from Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia under the search heading Architecture - Sumeria.

The Sumerian temple was a small brick house that the god was supposed to visit periodically. It was ornamented so as to recall the reed houses built by the earliest Sumerians in the valley. This house, however, was set on a brick platform, which became larger and taller as time progressed until the platform at Ur (built around 2100 BC) was 150 by 200 feet (45 by 60 meters) and 75 feet (23 meters) high. These Mesopotamian temple platforms are called ziggurats, a word derived from the Assyrian ziqquratu, meaning "high." They were symbols in themselves; the ziggurat at Ur was planted with trees to make it represent a mountain. There the god visited Earth, and the priests climbed to its top to worship.
  
The ziggurat continued as the essential temple form of Mesopotamia during the later Assyrian and Babylonian eras. In these later times it became taller and more towerlike, perhaps with a spiral path leading up to the temple at the top. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that the main temple of Babylon, the famous Tower of Babel, was such a tower divided into seven diminishing stages, each a different color: white, black, purple, blue, orange, silver, and gold. 

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From Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc.

This so-called tower of Babel was actually a very large ziggurat, and it would be the centerpiece of their culture which the people eventually would flock to in pilgrimage from all over, and they would worship there.  The gods that they would worship in that city were likely to have been Tammuz (Nimrod) and Semeramis, but there may have been others.

Big problem for Noah's children!

You see, God had given them no instructions to build a religious edifice, or even a governmental one, and He was very disturbed by it.  Up until now since disembarking the ark the children of Noah had not known religion or government per se.  Up until now they had only known the God that saved Noah and his family, and they looked to Noah, Shem, Ham, Japheth, and their other patriarchs for instruction and guidance.  But alas, sometime after the flood they had once again fallen prey to some rebellious angels who mated with their Adamic females.  Those unions produced offspring such as Nimrod which were truly despots, mighty men, men of renown.  They subdued the people and forced them to serve their interests.  That was the case here in the building of this city and the tower.

But, they all were about to get a rude awakening!

Gen. 11:6  And 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.

This situation could not stand, for a lot of reasons.  One big one is the fact that it was much too early for the beast that was to rule the Earth to emerge.  That could not happen for several more millenia.

Gen. 11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

Notice the usage of the plural word "us".  Who was He talking to here?  Curious.

Anyway, with regards to the people around Babel, if they couldn't communicate, they couldn't agree to be of one mind and build a dominant beast system.

Gen. 11:8  So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

The phrase the face of all the earth should be understood to be a figure of speech which means the area that we call the Middle East today.  How the LORD accomplished this is not stated, but you can be sure that it was natural in form whatever it was.  In other words, He would have used the forces of nature to accomplish it just as He did with the flood of Noah, and it would have been a sizable natural event of some kind.  Possibly with fire involved which would ignite and burn the asphalt mortar that was between the bricks.  That in turn would cause the tower to crumble and fall down.  But of course, it could also have been a great seismic event of some kind which toppled the tower and the city.

The only place I found in any scripture where it gave the method of overthrow was in the 10th chapter of the book of Jubilees, where it was stated:  "And the Lord sent a great wind upon the tower and overthrew it on the Earth".  That may be so, but I doubt it.  Because of the nature of the construction, and the engineering that went into it, if it was wind that took it down it had to be extremely powerful.  In fact, it would have to be perhaps the strongest wind ever on the Earth.  A wind whose power and force have not been seen in modern times, or yet recorded by man.

Gen. 11:9  Therefore 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.

The effect of whatever caused the fall of the tower and city was absolutely devastating to the extent that the inhabitants that were left alive vacated the area and went in all directions from it.  Notice there has been no mention of casualties or death concerning the fall of the city and tower.  It is not stated anywhere that I could find, but it is possible that God sent someone to forewarn the people that the city would be overthrown so they could evacuate it.  Don't dismiss that idea too quickly.  God sent Jonah to warn Nineveh that He would overthrow it, didn't he?  When the circumstances warrant it, He is merciful, and that may have been the case here.

Here is where the 10th chapter should have logically ended.  Now we are about to get into the offspring of Shem, and from this point onward in Genesis, and throughout the rest of the Bible for that matter, Semites [descendants of Shem*] are the main characters, especially those called Hebrews and the descendants of Abraham.

[*Comment added 10/07/06 to define the term Semites.  The Jews today like to claim the term Semite exclusively for themselves, but the term comes from the word Shem and in truth can be correctly applied to literally hundreds of millions of people.] 

Gen. 11:10  These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:

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

Gen. 11:12  And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah:

Gen. 11:13  And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.

Gen. 11:14  And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber:

This is the same Eber after whom the Hebrews are named.  His name is sometimes given as Heber.

Gen. 11:15  And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters

Gen. 11:16  And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg:

Gen. 11:17  And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters.

Gen. 11:18  And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu:

Gen. 11:19  And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters.

This is that same Peleg in whose days the Earth was divided among the offspring of Noah.

Gen. 11:20  And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug:

Gen. 11:21  And Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters.

Gen. 11:22  And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor:

Gen. 11:23  And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.

Gen. 11:24  And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah:

Gen. 11:25  And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters.

Gen. 11:26  And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

Finally, here we have the prime patriarch Abram, or Abraham as he later became known.

Gen. 11:27  Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.

Gen. 11:28  And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

Gen. 11:29  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.

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

Gen. 11:31  And 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.

Gen. 11:32  And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.

If you will look back over these men generation by generation you will see that their lives were getting shorter as time went by.  God only knows why, but surely there is a logical explanation for that phenomenon.   Work with it and email me if you have any ideas.

God bless with understanding of His word.

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