GENESIS
CHAPTER 11
All men speak the same language—They build tower of Babel—The Lord confounds their language and scatters them over all the earth—The generations of Shem include Abram whose wife was Sarai—Abram leaves Ur and settles Haran.
1 AND the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. [ Just making sure that everyone understands the basis ot starting point that there was only one language in the beginning. ]
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, [ or from where the ark had landed. ] that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; [ Researchers are fairly confident that this is equated with a place we call Sumer. And Sumer is located in southern Mesopotamia. And so Mesopotamia is about equal to modern-day Iraq. So the Tigris in the Euphrates, and we have the south and we have the north. And so, this is great because we can put them in a place that we know of today, that we have remains in archeology and texts about. And so we can tie this all together. And these outside texts really give us a lot of information that matches and enhances the biblical text. And so we can tie them with this. Also Babylon, this is the same place Babylon is located. ] and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick,
[ As if to say we have become so smart, we now have this new technology that allows us to make brick as a result we can create things so that we become God's unto ourselves. We no longer are controlled by a God who might want to drown us, we will build a tower. Do we have any of that reasoning today with the modern technology that we have? We can create body parts and grow them from cells, the list goes on. we sometimes thing we are as good as God in our society today as well. ]
and burn them [ Fire them or cure them in a kiln or oven. ] throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. [ Ironic note that man is made of clay Gen 2:7 and now man try's to build a way back to God using clay. Because the author chose to make a point of this, it must serve a point. The way they talk about making bricks is that they burn them. And this is a really important characteristic, because in Egypt and Israel, they didn't burn their bricks. They had access to stone. And so for really important buildings, like a tower or a temple or a tomb or a pyramid, they're going to use stone. And for everything else, more domestic things or residential, they use something they call mud bricks. And it's basically mixing mud and clay and straw. You put it in a mold and you leave it out in the sun and it bakes by the sun, and you can build out of that. It's not going to be waterproof. It's not going to be strong, but it gets the job done. And then if it breaks down, you rebuild it. But in Mesopotamia, especially in the southern part, they didn't have a lot of access to stone. So when you needed to build an important building, like a tower or a temple or something like that, you had to do something else, and you couldn't just use mud brick. So they developed this technology in the third and fourth millennium. So we're talking about, like 3,500 BC here, to take the bricks and actually bake them in an oven, put them in a kiln, like we would do with pottery, and harden them, so that they almost become like stone; as close to stone as they could use. And then they mentioned using the slime for mortar. And this is another reference to this pitch or bitumen, this tar. And this was their way of making it waterproof, just like the Ark was made waterproof. Because stone, if you build an important structure, you're going to want it to be waterproof, and not be able to be destroyed by this, because they're still clay bricks. And so this is important, because it's telling us they're not in Egypt, they're not in Israel, and that whatever they're building, it's a labor intensive process to put this together, to make these bricks and these stones. And so it kind of shows how important this tower was for them. And it gives us more information about the location and the time period. These verses, even though they seem like not important, they're meant to kind of teach us something and connect us. ]
4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, [ Symbolic for a civilization and their teachings. So we have the people building the tower, apparently some type of temple, as their objective was to reach heaven by means of the tower.1 God's response was to break up their evil combina- tion by scrambling their languages, thus depriving them of the powerful Adamic language. The name babel means, in Akkadian, "gate of God" and is a play on the Hebrew balal, meaning "to mix or confound." It is apparent then that the tower of Babel was a counterfeit gate of God, or temple, that Ham's priesthood deprived descendants built in rebellion against God. ] whose top may reach unto heaven; [ It is an account of some of Noah’s descendants who set aside true temple worship and built a “pagan temple,” or “counterfeit temple,”9 in the form of a great tower. Two statements hint at an attempt to build a temple: “Let us build … a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven” (4) recalls one of the purposes of temples: to serve as places where God and man can meet. (Ensign Jan 1998) Reason number one for the tower being built. The people saw the tower of Babel as a gate to the heavens, a counterfeit temple raised in the rebelliousness of Satan. It was this symbol of their pride and wickedness that angered the Lord. ] and let us make us [ The tower of Babel, described further in Genesis 11, is considered by many scholars to be a Babylonian temple (Jacobsen 334). This false temple was an attempt by an ambitious and wicked people to imitate true temple worship (Nibley, Lehi in the Desert/The World of the Jaredites 154–68; hereafter Lehi; Thomas 388–98). In “Babylonian or Akkadian the meaning [of Babel] was ‘gate of God’” (Donaldson 60). Traditionally thought to be inspired by Nimrod, whose “name is for the Jews at all times the very symbol of rebellion against God and of usurped authority” (Nibley, Lehi 165), the focus of these beguiled followers was to “reach unto heaven . . . [and] make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:4). But what kind of a name might an apostate covet, hoping to avoid being scattered abroad? The biblical meaning of making a name is to give a reputation, fame, or monument (see Gen. 12:2). Reason #2 recalls another purpose of temples: to serve as holy places where individuals take upon themselves the name of Jesus Christ. But they are not taking upon themselves the name of Christ but at attempting to elevate their own name. But the rebellious people under the leadership of King Nimrod lacked real priesthood keys and the authority to build temples; they lacked the divine power to make sacred covenants in the Lord’s name. Other parallels have been made between the tower of Babel and the Lord’s temple, both in antiquity and in our times, helping Latter-day Saints, more than any other people on earth, to understand what those in Babel were vainly attempting to duplicate. Reason number two for the tower. Is this not the same thing that Satan wanted in the pre-existence? My glory not Gods. So that we will be known. Monumental arrogance that accompanies wickedness. In essence they were saying that we do not trust God to keep his word, and so what we will do is show that we are more powerful than God and we will build a tower so tall that God cannot possibly flood the earth and show him who is boss. Almost this idea of, whose kingdom are you trying to build? Are you trying to build. "I've been being so righteous. Where's all my wealth? I built this amazing tower for you, God. Like what am I getting out of this?" And we know that's not how it works. And I think when we realize that, then we won't be as disappointed when these things don't happen or don't come along. ] a name, [ Usually making a name has to do with covenant making. So they are building their own temple here to worship according to the name that they choose. Name here is "sem" or the same name as Noah's son "Shem". So in essence they wanted to make a name for themselves that was different, not like the Shem. What was Shem trying to do? He was trying to teach righteousness to the people. If Shem is really Melchedizek then he was trying to take the people back to God as Enoch had done. Either way they wanted to make a foundation, a city based on the principles that were not the principles of God - that simple. They wanted to replace Jehovah with their own name. And not only did they want to replace God but they wanted to one up him with a bigger tower, one with more glory than God had. Sound familiar? ] lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. [ Reason number three for the tower. So we can all stay together. Here we go again, we will do as we please. They have decided to contradict the will of the Lord that command that was issued when they left the ark to multiple and fill the earth Gen 9:1. It is a small group of elites that want to maintain control of everything. To do that the present a purpose for everyone to unite, and then they appel to the pride of the people suggesting that they can do anything they want, they are Gods in the own right. People love to hear this kind of stuff - so this is where God will step in. Now we need to ask how do they know that they are about to be scatterred? Because the prophets of God have been telling them that if they don't change their ways that this is what God is going to do with them. ]
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, [ Strongs: banks, tower, embankment where the foundation of Earth that comes to be known as a place wherein an economy derives or is driven from. Do we know of towers that reach into heaven in Mesopotamia at this time? And we do. We actually have about 25 examples of enormous towers in Mesopotamia, and these are called ziggurats.
One of the largest found is the Ziggurat of Babel (Tower of Babel) found just outside of Baghdad( It was called Etaminanki which means the house of the foundation of Heaven and Earth). The Babylon ziggurat had been written and preserved on an ancient tablet with each side of the base of the foundation being 90 meters long. In an excavation report done by Cultivate and archelogist in 1908 he said that the sides of this ziggurat were 90 meters long on each side - which would match the details of the great towere of Babel and that the high would have been 90 meters(300 feet) as well according to the ancient records of the tower. (Ur of the Chaldees - A Record of Seven Years of Excavation by C. Leonard Wooley) Writes that "Hebrew tradition the ziggurat of Babylon is the Tower of Babel" the Wycliffe Bible dictionary of biblical archeology puts it this way "the Tower of Babel Genesis 11 is surely to be associated with the ziggurat of Babylon there is no question that this is where the ziggurat of Babylon stood the Tower of Babylon".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYc_VgjJfw8
And so, we do believe... Most biblical scholars believe that the tower of Babel was a ziggurat. And so let me talk a little bit about what these are. They were made out of these burnt bricks. And so of course that's a good connection. They're basically these towers of narrowing platforms. And so, as an Egyptologist, I think of if you've seen a step pyramid, it's kind of that idea. So a big platform on the bottom and it gets narrower to another platform, and another one and another one, all the way up to the top. And these things could be huge, as big as 300 feet on one side, and as tall as 200 feet up in the air. We have about 25 examples of these on the ground, that we can look at in Mesopotamia. And we have texts that tell us what they were used for, what they were called. It's great to be able to look at that, and say, "Does this inform or enhance our understanding of the tower in Genesis?" And that's one of the things that archeology and ancient texts can do. They really can give us more information, because we want to know why the tower was a problem? What was the problem with the Tower, so that their languages had to be confounded and they had to be scattered? Because you think of building a tower for God, hey, that's a good thing. But these texts enhance our understanding. And the ziggurats match up just perfectly with some of these things that they say. so, the names of these ziggurats are described as, "Having their head in the heavens high as a mountain, they're head touching heaven." And so there's definitely this idea of this connection between heaven and earth. That was the ziggurat, and that's one of the main purposes. so, let's talk a little bit about what we know about the purpose of ziggurats, and then maybe we can try and match it up or see how it connects with their purpose for building the Tower of Babel. So ziggurats, we know, were dedicated to a deity, usually the patron deity of a city. And the purpose of the ziggurat though, was not a temple. It wasn't a temple where some people went to worship this deity. And we know this because first of all, there was a temple always next to the ziggurat, where people would go and worship. And that was the temple. And ziggurats are never associated with rituals or worship or anything like that. So then it's like, why are they building this? And the craziest thing about these ziggurats is they were solid inside, except for the very top platform. They were completely filled with rubble, and dirt and sand and things like that. And they had this ramp or stairs going up to the top. So we find out in the text, that the reason why they're building these, is first of all, to make it so that God could come down to earth. So if they build it up into heaven and they reach heaven, it makes it possible for God to be able to use the ramp and the staircase, and come down and visit earth, and go to the temple and be worshiped; which already, it's kind of like a misunderstanding of kind of how God works and what he is. The other purpose was to make it so that God would stay on earth, that he wouldn't go back to heaven. And so on the very top of these ziggurats, there was a bedroom, an empty room, that they built for God. And inside the room was a bed and a table, and the priest would go up and they'd make the bed all nice, and they'd set the table with food and drink. And there was a chair. So their hope was that God would come down. He would live in this tower, so they would reach into heaven, be able to access God, bring him down. They would make a name for themselves, because if God's living in your city, on your ziggurat, then you're going to be famous. This kind of idea, if we can get God to live in our tower, in the ziggurat, then we won't be scattered. We can convince him this is where we need to stay. It's almost like a way of thinking of manipulating God. If we give him this, he owes us not to scatter us. He owes us to favor us and bless us. And so we can see there are a lot of issues with misunderstanding the nature of God. And when we hear things like this, controlling God, manipulating God, forcing him to live in a bedroom on a tower, that sounds insane to us. And so we think, what are we supposed to get from this, almost like this more pagan view of this sort of anthropomorphic humanized view of God? The truth is that when you actually start to look at it and think about it, we do these things just in different ways. We do these things sometimes. We misunderstand, I think, sometimes how God works. We're really getting into theology here. It's difficult. I think sometimes we take for granted our view or our understanding of God, and we just kind of push it aside. And I think this part of the story of the Tower of Babel is that we're meant to go back and think about who he is, what he is, and our relationship with him, and how he treats us, and in a way, how we treat him as well. Dr. Krystal Pierce https://followhim.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/06-OT-Genesis-6-11-Moses-8-Krystal-Pierce-Show-Notes-followHIM-Podcast.pdf] which the children of men builded.
[ We see the phrase children of men again suggesting the wickedness that is prevailing. Since Noah lived some 349 years after the flood he would have still been around. So what do you think he thought as he saw the tower being built and the sentiment toward the Lord? ]
6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, [ United together and working as one. This would sound good right? But the idea is that they are becoming one in the idea of God, his role and how they can change God's role in their lives, to control and manipulate God. One against God we might say as all of their actions are leading them down a path away from God. They are Mocking God and his ordinances building a pagan temple and administering the ordinances without the authority. They believe that they can entice God to find favor with them so that he will come down and live with them. See verse 5. In other words wickedness is spreading and doing so very fast so they do not all adopt that same philosophy too much God will scatter them and confound their language so that the spread of wickness does not spread as fast. It is a mob mentality and when things get that way it is hard to break out from it. Same problem as we had before Noah, b ut God promised not to flood the earth again so this time he will do things differently. At least this time they are getting along and want to be together it sounds - not so violent. I think there are many times in our life, where we think we know what's best for ourselves. We think we know, in a way, more than God. We know that this job is the perfect job for me. And because it's the perfect job for me, God will make sure I get this job. He will make sure it happens. And in reality, that's not quite how it works. That's not trust. That's not faith in God. I feel like sometimes this happens too, especially when we feel like we've been really righteous. Like, "I've been really righteous, so I deserve this." And it's hard because they said, "We will build this tower for you. We're doing this great and wonderful thing, so that you won't scatter us. You owe us not to scatter us." And I think we do things like this too. "Well, I've been going to church every Sunday. I've been reading my scriptures. I've been praying. Where are my blessings? Where is my prosperity? Where is this thing that I want?" what are our Towers of Babel? Everybody's got different towers they build themselves, that sometimes are based on a misunderstanding of just kind of how life works. And maybe a tower, I know for me, one of my towers is control, wanting to control my life and what happens. And when it doesn't turn out the way I want it, it's a struggle. And like you said, it's more about faith and trust; putting myself in his hands and not thinking I know everything or can control everything. That's a much better outcome, I think, than what the Tower stands for. We might also ask ourselves, Has Satan changed his tactics? ] and they have all one language; [ I don't know if
it would be stretching it to far to also imply that they had one belief
system, one religion, not the one of God so by confounding that belief
system different religions came about and this caused the concentrated
wickedness to become dispelled somewhat. So language, religion, custom...would
all create caos. This would be a cause for them to scatter as well as
we know how well religions like to mix. ] and
this [ Construction of the tower of Babel. This also imply's their views of God. If we do not have a correct understanding of who God is and his characteristics them how do we begin to understand him and where do you go from there? Such arrogance changes everything; everything you believe and do. Babylon becomes like this symbol, whether we're actually talking about Babylon, the place, or Babylon as a symbol of something, the idea of something. And the Tower, what does the tower represent? It represents people trying to control things, manipulating God, not trusting in God, not having faith. ] they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them,
[ They were so determined that they would not allow anything to get in their way. ] which they have imagined to do. [ Do you think in their way they were trying to say that we need to build a tower so that God will notice us? He did not love notice the people before the flood they were too little for him to notice, their prayers were not answered by him. The Adversary would say there are so many people out there in the world, that he's not paying attention to you, unless you make this massive display." And I think we've all felt this way, sometimes. "Does God care about me individually? Billions of people, billions of prayers. Does he hear my prayer?" And I think this is another tower. Maybe your tower is pride, maybe it's not, maybe it's the opposite. Maybe it's self-doubt and feeling alone and lost. Satan wants us to believe "You've got to do something bigger than everybody else in order for God to care about you." The idea that, "Well, I can't build a tower. I'm not going to become the prophet someday. so, why would God care about me or love me?" That philosophy can be just as destructive as pride. The Adversary is constantly trying to make us feel like we're nothing, we're worthless. so what's the solution then? Of course the solution to this Tower of Babel that's pride, is acknowledging God, thanking God. Noah gets off the boat and he sacrifices. But what about the self-doubt side? What's the solution to this, to realizing that God loves us? Elder Uchtdorf said, "This is the paradox. Compared to God, we're nothing, yet we are everything to God; everything to him." And if we can realize this, we can knock down some of these towers that we've built for ourselves. Ether, Chapter 1, becomes the answer to Genesis 11, where the brother of Jared cries unto the Lord, and the Lord has compassion. That happens in Chapter 1, four or five times. He cries to the Lord, and the Lord has compassion. He cries to the Lord, and the Lord has compassion. That seems to be the answer. Don't build a tower, cry to the Lord, go to the Lord. ]
7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, [ The Lord instructed at least some of the people that he was going to confound the language see Ether 1 - as a result Jared and his family were lead to the promised land by the Lord - as they plead with the Lord that their language would not be confounded. How do they respond to this situation that they have? In Ether, they turn to the Lord and they say, "Please don't confound our language." And that's it. Straightforward request. There's no manipulation. "We're going to build the Tower. We're going to add to it, or we're going to do this or that," there's no like, "We've been righteous, so you owe us not to confound our language." It's just, "Please don't do it. Please let us stay together, so we can communicate with each other." And the Lord says, "Okay." It says, "He had mercy on them and he did this." Then they find out they're going to be scattered. And the response to the scattering is incredible, because they don't go to the Lord and say, "Please, don't scatter us." They say, "Are we going to be scattered? And if so, will you lead us somewhere better?" It shows they have this understanding of God, he's in control. He decides if their language should be confounded, and if it's good for them or not. He decides if they should be scattered, and if it's going to be good for them or not. And the scattering, that's seen as typically a very negative, bad thing. In Ether 1:38, they say, "Maybe the Lord will carry us forth into a land which is choice above all the earth." So they also trust him. The confusion of tongues came as a curse from the Lord because of the wicked people’s attempt to build the counterfeit temple, or tower, as Moses explained here. The confusion the tongues so the people could “not understand one another’s speech” (Gen. 11:7), preventing further defilement of the Lord’s sacred ordinances. ] 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. [ They stopped construction of both the city and the tower. ]
9 Therefore is [ Or the reason why they named it the way they did is...] the name of it called Babel; [ Babel means to not be able to understand ones speak or babble. The Cainite city devoted to power, murder, and gain (“business as usual”) was thus restored. The tower of Babel was actually a temple devoted to the cult of Satan, symbolizing rebellion
against God. The Akkadian or Babylonian word babel means “gate of God.” The word translates from Hebrew into English as “confusion” or “confound”—hence Moses’ text, “Therefore is the name of it called Babel; In the Babylonian language, the word “Babel” is compounded of bab, which means “gate” and el, which means “god. “{“Babel, Tower of,” Jewish
Encyclopedia, http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com
} (“Babel” is the root of the word “Babylon,”
which is throughout the scriptures a symbol of the capital of wickedness.) In Hebrew, babel is just the word for Babylon. So it's a reference here, and that's another great thing about the Tower, is we get to tie it to a place, a time, people, archeology. We really get to tie this down. And that's amazing. That enhances, I think, our understanding quite a bit. So it comes from the Akkadian word babilu, which means, “Gate of the gods, Gate of the gods or gate to the gods.” I want us to keep that in mind as we talk about what the Tower represents, and what the Tower was used for, because it is related to that. And of course the word babel in English, means to kind of speak gibberish baby language. And it works perfectly with the confounding of languages. They weren't able to communicate and understand each other. And it probably sounded like babbling in gibberish, once the languages were confounded. So there's so many; just in this one word babel, we get so much information. We do find out in verse one, it says, "The whole earth was of one language and one speech." And of course the word used here for earth, in Hebrew is ‘erets. And this can refer to global earth. It can also refer to a region, a land, or a country. You look this up in the KJV, it is used to cover everything. Even soil; even a soil floor in a house is the earth. We use it in a similar way. But we do know there's a group of people, and they all speak the same language, and they're all traveling together.] 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.
10 ¶ These are the generations [ Descendants of. ] of Shem: [ The middle son of Noah - Why does Moses pick out Shem and concentrate on him? What he is doing is focusing our attention on or pointing us toward Abraham, the one to whom the covenant is directed, the one that when the covenants are keps will lead us back to our own salvation - the rest do not matter as much. ] Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:
13 And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.
25 And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters.
27 ¶ Now these are the generations [ Descendants of, accounting for. ] of Terah: Terah begat Abram, [ The birth of Abraham. ] Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
[ Lifespans before and after the flood Adam 930; Seth 912; Enos 905; Cainian 910; Mahalaleel 895; Jared 962l Enoch translated @ 430; Methuselah 969; Lamech 777; Noah 950 THE FLOOD Shem born before the flood 610; Arphaxad 438; Salah 433;Eber 464; Peleg 239; Reu 239\Serug 230; Nahor 148; Terah 205; Abraham 175; Issac 180; Jacob 147; Joseph 110. ]
28 And Haran died [ Because of the famine in Ur Abr 2:1. ] before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. [ Which means, between the rivers." The rivers in question were the Tigris and the Euphrates. ]
29 And Abram and Nahor took them [ The daughters of Haran; who were their nieces. ] wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; [ All the sources attest that she was a close relative-perhaps a half-sister (the daughter of his father through another wife) (Gen. 20:12),62 or perhaps a niece or a cousin.(According to Islamic scholars al-Tabari (Brinner, History of al-Tabari, 61) and al-Thalabi (Brinner, Lives of the Prophets, 135), Sarai was the daughter of Abraham's paternal uncle, Haran the Elder.) The close kinship with Abraham and the quality of her character suggest the possibility of mutual sympathy and support long before their marriage. Had Sarai been in the crowd that day when Abraham had been miraculously rescued? Had Sarai prayers and faith helped sustain him during his trials and tribulations? Had Sarai strength already been part of his success? Had Sarai long prayed for this eternal union? Such questions remain as yet unanswered? The name Sarai, which God would later alter to Sarah, means "princess" or possibly "queen," suggesting royal blood. Was this perhaps a reflection that her bloodline ran through the royal patriarchal line to which Abraham himself was heir? Or was her father, as an Islamic tradition tells, called Haran and did he rule as the king of Haran (perhaps Abraham's uncle)? Or, as another Islamic tradition relates, was Sarah closely related to Nimrod(Islamic Legends 1:75) or to one of his highest officials? (Given Terah's high place at court, some sort of blood relationship with the Nimrod dynasty does not seem impossible.) ] and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, [ Abrahams brother. ] the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. [ Why is Iscah specifically pointed out here? And who is she? A rabbinic tradition espoused by Rashi equates "Iscah," to be none other than Sarah and is the reason why she was mentioned here. Iscah was the daughter of Haran, apparently the same Haran mentioned two verses previously as Abraham's brother. (Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 1:203; 5:215; and Tuchman and Rapoport, Passions of the Matriarchs, 3) If Iscah was another name for her then the Hebrew meaning "prophetess" or "seer" would only be fitting. It was also said of her that she had a deep "love and compassion...qualities that would be a perfect match for Abraham. ]
[ The family of Abraham at this point - His father is Terah; His Brothers are Nahor and Haran; His wife is Sarah; no children yet; His brother Nahor is married to Milcah and they have no children yet; Haran his brother has these children Milcah, Lot,Iscah, Sarah. There is some suggestion that Abrahams father Terah adopted Sarah and Haran at the death of their father (Ensign Sep 1980 pg 45, 47) this would make it true then how Abraham answers the question to the Egyptians that she is his siter. Abr 2:20; Gen 12:10-13. ]
30 But Sarai was barren; [ It is interesting to learn that here in the Genesis account we read that Sarai was no able to have children - however in Abrahams own account(Abr. 2:2) he does not mention it at all. To me this is another testament to the kind of person that Abraham was. He could have said that it was Sarai's fault, as it obviously was, but Abraham makes no mention of it at all, Why? Because he just loved her so much that he would not say it. ] she had no child.
[ This in and of itself is a trail for any couple who has gone through the emotional roller coaster, the knowledge that it is what God has promised that you should do, and yet every month intestimony meeting couples stand and say how much the Lord loves them to bless them with another child, sometimes even unwanted, as it to say in a way that God does'nt love you the same way or he would bless you as well. ]
31 And Terah [ The Book of Abraham suggests that is was not Terah but rather Abraham that lead the expidition from Ur and that Terah just tagged along. ] took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, [ Lot is Terah's grandson. ] and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; [ And also her grandfather as she was the daughter of Haran. ] and they went forth with them from Ur [ Modern day town of Mugheir in Iraq.It is 150 mile inland of the Persian Gulf. ] of the Chaldees, [ another name for those who were theresidents of southern Babylon. ] to go into the land of Canaan; [ Or what is known as the holy land today. ] and they came unto Haran, [ Near northern Syria or southern Turkey today. ] and dwelt there.