There are many generation lists in these two chapters, eight or nine depending on how one counts them. Lists of generations separate various sections of the book of Genesis, each one telling us a shift is taking place in the story. These lists in chapters 10 and 11 surround the story of the tower of Babel. OK, so I’m stating the obvious here.
To understand everything that is happening in the story of the Tower of Babel, it’s important to look at the list in chapter 10. There is this key phrase repeated four times: “These are the descendants of (fill in the blank), by their families, their languages, their lands, and their nations.” The heart of this story is that God scatters the single people into many nations, each with their own language.
Why? The answer to that lies in the motive of the people building the tower. The purpose of this tower was to get close to the gods or God. Force God to meet them there. This was counter to what God had wanted the people to do following the flood: 7 “And you, be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and have dominion over it.” (Gen 9:7) So God takes the next step to achieve what he wanted — confuse the language of the people which causes them to form separate nations and scatter around the earth. And this sets up what happens next, when God chooses a single people to be his holy nation.
Psalm note: I will take verse 5 as a significant command to ponder: “Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the Lord.”
