Genesis 11
v.1
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.
The oneness of the people up to this point divides in the two sons of Eber (10:25). One line ends in Babylon, the other in the Promised Land.
v.2
As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
The first scene opens with a movement “eastward” to the “plain in Shinar.” Thus the starting point of the events of the story was a land west of Babylon. Both the man and woman and Cain moved eastward after being cast out from the presence of God (3:24; 4:16). When Lot divided from Abraham, he moved “toward the east” (13:10-12). When a man goes “east,” he leaves the land of blessing (Eden and the Promised Land) and goes to a land where his hopes will turn to ruin (Babylon and Sodom).
v.4
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
Instead of seeking the name of the Lord and the city of God, men made their own city to obtain their own testimony. And instead of seeking to reach God through a faith in His word, they seek to reach heaven by the work of their hands. Revelation 3:12
v.5
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.
Just as how Jesus came down to die for us while we were still sinners in Romans 5:8.
He still deals in mercy with a remnant of the human race, and has visited the earth and manifested His presence in a wondrous way. But He has not yet taken up His abode among people as He did in the garden, and as He intimates that He will sometime do on the renovated earth.
v.6
The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
v.7
Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
Out of his grace and mercy, God came down onto earth to intervene on the resurgence of man’s sinful nature in priding themselves in their own accomplishments before heaven. He shows mercy by not letting them be turned over to their sinful desires. See also Barnes on Revelation 2 24 Revelation2 v 24.
v.10
This is the account of Shem. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad.
v.26
After Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.
Verses 10-26 show that God’s promise concerning the seed of the woman cannot be thwarted by the confusion and scattering of the nations at Babylon. Though the seed of Noah were scattered at Babylon, God preserved a line of ten great men from Noah to Abraham.
v.31
Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.
Thus far the author has followed the pattern of listing ten names between important individuals, but this short list has only eight names. This raises the question of who the ninth and, more importantly, the tenth names will be. As the narrative unfolds, the ninth and tenth names are shown to be the two sons of Abraham, “Ishmael” (16:15) and “Isaac” (21:3). The genealogical introduction, then, anticipates the birth of Isaac, the tenth name.