Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 11:26-31

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

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

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

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.

30 But Sarai was barren; she had no child.

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.

The genealogical verses aren’t the most exciting passages of scripture to me, and I usually skim past them to get to the actual stories. But this time I at least paid attention to the relationships around Abraham, and it was fascinating to gain some context for his story.

Here we meet Terah, who has three sons: Abram (later Abraham), Nahor, and Haran. Haran died earlier than the rest, but he had a son named Lot, who became a sort of stand-in for his father. Throughout the rest of the record we hear about him as if he was the third brother: Abram, Nahor, and Lot.

Haran also had a daughter before he died, named Milcah, who married Abram’s other brother, Nahor. Nahor and Milcah later had a grand-daughter named Rebekah, who would become the wife of Abram’s son Isaac. In later chapters we will also have revealed to us that Sarai was actually Abram’s half-sister, the daughter of his father Terah, but not of his mother.

I’ve never before given so much consideration to Abram’s family before. I didn’t reflect on the fact that he was a son and a brother, and that those ties affected him throughout the rest of his tale. In fact, his story begins as that family splits up. Terah, the father, leaves for Canaan with Abram and Lot, but Nahor stays behind.

At this point a place called Canaan may not sound very significant, but we’ll be hearing a lot about it later on. It is to be the home of the Israelite kingdom after they flee Egypt, and the majority of the Biblical narrative takes place there. For now, though, the family doesn’t quite make it to Canaan. They stop instead at the nearby city of Haran, which has the same name as Abram’s deceased brother, but I don’t know whether the two are connected.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 11:6-9

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.

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

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

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.

Previously God showcased His power in a very bombastic way by sending a flood to cover the earth. In this story, however, He reveals His ability to cause a shift through far more subtle means. It might not occur to us that simply confounding the language of a people would undermine their ability to finish a tower, but evidently that was exactly what happened. The people lost the ability to communicate, they gave up their project, and they scattered into their various clans.

God is all-powerful, but He is also all-knowing. He can impact the entire populace with a single, cataclysmic blow, but He can also touch each soul in an individual, precise way. And the methods that He uses may seem strange to us, but they are perfectly effective even so.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 11:1-4

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

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.

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 mortar.

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 aname, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

There has been commentary about the Tower of Babel, including theories that they were trying to reach heaven to escape any future floods, or to overthrow God, or some other form of insurrection. Now which of those theories, if any, is the actual truth is not to be found in this biblical record. But the following verses do seem to suggest that there was something about their plan that incurred the disapproval of God, such that He felt a need to put a stop to it.

I do see an important allegory in these verses, one that applies to us all today. There seems to be an arrogance in these ancient people where they believe that they could build their own path to the heavens, and trying to achieve perfection by our own power has continued to be a failing of humanity ever since.

Today I see this in the notion that “we don’t need God, because we have science.” There is a belief that our own brainpower will be enough to solve all of the world’s problems and lead us into a perfect Utopia. But that is just as valid as believing that we could build a tower into the clouds and then be equals to God.

Our arrogance all manifests today when we try to earn our salvation. I have known many a Christian that was convinced that if he just tried harder he would be able to overcome his addictions, live perfectly, and make himself deserve paradise. And that is just as vain and ineffective as the Babelites stacking their stones.

We are mortals, assembled from the dust, and all our effort can never make us more than that. It is a hard thing to admit, but we are never going to be enough by ourselves. We only become enough when we are filled with Him.