This account of Shem continues from 10:21–32, focusing on the family line leading to Abram. Only Abram and Israel inherit Shem’s God (see 9:26–27; Deuteronomy 32:8–9). The Babel story strongly rejects the culture that God called Abram to abandon (Genesis 12:1; 24:6–7). Together with the account of Terah’s descendants (11:27–32), this account of Shem’s line forms a bridge from the universal history of chapters 1–11 to Israel's national history that begins in chapter 12.
Abram was part of the small group that remained faithful after the confusion at Babel.
God chose Abram as an act of grace. Through Abram, God began a new plan. God’s purpose was to bless the whole world, even though the nations had been divided and scattered at Babel (12:3).
the father of (or the ancestor of): Hebrew family records (genealogies, or lists of ancestors) do not always include every generation.