Bede

Behold, he said, the people are one and they all have one language; and they have begun to do this, and they will not desist from their thoughts until they complete them in action. There is a great difference in sinning between those who so despise God's commandments that they still have among themselves just admirers and worshippers, and those who all with unanimous consent contradict heavenly commands. There is also a great difference between those who sin, for example, in their youth, intending to do penance for their committed sins later in old age, and those who carry no intention of correction for the evils they do. Therefore, to show here the unanimity of the sinners, the invisible Judge says: Behold, the people are one and they all have one language; and he adds their unrepentant intention: They have begun to do this, and they will not desist from their thoughts until they complete them in action; to whom aptly fits the beginning of the thirteenth psalm, in which it is said: The fool has said in his heart, There is no God (Psalm 13:1), that is, Nimrod the contriver of the infamous work; and hence about the workmen of the doomed city: They are corrupt and have become abominable (ibid.). These words which we discuss, the internal Judge speaks to the ministers of virtues in an incomprehensible order to us: His speaking to them is to show His own invisible secrets to their hearts, so that in the contemplation of truth they read whatever they ought to do; for what is said as if to those who hear is inspired to those who see; therefore, when God infused into their hearts the verdict of retribution against human pride, He says:

And so the Lord scattered them from that place over all the earth, and they ceased to build the city; and therefore it was called Babel, because there the language of the whole earth was confused. Rightly was the language confused for dispersion, because it had wickedly conspired in nefarious speech: the power of language was taken from the proud leaders, so that they could not teach the evils they had begun to their subjects in contempt of God, and thus the judgment of divine severity was turned into an aid for human utility, so that by keeping silent they would stop the work which they had perversely gathered to insist upon: and so with the Lord descending and seeing the city of pride, Babylon, that is, confusion, it happened to be named: which contrarily, the city of truth has both the name and the state; for it is called Jerusalem, that is, Vision of Peace, in which the Lord, seeing the assembly of the faithful and humble in spirit, sent the grace of the Holy Spirit, who would grant them the knowledge of all languages, with which, imbued, they would unanimously call all people who were in different languages to the construction of that same holy city, that is, the Church of Christ; and those who had humbly listened to the truth would sublimely open their mouths to proclaim the knowledge of the truth to the whole world. However, it should be noted that although the Scripture says that having been scattered through the world, the builders ceased from building the city; it does not say that it was ceased from being inhabited: from which it should be gathered that, with others descending and ceasing from structure, Nimrod, the author of the work, remained there with his house and family, until, from his own offspring, he could rule more greatly and more powerfully add other cities to his kingdom. For indeed, if I am not mistaken, it cannot otherwise be understood what was said above about him: But the beginning of his kingdom was Babylon, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar: although it is said that Ninus or Semiramis his wife later made the same city of Babylon greater and more august in time; hence that poet's saying that Semiramis once surrounded the city with baked brick walls; and especially Nebuchadnezzar accumulating its ornaments from the spoils of Jerusalem: whence he himself proudly said: Is this not great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, in the might of my power, and for the glory of my majesty? Of whose greatness and decoration Jerome thus narrates: "Babylon was very powerful, and situated in the plains, it extended sixteen thousand paces from corner to corner of the wall, that is, it encompasses sixty-three in circumference, as Herodotus relates (Book I), and many others who wrote Greek histories. The citadel, that is, its capitol is the tower which was built after the flood, said to occupy four thousand paces. Orosius in his histories (Book I, chap. 6) similarly mentions it: This [city], visible from all sides in the plain expanse, most fertile by the nature of the place, arranged quadrangularly with equal walls in the appearance of a camp, the strength and magnitude of its walls is scarcely credible in report, that is, fifty cubits in width, four times as high: moreover, its circumference is four hundred eighty stades, the wall built with baked bricks and mixed with bitumen, surrounded outside by a wide ditch that flows like a river. In front of the walls, a hundred bronze gates: the width at the top of the walls on either side includes the dwellings of the defenders, and spaced in the middle it accommodates chariots. The houses inside are four stories high, wonderful in threatening height." But since in the spiritual sense Babylon is the city of the devil, that is, the entire multitude of reprobate humans, who are the builders of Babylon except the masters of errors, who either introduce a cult contrary to the truth of divinity, or attack the known faith of the truth with evil deeds or words?

These are the generations of Shem. Shem was one hundred years old when he begot Arphaxad, two years after the flood. After the destruction of the Tower of Babel, Scripture hastens, by enumerating the generations of the second age of the world (for the first had run until Noah and the flood), to arrive at Abraham, the patriarch of the third age, indeed of all nations; through whose faith and obedience the new foundations of the holy city would once again be laid, and in whose seed the dispersion of nations would return to one confession and faith in divine worship. But the number one hundred, which is transferred from the left hand to the right, usually insinuates great perfection whether of good action or of hope or heavenly life; fittingly Sem, the son of blessing, in the hundredth year of his life begot a son, whose lineage would come from Heber and reach to Abraham; and Abraham himself, by the same grace of the sacrament, begot Isaac the son of promise in the hundredth year of his own age, in whose example we, the children of the promise, as if placed temporarily on the right side of our judge through hope, expect the blessing of heavenly life through good works: for the two sons whom Sem begot before the hundredth year, Elam and Asshur, as read above, placed outside the holy seed and as if retained still in the left hand, created citizens of the earthly city rather, that is, of this world. For one became the father of the Elamites, that is, the Persians, the other the progenitor of the Assyrians. But a great question according to the literal sense arises for us as to how Shem can be said to be one hundred years old two years after the flood, when he is asserted above to be born in the five hundredth year of Noah, and it is read that the flood came in the six hundredth year of that same Noah. For if he was born in the five hundredth year of his father, surely when Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came, he was one hundred years old, and thus two years after the flood, he had one hundred and two years of age. Therefore, that the number of times does not contradict itself, it must be understood either that Noah had a little more than five hundred years when Shem was born, or two less than six hundred when the flood came, or that Shem was one hundred and two years old when Arphaxad was born. For Scripture is accustomed to speak in such a way that even if a little remains or is lacking, it still sounds a complete and perfect number in the count. However, it seems most probable, as my suspicion leads me, that when Shem was born, Noah had a little more than five hundred years; for indeed Scripture did not lie in saying that he had five hundred years, even if he had five hundred and two: for the smaller number is certainly contained within the greater. For Scripture itself signified that it spoke very freely in that place when it said Noah having five hundred years begot three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth; when it is not in doubt to anyone that one man cannot beget three sons from one wife in one and the same year: which perhaps sacred history more diligently took care to explain in this place, by saying Shem was one hundred years old two years after the flood because it remembered that it noted his year of birth somewhat negligently.

These are the generations of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. The house of Terah was one, from which Abraham was born, in which the worship of the one true God was kept; and, as is credible, in which the Hebrew language alone also remained, when, as told by Joshua, he himself, like the manifest people of God in Egypt, served foreign gods in Mesopotamia. The others from the progeny of Heber gradually flowed into other languages and into other nations, in the same manner as after the flood of waters, one house of Noah remained to restore the human race. Thus, in the flood of many superstitions throughout the world, one house of Terah remained, in which the planting of the city of God was preserved. Finally, just as there, after enumerating the generations up to Noah along with the number of years, and after expounding the cause of the flood, before God began to speak to Noah about the construction of the ark, it is said "These are the generations of Noah"; so also here, after enumerating the generations from Shem, the son of Noah, up to Abraham, then a notable phrase is similarly put, so that it is said "These are the generations of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran." Indeed, there, the patriarch of the second age of the world was born, here, in the third age.

Moreover, Aran begot Lot, and Aran died before his father Thare in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans. What is said before Thare may designate both presence and time; time, evidently, because he died before his father; presence, indeed, because he passed away before him, that is, in his presence. Finally, some Codices have that he died before the face of his father Thare. That what is said in Ur of the Chaldeans seems to be the name of the place where he was buried; whose tomb, as Josephus reports, is shown today, from which it seems that the same Aran had been of some great excellence or dignity. Moreover, because among the Hebrews Ur means Fire, they narrate that he was consumed by the fire of the Chaldeans; because clearly, recognizing the true God with Abraham, his elder brother, he refused to worship the fire which they worshipped; and thus, both being cast into the fire by the Chaldeans, he was consumed by the flames; but Abraham, by the merit of his higher faith, was delivered by the Lord: hence it speaks to him subsequently: I am the Lord, who brought you out of the fire of the Chaldeans; and on account of this dissension of Abraham, although he escaped the fire, he could not dwell among the Chaldeans; but with his kindred, he was transferred by his parent to another land: with which agree the words of Achior, the leader of all the Moabites and Ammonites, who, as a renowned man, could not ignore what had happened in the nearby and related people, indeed from whom he himself had sprung: for speaking of the people of Israel to Holofernes, the leader of the Assyrian army, he says: This people is from the lineage of the Chaldeans: they first dwelt in Mesopotamia because they refused to follow the Gods of their fathers, who were in the land of the Chaldeans. Forsaking therefore the ceremonies of their fathers, which were among the multitude of gods, they worshiped the one God of heaven, who also commanded them to leave there and dwell in Haran (Judith 5:6).

So Thare took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, the wife of Abram his son, and brought them out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to go into the land of Canaan. The old translation has, "he brought them out of the region of the Chaldeans," which poses no question at all. But as it is said according to the Hebrew truth, "he brought them out of Ur," that is, out of the fire or burning of the Chaldeans, it can be rightly understood that he brought them out of that region where fire was worshipped, instead of saying, "he brought them out of the idolatry of the Chaldeans." As for the statement "to go into the land of Canaan," and immediately thereafter is added "they came as far as Haran, and dwelt there, and the days of Thare were two hundred and five years, and Thare died in Haran," it shows Thare's intention, because he indeed thought, when he fled from the Chaldeans, to go into the land of Canaan: but when he reached Haran, and found in it a convenient and safe place for himself and his people from the pursuit of the Chaldeans, he refrained from further traveling to the land of Canaan, but remained in the city to which he had come until his death: so much so that even when his son Abraham and his grandson Lot went out of it at the command of the Lord, he did not care to move his foot from it. For as it is said there, that he was two hundred and five years old when he died, it is clear that it happened long after their departure. Indeed, Abraham, who was born when his father was seventy, was seventy-five years old when he left Haran, which makes one hundred and forty-five years. Therefore, at this age of the father he left Haran, namely sixty years before his death. But the Scripture, by preoccupying Thare’s death before Abraham’s departure, joined his arrival and residence in Haran, so that thereafter it might have a free space for narrating about Abraham and Lot. Now Haran is a city of Mesopotamia beyond Edessa, which is still called Charrae today, noted among the Romans for the death of consul Crassus, among us notable for the residence of the patriarchs: which also in the book of the holy Father Tobit is renowned by the hospitality of the archangel Raphael.

And the Lord said to Abram, "Go out from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing." For, speaking distinctly, the Lord mentions land, kindred, and father's house. The land of Abram must be understood as the region of the Chaldeans from which he had already departed: his kindred, the family of his brother Nahor, whom he had already left behind: the father's house, in which he was then dwelling in Haran. How then is it that he is now commanded to go out from his father's house as well as from the land and kindred from which he already seemed to have come forth? Unless perhaps it should be understood that he had left his land and his kindred with his parent with the intention, as we have previously mentioned, to return to it after reconciling with the Chaldeans in the following age: he is now commanded by the Lord to turn his mind away from the purpose of returning to Chaldea, and to take away his mind and body from the habitation of Mesopotamia as well. Leaving behind the land in which the city of pride was made, and confused by the judgment of the Lord, he was to come into the land in which he would receive the grace of the heavenly blessing and would create a new and better progeny by merit of his faith and obedience. For what he says, "And I will make you into a great nation," properly pertains to the people of Israel. For concerning the generation of other nations that were likewise to arise from him—namely the Ishmaelites, Edomites, and the peoples from Keturah, his second wife after Sarah—he says in subsequent words to him, "I will make you grow exceedingly, and I will place you among nations, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed." This is a promise of blessing greater and far superior to the former. That one indeed is earthly, this one is heavenly: because the former signifies the propagation of carnal Israel, this one of the spiritual. The former pertains to the people who were born from him according to the flesh; this one to those who are saved in Christ from all the families of the earth, among whom are indeed those who are born from him according to the flesh and also wish to imitate his faith's piety. To all these, the Apostle Paul says, "And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed" (Gal. 3:19). Therefore, what he says, "And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed" is as if he were saying, "And in your seed all the families of the earth will be blessed." For, to speak in the words of the Apostle, Mary was already in the loins of Abraham at that time, from whom Christ was to be born, when these things were said to him. And the wondrous disposition of heavenly severity and piety: for men gathering for a proud work deserved to be divided from one another through different languages and kinships. But leaving that province alone and willingly going into exile at the command of the Lord, he heard that all the nations divided into various provinces and languages would be gathered in him by a common blessing. Note indeed that although the world's third age is usually computed from the birth of Abraham, yet by this special oracle of the Lord to Abraham, the beginnings of the third age are consecrated according to the sufficiency of the matters themselves. For at that time, the holy seed was separated from the nations, and the Savior of all nations, who was to be born from it, was foretold. Until this time, all the faithful and righteous used to make use of that knowledge of moral life which they either knew naturally by guidance or drew originally from the doctrine of their parents. But now the knowledge also of the coming Savior in the flesh, in whom blessing and salvation were to come to all the holy ones, both those who would precede his incarnation by being born earlier and to us who believe we can be saved later by the name of the same Lord Jesus, as Peter says, in the same way as they.