We find that Abraham was a descendant of Shem, who was the son of Noah. I think all of us understand that. If we look down in verse 15 we find in a couple of generations after Shem that Salah begot Eber. We find therefore that Abraham’s genealogy is in the line of Noah through Shem through Eber. So this was the line through which God was preserving His truth, and indeed I think we can say that they, this line of men, represented His government on earth since the time of the Flood. We also find then that Jesus Christ, if we want to go to Luke the 3rd chapter, you will see all of these men’s names there, and you will see that Jesus came from the same line—Noah, Shem, Eber, Abraham, Judah, David, and on to Jesus Christ.
Genesis 11 is laying the foundation for Genesis 12. There are three important topics that are covered in Genesis 11. Beginning in verse 1 through verse 9, is the building of the Tower of Babel and the confusing of tongues, resulting in the spread of mankind over the whole earth. Then beginning in verse 10, we have the generations of Shem, which shows the line which God chose to preserve His truth. Then beginning in verse 26 or 27, somewhere right around there, the call of Abraham, which laid the foundation for the continuing preservation of God’s truth and established the line through which the Savior would come.
Now the word Chaldean is a Greek word. The Hebrew word is Chasidim which indicates people of Chasidim.
This Arphaxad, the best way that I can describe it, is an English corruption of Urfa-Chesed in Hebrew, or Urfa-Chaldean. So Ur is merely a shortened form of Urfa. Urfa then is the father of the Chaldeans and Abraham is descended from Arphaxad, through Eber, Urfa’s grandson. So we have a genealogy that went somewhat like this (I am going to leave some of the people out): Noah, Shem, Arphaxad, Eber, Peleg, Terah, Abraham. There were many others, but it gives us enough to understand the line.
I hope that I have established to you that Abraham was from northern Mesopotamia, the northern Ur of the Chaldeans. He is a direct descendant from Noah through Arphaxad to Eber to Terah down to him.
Here is the world as we know it at its beginning, after the Flood, through the family of Noah. Now we begin to see the breaking of those families into a variety of parts, each of which became a nation of itself, so we see:
Then the Bible follows Arphaxad's line, and when we get down to verse 24:
These two chapters show very clearly that Israel, who came out of the line of Shem through Arphaxad, through Eber, through Terah, through Abraham, had its roots in the world. However, chapter 11 interjects something between verses 1 and 10 showing the alienation of these nations of mankind from God. These are all the nations that came from Noah through Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who were caused to live under a curse, being scattered across the face of the earth, indicating that they were away from the presence of the God, and therefore, the blessings of God.
As we finish chapter 11, it is immediately followed by the calling and separation of Abram in Genesis 12.
Shem gave birth to Arphaxad then in verse 16, Arphaxad's line gave birth to Eber, then six generations later, Abraham was born. Of course he became the one that God called out of the land of the Chaldees and he is the one who became the father of the faithful.
I will turn to a verse in the book of Hebrews, and I think that since we are going into Babylonia, it is very interesting that God should make this little remark about Abraham. We will see this to be important later on.
In fact Shem's son Arphaxad, whom we see in the list of Shem's descendants (specifically I am looking at the one in in Genesis 11:10), was not the firstborn. If you go back to Genesis 10:22, you find that the sons of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram. So evidently, if this list is going to be believed as the proper birth order, Arphaxad was the third born, not the first.
