We're going to breeze through some more geneology here because we should now all understand that yes, it's important, but no, it's not terribly interesting. Shem begets Arpachshad, who begets other (male) people, and it's not until the children of Terah (or rather, the male children, because I bet you there were some daughters in there) that it gets interesting. But let's step back for a moment.
Who the hell built the Tower of Babel? Because according to the Bible, everyone but Noah's family was wiped out by a great flood. See, if I were writing the Bible I would have put the Babel story somewhere else, after Noah and kin have gotten to the business of repopulation. But I didn't write the Bible. Nobody did. It's a collection of stories and legends and history that got lumped together thousands of years after the fact.
So let's assume that Babel actually took place somewhere in the hundreds of years of geneology which comes after it and move on, shall we?
Terah's son Abram is going to be important. So is his grandson Lot. And it's important that we know right up front that Abram's wife Sarai is unable to bear children. That will come up later. But at the end of the passage, Terah and his sons Abram and Nahor, plus his son Haran's son Lot, plus their assorted family units, have left the land of their birth and are heading to Canaan. Cliff hanger!
Since this is a short one, let's talk briefly about the division of chapter and verse in the Bible. It's not very good. It breaks up stories or puts stories together. I'm not sure exactly how it came to be, but I can tell you that it didn't come to be because some guy named Moses sat down at a certain point and wrote it all down and divided it thus. Why am I dividing my discussion of the Bible up by chapters? It's easier.
Also, Haran is a place and a person. Who came up with this? It probably means something, but I'm not even sure the people who collected the stories know for certain. Maybe Haran just happened to be on the way to Canaan. Anyway, that's where Terah dies, and his descendants are going to head to Canaan because God told them to.
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