Genesis 11
The Tower of Babel
Noah’s descendants settle in Shinar and build a city and a tower to make a name for themselves and avoid being scattered. The Lord confounds their language and scatters them. Then the record follows the line of Shem, whose name means “name,” ten generations down to Abram and his barren wife Sarai, who leave Ur for Haran.
Start reading Background
Genesis 11 is the hinge between the history of the whole human family and the history of Abraham’s family. Chapter 10 listed the nations that came from Noah’s sons and ended, “by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood” (Gen. 10:32). Verses 1–9 tell the story behind that division. Babel stands in “the land of Shinar,” the plain of Babylonia, and Genesis has already named it as the first city of Nimrod’s kingdom (Gen. 10:10). The tower was “the transitional event between the dispensations of Noah and Abraham.”
Then the record starts again, “These are the generations of Shem” (verse 10), and runs to Terah, Abram’s father. A second heading, “these are the generations of Terah” (verse 27), opens the story of Abraham that fills the chapters to come.
Restoration scripture adds to both halves. The Book of Mormon remembers “the great tower” as the place from which Jared and his brother set out (Ether 1:33). The Book of Abraham, which presents itself as Abraham’s own record, tells what Genesis passes over in verses 27–32: the idolatry of his fathers in Ur, the famine, and the Lord’s call that set the family moving (Abr. 1:1–31; Abr. 2:1–5).
The thread through the chapter
Genesis 11 is about two ways of getting a name. At Babel the people say, “let us make us a name” (verse 4): a reputation, fame, or monument of their own making, a tower with its top in the heavens and a city to hold them together, “lest we be scattered.” What they fear is what happens. The Lord scatters them, and the name the place keeps is Babel, which in Hebrew sounds like balal, “confound.”
Then the record turns to Shem, and Shem’s name is the Hebrew word shem, “name,” the same word the builders used in verse 4. His line narrows from the nations to one family and seems to end in a dead end: “Sarai was barren; she had no child” (verse 30). The next words God speaks in Genesis are to Abram: “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great… and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12:2–3). The builders tried to make a name for themselves, and God promises to make Abram’s name great. They tried not to be scattered, and in Abram God promises a blessing to all the families of the earth. The story of the tower and the call of Abram that follows it belong together.
Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.
Making a name
At that time the whole earth had one language and the same words. As people moved from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and fire them hard.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and make a name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
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 name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
The Lord scatters them
The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people were building. The Lord said, “They are one people, and they all have one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. From now on nothing they plan to do will be out of their reach. Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they cannot understand one another.” So the Lord scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it is called Babel: there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them over the face of all the earth.
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
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.
From Shem to Terah
This is the family record of Shem. Two years after the Flood, when Shem was a hundred years old, his son Arphaxad was born, and Shem lived five hundred years more and had other sons and daughters. Arphaxad was 35 when Salah was born and lived 403 years more. Salah was 30 when Eber was born and lived 403 years more. Eber was 34 when Peleg was born and lived 430 years more. Peleg was 30 when Reu was born and lived 209 years more. Reu was 32 when Serug was born and lived 207 years more. Serug was 30 when Nahor was born and lived 200 years more. Nahor was 29 when Terah was born and lived 119 years more. Each of them had other sons and daughters. When Terah was seventy, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
10 These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:
11 And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.
12 And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah:
13 And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.
14 And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber:
15 And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.
16 And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg:
17 And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters.
18 And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu:
19 And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters.
20 And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug:
21 And Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters.
22 And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor:
23 And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.
24 And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah:
25 And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters.
26 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
Terah’s family leaves Ur
This is the family record of Terah. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran was the father of Lot. Haran died while his father Terah was still living, in the land where he was born, Ur of the Chaldees. Abram and Nahor both married. Abram’s wife was Sarai. Nahor’s wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, who was also the father of Iscah. Sarai was barren; she had no children.
Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (Haran’s son), and his daughter-in-law Sarai, Abram’s wife, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldees to go to the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. Terah lived 205 years, and he died in 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.
32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.
Seeing Christ in Genesis 11
The builders wanted a name; Shem’s line leads to the One whose name saves. Luke traces the ancestry of Jesus back through this chapter’s names: “Abraham, which was the son of Thara, which was the son of Nachor, Which was the son of Saruch, which was the son of Ragau, which was the son of Phalec, which was the son of Heber, which was the son of Sala, Which was the son of Cainan, which was the son of Arphaxad, which was the son of Sem” (Luke 3:34–36). God promised Abraham that Jesus Christ would be born through his lineage, and “It is only through the name of Jesus Christ that we can be saved and reach God’s presence. We take His name upon ourselves through the ordinances of His gospel.” King Benjamin taught the same: “There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ” (Mosiah 5:8).
The scattering of tongues is undone through Christ as well: “the gospel of Jesus Christ is reversing the effects of Babel.” At Pentecost the disciples “were all filled with the Holy Ghost,” and a crowd “out of every nation under heaven” was “confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language” (Acts 2:4–6). In one reading this was “a type of pledge” that the division of tongues will one day be overcome. Elder Spencer W. Kimball, reporting on the dedication of the Swiss Temple, where Saints of many nations met “under one roof,” said, “Everyone of them heard the ordinances of the gospel, the ordinances of the temple, in his own tongue. The confusion of Babel is in reverse.”
Worth exploring next
- Abraham’s own account. Abr. 1:1–31 and Abr. 2:1–5 tell verses 27–32 from inside the family: Ur, the altar, the famine, and the call.
- The tower in the Book of Mormon. Ether 1:33–43; Hel. 6:26–28; Omni 1:22.
- Babylon after Babel. Isa. 47; Jer. 51:6–10; Rev. 18:1–4; D&C 133:4–14.
- The places of Abraham’s life. The Religious Studies Center chapter “The Wanderings of Abraham” (in From Creation to Sinai) walks through Ur, Haran, and the places Abraham went next.
Sources & further reading
- The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
- Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
- Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
- The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint.
- New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway.
- Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828.
- “Chronology”, Bible Dictionary.
- “Shem”, Bible Dictionary.
- “Babylon or Babel”, Bible Dictionary.
- “Eber”, Bible Dictionary.
- “Hebrew”, Bible Dictionary.
- “Haran”, Bible Dictionary.
- “Ur”, Bible Dictionary.
- Genesis 6–11; Moses 8, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
- Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
- Lesson 18: Genesis 10–11, Old Testament Seminary Teacher Manual.
- Chapter 50: Ether 1–5, Book of Mormon Student Manual (Church Educational System).
- Abraham 1:1–3, Pearl of Great Price Student Manual (Church Educational System, 2017).
- Abraham 1:4–31; Facsimile 1, Pearl of Great Price Student Manual (Church Educational System, 2017).
- Abraham 2:1–13, Pearl of Great Price Student Manual (Church Educational System, 2017).
- Lee Donaldson, V. Dan Rogers, and David Rolph Seely, “Is there additional background information on the tower of Babel?”, “I Have a Question,” Ensign, Feb. 1994, 60–61.
- “The Tower of Babel”, Ensign, Feb. 2018, 66–67.
- Donald W. Parry, “The Flood and the Tower of Babel”, Ensign, Jan. 1998, 35.
- Spencer W. Kimball, “Report on Europe”, Improvement Era, Dec. 1955, beginning p. 944 (the Babel passage is on p. 947); read on archive.org.
- Fred E. Woods, “The Ascension of Abraham: A Mortal Model for the Climb to Exaltation”, Religious Educator 23, no. 2 (2022): 46–63.
- John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78.
- Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Trans. William Whiston; online at penelope.uchicago.edu.
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
- Genesis 4–11: The Patriarchs, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).