January 4: Genesis 11:1 – Genesis 14:24 & 1 Chronicles 1:24–27

The Tower of Babel – Genesis 11

• The whole earth has one language. The people journey east and find a plain in the land of Shinar (ancient Babylon, in Mesopotamia), where they settle. 
• Using baked bricks and mortar, the people set out to build a city, and a tower that reaches into the heavens. (They want to become as famous as the Nephilim were before the Great Flood, and make a name for themselves.)
• God "came down to see" (omniscience) what they were doing, and sees their potential to become as willfully sinful as people were before the Flood. He will not allow this to happen.
• God confuses their language, scattering them abroad. (This is the beginning of variation in language, culture, values, and clans—caused by human arrogance.) The scattering is God's third great judgment on the people (the first being the expulsion from Eden and the second being the Great Flood). 
• The tower is called Babel. In Hebrew, the word for confuse (in verb form) sounds similar to the name of the city.

Shem's Descendants – Genesis 11:10–26 & 1 Chronicles 1:24–27

• The genealogy of Shem, the progenitor of the Hebrew people, is given, from Shem to Terah, who was the father of Abram (later Abraham), Nahor, and Haran.

Terah's Descendants

• Terah's son Haran dies, leaving a son named Lot. Abram and Nahor take wives (Sarai and Milcah, respectively). Sarai is barren.
• Terah takes Abram, Lot, and Sarai, and they leave Ur of the Chaldeans and go to Canaan, to a place called Haran, where Terah dies.

Promises to Abram – Genesis 12

• God tells Abram to take his family to the land God will show him, and that He will make Abram a great nation.
• Abram obeys, leaving Haran with Sarai, Lot, and the people they had acquired in Haran, and traveled to Shechem, also in Canaan. There, God tells Abram that He will give this land (which belongs to the Canaanites) to Abram's descendants, and Abram builds an altar to the Lord.
• Abram then moves to the mountains east of Bethel and pitches his tent between Bethel and Ai, where he builds another altar and calls on the name of the Lord.
• Abram then journeys again, heading south.

Abram in Egypt

• There was a famine in the land, so Abram takes his family south to Egypt. 
• As the family is entering Egypt, Abram tells Sarai to tell anyone who asks, that she is his sister. He fears that because she is beautiful, if she tells people that she is his wife, the people will try to kill him. (Sarai is actually Abram's half-sister, as they shared the same father.)
• In Egypt, Sarai is taken by the Pharaoh's princes into the house of Pharaoh, where she becomes a wife of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh treats Abram well for Sarai's sake (he is given servants and livestock).
• God plagues Pharaoh and his household because of Sarai (the first example of the cursing and blessing element of God's promise, found in verses 2 and 3 of the chapter).
• Angry, Pharaoh sends Abram and Sarai away with all they own.

Abram Inherits Canaan – Genesis 13

• Abram and his family return to the place where he pitched his tent between Bethel and Ai. There, he calls upon the name of the Lord again.
• Lot also goes with them, and the land is not able to house all of them, as their possessions are so great that they can't live together. There is strife between the herdsmen of the Lot and the herdsmen of Abram, so the two men decide to separate so there will be no more problems between them. Lot chooses the land of Jordan, to the east (his choice of the more favorable land leads him into territory populated by the worst of the Canaanites—the men of Sodom), while Abram chooses the land of Canaan.
• Lot pitches his tent as far as Sodom, where the men are "exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord." (Gen. 13:13)
• The Lord tells Abram to look all around him, and that all the land Abram can see will be given to him and his descendants forever. (This is God's reaffirmation of His promise to Abram after Abram's lack of faith in Egypt and his separation from Lot.) He also tells Abram He will make his descendants as the dust of the earth (innumerable), and tells Abram to move about through his land (a symbolic act of taking possession).
• Abram moves his tent, dwelling by the terebinth trees of Mamre (in Hebron), where he builds another altar to the Lord.

Lot's Captivity and Rescue – Genesis 14

• War breaks out in Jordan, where Lot is living. Lot and his family, along with the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, are captured. An escapee flees to Abram and tells him what has happened.
• Abram arms his three hundred eighteen trained servants, and together they attack the city of Sodom in the night. Abram brings back all the goods, as well as Lot and his family and all their belongings.
• The king of Sodom meets Abram in the Valley of Shaveh after Abram's return from victory. 

Abram and Melchizedek

• Melchizedek, king of Salem (later Jerusalem) meets with Abram. (Melchizedek is a priest of the Most High God and worshiped the living God.) He then blesses Abram.
• The king of Sodom tells Abram to give him his people but to keep the goods. Abram refuses, saying he will not take anything that belongs to the king (this is his rebuke of Sodom and its king, which is in contrast to Lot, who moved into the wicked city), lest the king say that he made Abram rich.