So God commanded the people to go forth and populate the earth after the flood, and what do they do? They do what they want instead, as usual. They congregate in one place and they build the Tower at Babel. They are full of themselves and their abilities, and not following God’s plan for them. So He confuses their language so that they cannot understand each other. This has the intended consequence of getting them to move on and spread out away from each other.

The genealogy of Shem’s line is told. The most important part is when it gets to Terah. Terah was the father of Abram, who God will later rename as Abraham, and his brother Haran, who fathers Lot. This means Lot is Abram’s nephew; and their stories will become important, especially the story of Abraham.

(Side note: The ancient city of UR in v 28 has unquestionably been found, and was the site of major excavations in the late 1920’s and early 1930s by Sir Leonard Wooley. It lays less that 200 miles southeast of modern Baghdad, and has been found to have been the site of highly developed urban culture. Some pictures of artifacts can be found at this link)

Read or listen to audio of ESV version of this selection from this link.

___________________

Please note: I did not design the reading plan that I am following in my blog.  All of my comments in this blog, however, are solely my responsibility.  When reading ANY commentary, you should ALWAYS refer first to the scripture, which is God’s unchanging and unfailing word. Reading schedules, as well as a link to the site where you can get the reading plan that I’m currently following for yourself can be found on the “Schedules” page of my website at http://graceofourlord.com.  For questions and help, please see the “FAQ” and “Summaries” pages there.
/Robert