GENESIS – An Expositional Overview of the Beginning of God’s Revelation: Chapter ELEVEN

Contributing commentaries by Sonny Islas and James Fire

Chapter Eleven – by James Fire

The Table of Nations – by Lambert Dolphin (GEN 10-11)

Commentary on GENESIS by Ray Stedman 

To watch the video of this teaching, taught at ETERNAL LIVING WORD Church, go here.

GENESIS 11:1-32 

Here we have the account of the Tower of Babel, the scattering of the unified people of the Earth, the division of languages, and the immediate ancestors of Abram and Sarai, that we come to know as Abraham and Sarah.

GENESIS 11:1-2
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.

The entire population of the Earth at this time spoke the same language, shared the same vocabulary and written words. The power of a unified means of communication, along with the life-span of people, spanning hundreds of years (imagine how much knowledge and experience you could gather if you lived for 500 years or so!), is not to be underestimated.

We think of mankind in his early days as being primitive, but it was not at all the case. 

Mankind was created with profound intelligence – Adam possessed enough intelligence and creativity that he could name every creature on God’s Earth. Cain had enough ingenuity that he built, not a village or a town, but an entire city!

The people came to Shinar, later known as the region of Mesopotamia, and today the area covering mostly the country of Iraq.

GENESIS 11:3-4
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. 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.

Remember God’s words to both Adam and Noah:

“Replenish the Earth” – GEN 1:28; 9:1. 

They were to spread out and fill the Earth with people. Yet here, the people, in absolute rebellion to God, decided to build a city and a tower for the purpose of “making a name” for themselves – “lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole Earth”. 

Diametrically opposed to what God commanded them. No one chose God, or His ways of wisdom and truth – they rebelled and created their own world order (JOHN 5:43)! 

It was because no one chose God (PSALM 10:4; ISAIAH 53:3-6), that God decided that He would choose a man – a man from the land of Ur, of the Chaldees: Abram, later known as Abraham – who we will be learning about from the next chapter and onward.

The Hebrew word for “name” is shem, which can simply mean “name” but it can also mean “authority, renown, fame” – all of which I believe is applicable to the motive of the people of Babel. They wanted to be an authority unto themselves, to be autocratic, that is, to self-rule, rather than be ruled by God. 

They wanted renown and fame – motivated by the same pride that led to their rebellion against God. The same pride that led Lucifer to desire to “be like the Most High” and to “ascend”, to be exalted and worshiped as God (ISAIAH 14; EZEK 28).

Incidentally, the very word Babel literally means “gate or gateway to the god(s)” So when they spoke about this tower, it was with the intention of “reaching to the heavenlies” so that they might commune with the gods – the once-heavenly host of angelic beings that followed Lucifer in his rebellion against God, and this rebellion was carried over by these people that sought out such fellowship with devils! 

From the heights of this tower, away from any artificial light source at all, they would have a clear view of the stars, for the purpose of astrological study – the Zodiac, a false belief system of divination that is condemned by the Bible, that was born in Babel and still with us today.

They wanted to build both a city and a tower – the city representing the political power, the tower representing the religious/spiritual power. We think of the tower of Babel in terms of what we know towers to look like today, a tall, vertically linear structure like today’s skyscrapers. In all likelihood however, the tower of Babel was really a ziggurat or a pyramid-like structure. 

From the KNOW YOUR ENEMY   Documentary we have the following video presentations:

Know Your Enemy (Part 4 - Babylon)
Know Your Enemy (Part 5 - Semiramis)
Know Your Enemy (Part 6 - Tower of Babel: The Mountain)
Know Your Enemy (Part 7 – Tower of Babel: Heaven) 

The ziggurats, like the pyramids of Egypt were built with such precision that you could measure the coordinates of the stars along the angles of their dimensions on any given day, and predict the location of the stars months, even years in advance! Even with today’s modern equipment, we couldn’t build pyramids with the precision that they did, thousands of years ago!

GENESIS 11:5-6
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.

While the people in Shinar had the proud ambition of building a tower “that would reach into the heavens”, the LORD God had to humble Himself to “[go] down” to see this teeny little structure that stood probably a mere 20 to 30 stories high, hardly reaching into the heavens (PSALM 39:4-6; 62:9).

Satan desires worship – and so he planned to unite mankind towards this goal: both politically and religiously.
This is why God separated the political aspect of Israel from the religious part of Israel. He knows that when these two powers are combined, authority can and probably will be abused, because too much power in too few hands leads to corruption, iniquity and evil,, with the exception of One Man!

This satanic agenda of globalism was a promotion on Earth of what began in Heaven – a one world system, a new world order. People ask me about “the new world order” and when it began; they are shocked when I say, “It started in heaven”. When Lucifer declared his five “I will”s in:

ISAIAH 14:13-14
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

Obviously, the LORD put a stop to this as we read in the following verses. . .

But whereas the LORD put a stop to Satan’s plan at the beginning before it really got going, He will allow it to play out in these last days. 

The new world order, or as its been called more recently, global governance, is alive and well, and thriving in today’s world. Thank you Robert Muller! 

For more on this, read The CONSPIRACY: Educational Abduction 

This satanic preparation of Babylon Rising and Re-emerging is all about the introduction of Satan’s man of the hour, the man of perdition and power – the anti-Christ, and we understand that Nimrod himself is a type for, as well as an anti-Christ himself.

GENESIS 11:7-9
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.

Everyone that lived in Babel, were adherents, practitioners and believers of the Babylonian religion – which is truly the mother of all religions, according to:

REVELATION 17:4-6
4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: 5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth. 6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

You can view the Bible, in a sense, as GOD’s own Tale of Two Cities:

Jerusalem, the city of GOD (PSALM 46:4; 48:8), where the true GOD is worshiped according to GOD’s own truth, and Babylon, the city of man and Satan, where Satan (whether by name or another name: Ba’al, Horus, Allah, Krishna, Brahman, Shiva, the Mormon god, the New Age god, etc.) is worshiped according to the lies of the devil.

Jerusalem will be as it has been, the home of the saints; Babel is the harbor of Satan’s “fowls of the air” – read that, demonic powers – (REV 18:2) that preys upon the saints of God. The religion of Babylon will always persecute the saints who follow GOD in truth and righteousness – this Mother of Harlots, this originator of all false religion is “drunk with the blood of the saints. . . and martyrs of Jesus . . .”

But what happened when the LORD confused their language and they were scattered upon the face of all the Earth? Did they forsake their religion of Babylon?

No – the religion was splintered and fragmented as each people group gathered into their own areas, that developed into distinct nations, each with their ‘own piece of the pie’ of the Babylonian religion: and these in turn developed into the world religions as we see them today.

No matter what religion you examine however, no matter how different they look, no matter how divergent their beliefs may be, at their core – they are all the same: they all are based on self-justification by their own works – Christianity, ‘the true religion’ if you like, stands apart because our justification is not by self, but by Christ, specifically by the shed blood of Christ in His atonement for our sins on the Cross!

So, there are really ‘Only Two Religions’ – the religion of GOD and the religion of Satan.

But what are we seeing today? We are witnessing the bricks that built the tower of Babel, being laid once again, forming a new tower, a one world religion, alongside a one world government – Babel is rising again!

Unbiblical ecumenism, along with Emergent Church Movement and Christian denominations adopting New Age and Eastern mysticism beliefs and, or so-called evangelical churches embracing all of these as well as the practice of yoga, Humanism, Psychology, even witchcraft now (!) – are all examples of Babel re-emerging into a religious unity that God calls “Abomination”!

Even more significantly, the splintering of the people of Babel caused the dispersal of esoteric knowledge, known in ancient times as “the mysteries” – the secret knowledge of the occult, kept and studied by the Gnostics, Rosicrucian’s, the Illuminati, The Freemasonic Order, the Theosophical Society and many others.This secret knowledge codified into a religion at Babel has been preserved for thousands of years and will eventually be brought out into the open, which, according to these secret societies, will happen once the one world leader is prepared to reveal himself. In the meantime, these are working tirelessly to prepare the world for what they call the Luciferian Age.

The Illuminati has made their knowledge accessible to the common man today in an authorized publication! Which strongly suggests that these occult groups, governed by the satanic spirit, understand that the one we call the anti-Christ is prepared to reveal himself!

Herbert George Wells known as H.G. Wells, was a Fabian Socialist author of fiction (War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man) non-fiction books (New World Order, The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution) had this to say:

1928 -- The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution by H.G. Wells is published:

"The political world of the Open Conspiracy must weaken, efface, incorporate and supersede existing governments. . . The character of the Open Conspiracy will then be plainly displayed. It will be a world religion.”

C.F.R.–This Is Not King Arthur’s Round Table – Part I  

This two-part article is about what’s known as “Round Table Groups” such as the Council on Foreign Relations, that work to unify political and religious as well as economic powers into a unified whole: all part of the Babylonian spirit revived in these last days.

For more on Babel and related subject matter, see the following links:

The TOWER of BABEL and The CONFUSION of LANGUAGES by Lambert Dolphin 

The TOWER of BABEL from A History of Israel 

The SEARCH for BABEL by Answers In Genesis’ own David Livingston 

GENESIS 11:10-14
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:

Here we see the genealogies of these sons of Shem – these are all people of the Semitic tribes, essentially populating the region of the Middle East today.

GENESIS 11:15-23
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.

In GENESIS 10:25 we read about Peleg:

And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan.

There certainly was a division made in the days of Peleg due to the confusion of languages – the birthing of many nations that developed into the world’s most powerful kingdoms, even empires resulted from this division: Babel (later Babylon), Egypt, Greece and others can all be traced back to their early beginnings less than a century from the days of Peleg. 

GENESIS 11:24-28
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. 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.

From GOT QUESTIONS, we have the following: Terah in the BIble: 

“Terah is known in the Bible as the father of Abram (known later as Abraham), who in turn received the covenant promise of God regarding the future birth of His Son, Jesus. Terah is mentioned in Jesus’ genealogy in LUKE 3:34.

“Terah was the son of Nahor, who was of Noah’s son’s Shem’s line. Nahor fathered Terah at the young age of 29 years (GEN 11:24), but Terah was 70 years old before his three sons, Abram, Nahor, and Haran, were born (verse 26). Haran was the father of Lot, Abram’s nephew and traveling companion, but Haran died during Terah’s lifetime (verse 28). After Haran’s death, Terah uprooted his family from their home in Ur of the Chaldeans and set out for the land of Canaan. For unknown reasons, Terah never made it to their destination but stopped and settled in Harran instead. This is where Terah died at age 205.

“After Terah had passed away, God called Abram to continue the journey to Canaan. God promised to make Abram into a great nation (GEN 12:1–2), even though Abram’s wife, Sarai, was barren (GEN 11:30). 

Abraham heeded God’s command and put His trust in the Lord to the end of his days. Years later, Joshua mentions Terah in an address to the Israelites: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 

‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods’” (JOSH 24:2). Joshua then urged the people to make a clean break from their pagan heritage: “Throw away the gods your ancestors [including Terah] worshiped beyond the Euphrates River . . . and serve the Lord” (verse 14).

“Terah and his family were idol-worshipers, and that means God spoke to Abraham before he even knew God. What a blessing that God can call anyone, regardless of their ancestry and former faith, to live a life for Him and be a part of His great plan.”

GENESIS 11:29-32
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.

And so, begins the account of Abram and Sarai – later known as Abraham and Sarah (GEN 17); but why did GOD change their names? Remember that this couple were pagans, worshiping idols and false gods, but when GOD called them, He changed their names, adding an “h” into both; in Hebrew linguistics, the adding of their equivalent of an “h” represents ‘breath’ because you emphasize breath in creating this 'h sound'. 

When GOD called these two, and began to reveal Himself to them, He began a work of the Spirit in them, and so He works in all of His children who are led of the Spirit.

Incidentally, Abram means “father of many” – but this was at a time when he had no children. And Abraham means “father of many nations” when he didn’t even have two sons yet! Witness how GOD declares things about this man, that hasn’t happened yet, but did, just as He promised!
We likewise can rejoice for all that the LORD has promised to do in us and for us, both now and in the future, based on His faithfulness to His Word and to us, His beloved!

Abraham is a testimony to the truth that GOD finishes what He starts in us, and we will explore the life of this man “the father of many nations”, “the father of the faith” as GOD develops his spiritual life to the point where he receives the honorific of “friend of GOD” and as GOD’s friend, witness the things that the LORD reveals to him, as He is prone to reveal His secrets to all of thosewho are His friends!