Today we come to the end of the Prologue of Genesis, which tells the story of Creation and then humanity’s dark slide into rebellion, culminating with the building of the Tower of Babel. Part 2, which begins Monday, is the story of what the Lord is going to do to fix everything.

Note that there is no reading for tomorrow, Friday. Catch up if you’re behind and get ready to run on Monday.

Let’s go.

Genesis 11:10-32

From Shem to Abram

10 These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood. 11 And Shem lived after he fathered Arpachshad 500 years and had other sons and daughters.
12 When Arpachshad had lived 35 years, he fathered Shelah. 13 And Arpachshad lived after he fathered Shelah 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

14 When Shelah had lived 30 years, he fathered Eber. 15 And Shelah lived after he fathered Eber 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

16 When Eber had lived 34 years, he fathered Peleg. 17 And Eber lived after he fathered Peleg 430 years and had other sons and daughters.

18 When Peleg had lived 30 years, he fathered Reu. 19 And Peleg lived after he fathered Reu 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

20 When Reu had lived 32 years, he fathered Serug. 21 And Reu lived after he fathered Serug 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

22 When Serug had lived 30 years, he fathered Nahor. 23 And Serug lived after he fathered Nahor 200 years and had other sons and daughters.
24 When Nahor had lived 29 years, he fathered Terah. 25 And Nahor lived after he fathered Terah 119 years and had other sons and daugh- ters.

26 When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

Terah’s Descendants

27 Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. 28 Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29 And Abram and Nahor took 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 Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.

31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32 The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.

Two quick thoughts on today’s genealogy:

1. One of the purposes of this genealogy is to move the story from Noah’s descendants to the family of Abraham, who will be the one the Lord will use to fix everything.

2. There is a fascinating little detail in 11:28: We’re told that Abraham’s family is “in Ur of the Chaldeans.” Chaldea is Babylon, which we’ve just read about in the Tower story as a society trying to make a name for itself apart from the Lord. Babylon, in other words, is the ultimate wicked society, and it is precisely out of Babylon that Abraham comes!

P.S. Yesterday, I asked where the phrase “that hideous strength” originally came from. Yes, it is the title of C.S. Lewis’s great science-fiction novel That Hideous Strength, but Lewis himself got the phrase from a Renaissance poem that describes the huge shadow cast by the monstrous Tower of Babel, a shadow over “sax myle” long—”six miles” in modern English spelling. The quotation appears as an epigraph on the title page: