Back to all lyrics
Artwork for A Name to Reach the Heavens

Genesis 10:1-11:26

A Name to Reach the Heavens

Lyrics · Genesis

A Name to Reach the Heavens

Genesis 10:1-11:26

Lyrics

About this song

About this song

This song belongs to the Genesis collection. One recording is available to play here, with the complete lyrics below.

Bible book
Genesis
Collection
Genesis
Musical styles
Alternative Pop
[Verse 1] Sons became nations, coastlands found their shore, Families spread eastward, kingdoms rose once more. Nimrod built his cities, hunters praised his fame, Then Shinar gathered all mankind beneath a single name. [Pre-Chorus] Brick upon brick and mortar black, They feared the road and would not scatter back. [Chorus] They raised a name to reach the heavens, One tongue, one tower, one proud intention. But every word broke in their mouths, And God sent every family north and south. [Verse 2] The city climbed upward, the plain held them fast, They trusted what their hands could make to keep their glory vast. The LORD came down and saw the work rebellion had begun, Then language split the laborers and scattered everyone. [Bridge] Babel kept the memory of voices torn apart, Yet Shem's line moved quietly through generation's chart. Eber, Peleg, Terah, then Abram came in view, A scattered world would hear a promise moving through the few. [Final Chorus] They raised a name to reach the heavens, One tongue, one tower, one proud intention. Their monument fell silent on the plain, But through a chosen line would blessing rise again. [Outro] The tower stopped, the nations spread, And Abram's name appeared ahead.

Named in this songNimrodBabelShemAbram

About the passage

Genesis 10: The nations belong to one human family

Genesis 10 spreads the post-flood family across a wide human map. Japheth, Ham, and Shem produce branches identified through families, languages, lands, and nations, making the chapter far more than a list of private household names. It is also not a modern racial chart. Peoples, territories, and descent overlap as Genesis locates a diverse world inside one surviving family. Brief expansions interrupt the lists where power or geography matters: Nimrod receives a kingdom and a reputation, while Canaan receives unusually specific descendants and borders. Those details prevent later readers from collapsing entire branches into one undifferentiated category. The chapter then turns toward Shem and especially Eber, beginning the narrowing that will eventually reach Abram without erasing the surrounding nations. By the final verse the world is divided among many peoples, but their common ancestry has already been established. Genesis is ready to focus on one family in a world where all families remain related.

Study Genesis 10 in depth

Genesis 11: A name to be built and a family unable to continue

Genesis 11 begins with humanity trying to resist dispersion through shared language, coordinated technology, a city, a tower, and a name. The project’s scale receives a dry correction when the LORD must “come down” to see what is meant to reach heaven. Language is then confounded, and the very scattering the builders feared becomes the result of their attempt to prevent it. The account immediately narrows from nations back to one genealogical line, tracing Shem through Eber to Terah. The repeated births move steadily until the family itself begins to stall. Haran dies, Terah’s journey toward Canaan stops in Haran, and Sarai is introduced with the doubled statement that she is barren and has no child. The chapter therefore ends with two interrupted futures beside each other: a migration that has not reached its destination and a marriage with no heir. Genesis 12 will answer both with a call and a promise.

Study Genesis 11 in depth