I have several things to say on this chapter, and I think you’ll benefit from them — starting with the tower of Babel thing. But first, let me say that this chapter I can read on page 6 of my NKJV Bible (remember that it had been given to me by someone who thought it would help me on my walk with Christ — DM me on Facebook or e-mail me on ron.outland4727@gmail.com for any questions regarding this), pages 7-8 of my NASB Bible, pages 12-13 of my VOICE copy, and pages 12-14 of my Amplified Bible (Classic Edition) copy.
Anyway, we read of a tower, another genealogy, and a brief account of Terah and his sons. (Terah is a man descended from Noah’s firstborn son, Shem; see the post about people groups from a Biblical perspective for more interesting information about his family tree — I know, I’ve posted it before; see an earlier post for where I first mentioned it; I think it’s Genesis 6-9; I have no idea.) The tower is what the people wanted to do because they wanted to make a name for itself. You might ask why (I find nothing wrong with that), but I don’t have a concise answer to this, yet I’ll ask a question of my own: why would anyone use this passage or other parts of the Bible to give this view of God as if He were constantly displeased that people exist? Well, let me be frank: I think those people are trying too hard to be teachers of the Word (see 1 Timothy 1:7). For my part, though, I don’t offer a lot from any of the passages I’ve written on so far. Yet I know the truth set people free (John 8:32) and just as I want it badly for myself in everything, so I desire the same for any person, whether they read this or not. I’m not even trying to become famous from this, though; in fact, fewer than 20 people know I do this, unless you count those who have read any of my posts but haven’t followed me on here. But those people are trying to become teachers of the Word of Christ because they know they can manipulate pretty much anyone who listens to them on something, and they believe that biblical literacy is diminishing rapidly. I don’t really think it’s the case, but I do wish the Bible was taught in churches more often, my reason for this being the fact that they follow man’s tradition from churches that had existed in the past instead of Christ’s words. It’s the problem of the Pharisees in Matthew 15 all over again. It’s not worth it to cross paths with someone like this, because it puts you at risk of disobeying the words of 1 Corinthians 5:11 when it says not to partner with a false believer. Too bad most people who do claim Christ as Lord and Saviour are willing to poison Him, though (see 2 Peter 2:2).
But on the tower, Jesus decided to give people many languages so that they’d rely on Him according to their mother tongue, but He knew that not everyone would listen to Him, and it wasn’t yet the right time for Him to come down to the Earth to bring salvation to everyone. Still, He thought it’d be impressive that people could learn more than one language and be fluent in each of them (though He never expects anyone to learn all of them). Unfortunately, though, the tower is probably where Babylon was built later on, so that they could destroy Judah and all Jerusalem in 586 B.C., for even though the people who lived in Israel in those days didn’t deserve God, it was incredibly unfortunate that someone could get them to assume He was defeated. (Spoiler alert: you’ll see me comment on that a lot.) At least we can learn languages much easier with mobile phone apps (I have two, one for learning Filipino and one for learning Japanese, though I think I should get a textbook for both). It’s been nearly five thousand years in the making, but we can now edify each other in multiple languages, going across some dynamically different cultures. Paul even said we can speak in tongues to eliminate confusion in this manner (read 1 Corinthians 14). I can do it quite well, but I don’t often think to because my head is not very high in the game on language barrier elimination. But I’ve often spoken in angelic languages by Christ’s Spirit, as a friend of mine had said to someone in the LoveASU tent in late 2013 once. I haven’t seen him in a few years, but I pray he’s doing well — he speaks in tongues a lot, or at least he did at the time; I don’t know if he’d still do this… you can message me (see above) about my history of using spiritual gifts in any setting and ask if anyone found it weird — here’s a hint: they’re not taught in the churches in this world often enough, especially not in the U.S. for some reason.
The languages were created as Eber had his son Peleg (for in his time, the earth had just been divided into many languages, according to the VOICE translation of the Bible; the Amplified Bible (Classic Edition) says a similar thing; see Genesis 10:25 in both versions), but that didn’t stop him from marrying into another family, and eventually Abraham (who was then known as Abram) and his two brothers were born (Terah had fathered them). Lot was his nephew. I want to have a good relationship with my niece as Abraham did with Lot. Too bad Lot was pretty whacked out from the Sodom thing (Genesis 19; 2 Peter 2:7-8 — read on to discover some weird stuff). But before that happened, the people’s lives were gradually getting shorter and shorter with each generation, and it was primarily because the water in the Earth’s atmosphere was gone (the UV rays were getting the best of them, I think; see some posts I made on Genesis 6-9). But from the account of Shem and his family, he was 98 years old when the flood happened; see verse 10. Adding the years to each retrospective age between Shem’s age during the flood and Terah’s birth (2+35+30+34+30+32+30+29=192), Noah was still alive (see Genesis 9:28-29), and so were each of the men who would eventually be Abraham’s ancestors between them. But I don’t think Noah was interested in the building of the tower of Babel here. Also, I’m not sure if Nahor (Terah’s son) is his firstborn or if he thought it was clever to name him this after his grandfather, but maybe I can find an answer later in this first book of the Bible, I don’t know. Please don’t judge me, friends, for I think the problem is that when you read so many Bible verses in different translations, you can’t remember them very easily, even if you have Christ’s Spirit in you. Most of them I’ve read in English, but I did read four different English translations front to back over the years, the latest of which being the NRSV (August 2012 – October 2018). But on the three translations I haven’t finished yet, I’ve finished the book of Romans in the NASB (message me on Facebook for what I believe on it), I’m up to Amos 6 in the Amplified Bible (Classic Edition), but I’ve only read up to Genesis 11 in the VOICE. I’ve read many passages in that translation, but as explained in my second post, I haven’t read through any of the four I’m using for this round of Bible notes except one. I do hope some things in the NKJV refresh my memory, though.
The final thing I want to say is that Abraham’s wife (also his half-sister for some strange reason — apparently this was encouraged by God in the past due to a lack of people in those days, I have no idea why, but I wouldn’t do it even with my future in-laws or their stepsisters or stepcousins, since I don’t think God really wanted that to happen) was also renamed as he was (see Genesis 17:15) — she was called Sarah, and I think that’s a pretty awesome name, for it means “princess” in Hebrew, just as Abraham means “father of [many] nations” in that same language; I think that’s what they were speaking. Yet apparently, Aramaic was spoken before that. A college professor that had taught on religions of the world said it came from Sanskrit (a language of India) but someone later told me that never happened. Maybe they were all created at the same time? I have no idea. But I want my friend, Sarah, to take heart in knowing she’s got an awesome and lovely name — this one’s for you 💝😊
I’ll write three more notes on this chapter, one on Babel, one on Shem to Abram and his brothers, and one on their families. Ciao!
Ron And His Stories 