And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor: 23 And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.
If you think that “Nahor” sounds like “nose hair,” then you aren’t alone. But back when Nahor was born, you would have been alone since no two people spoke the same language.
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.
Reu never really made peace with the fact that he was the son of a pirate. He often fantasized about his father’s boat being destroyed in a battle, and Peleg’s corpse sinking to the sea floor where it would be covered by a rug of moss and slowly devoured by crustaceans. So much did Reu love this fantasy, that he named his first-born son Segur (literally “sea rug”) in honor of it.
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.
Being a pirate, Peleg had ladies in every port, and the girls loved that his wooden leg was always kept filled with champagne.
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.
Eber was famous for penning reviews of the work of local acting troups. He invented (and tradmarked) the “thumbs up” gesture to show approval of a particularly moving performance, only to see it co-opted by the Romans who used it as a signal for the lion to go ahead and eat the Christian.
And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber: 15 And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.
Lots of sons; lots of daughters. As noted previously, the ladies were totally into Salah.
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.
Following in his father’s tradition, Arphaxad only had one particularly interesting child — a son (of course) named Salah. Salah was important because, after the whole “Tower of Babel” incident, he was the only one who spoke French, and the ladies really dug that.
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.
People waited longer to have their first kid back in those days, and they really believed in having big families. But even though he had many score children, Arphaxad was the only one who really made anything of himself. The rest were pretty much just a bunch of slackers, mama’s boys, and shepherds.
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.
And that, O my Best Beloved, is where all the languages of the world came from. If you have heard from some “teacher” or other “expert” that languages naturally change over time, they are incorrect. All languages were made by God and are therefore perfect. If a language changes, it is because the language is becomming corrupt, so such changes (“Ms.” as a title, “Google” as a verb, “no body” as a single word, etc.) must be hunted down and destroyed.
So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
After changing everyone’s language, God threw people all around the world, which is how people with different languages ended up in different places. Most of them decided it was better to stay where they had landed instead of trying to get back to Babel and work on the city, so the tower never did get finished (it eventually collapsed under its own weight, fell over, and crushed a couple of nearby villages, wiping out all traces of the Flamish and Scanmu’su languages forever).
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
This is pretty funny, if you think about it. It’s like God has his own “pranked” TV show. Could you imagine the type of practical jokes you could play if you were omnipotent? How about a green light that instantly turns red whenever a car starts to move, and then turns green when the car is still? Or catching a fish with scales that spell “eat me”? Or an Olympic gymnastic event won by a team of trained dogs? The possibilities are endless!