Here come some genealogies. I always have a tendency to skim through these lists of names found in biblical history. I may look for names that I recognize but I have seldom gone any deeper than that. It's clear to me, though, that this is important information to the people of the day. They cared deeply about their ancestry. I wonder how important it is to God? Part of me thinks it isn't important at all because of the NT emphasis on the universal need for the gospel and how much God cares equally for ALL people regardless of lineage. And yet the Bible is replete with lists of generations up to and including the lineage of Christ in Matthew 1. Anyway, here we find the human family tree following Noah up until Abram.
I never really know what to make of the story of The Tower of Babel in ch. 11. None of the explanations of this event that I've heard have ever completely satisfied me. Many contain elements that make sense...like God punishing the people for their pride ("...so that we may make a name for ourselves..."). I find myself focusing on something else this time, though. Immediately after the phrase quoted above it says, "..and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." Then in vs. 8 it says "So the Lord scattered them from there over the earth..." and vs. 9 ends with "From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth." So far, I guess, the people weren't really interested in spreading out. Maybe they didn't have that drive to explore...the curiosity about what might be over the next ridge. But it seems God really wanted them to fill the whole planet.
What I have to remind myself is that these first 11 chapters of Genesis cover 2000 years of human history, give or take. It make sense that there's not going to be a lot of detail.
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