What happensPermalink
The Tower of Babel: people build a tower in Shinar to reach heaven, so God confuses their languages and disperses them. The genealogy of Shem down to Terah, Abraham, and Lot. Terah moves from Ur of the Chaldeans to Haran.
Why it mattersPermalink
God’s response to the tower explains the dispersion in Genesis 10. Babel is Hebrew for Babylon and sounds like Hebrew for “confound”; the tower is another attempt to displace God’s role by man’s effort. Abram’s family begins the journey west to Canaan, but stops halfway.
Key versePermalink
Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.