Reu or Ragau ( he, רְעוּ, Rə'ū; grc-x-biblical, Ῥαγαύ, Rhagaú), according to

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book o ...

in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

, was the son of

Peleg Peleg ( he, פֶּלֶג, Péleḡ, in pausa he, פָּלֶג, Pā́leḡ, "division"; grc-x-biblical, Φάλεκ, Phálek) is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as one of the two sons of Eber, an ancestor of the Ishmaelites and the Israelites, ...

and the father of

Serug Serug ( he, שְׂרוּג – ''Śərūḡ'', "branch"; gr, Σερούχ – ''Seroúkh'') was the son of Reu and the father of Nahor, according to Genesis 11:20–23. He is also the great-grandfather of Abraham, thus the ancestor of the Is ...

, thus being

Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrews, Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the Covenant (biblical), special ...

's great-great-grandfather and the ancestor of the

Israelites The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...

and

Ishmaelites The Ishmaelites ( he, ''Yīšməʿēʾlīm,'' ar, بَنِي إِسْمَاعِيل ''Bani Isma'il''; "sons of Ishmael") were a collection of various Arabian tribes, confederations and small kingdoms described in Islamic tradition as being des ...

In scriptures

The ''

Book of Jubilees The Book of Jubilees, sometimes called Lesser Genesis (Leptogenesis), is an ancient Jewish religious work of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as well as Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews), where it is ...

'' names Reu's mother as Lomna of

Shinar Shinar (; Hebrew , Septuagint ) is the name for the southern region of Mesopotamia used by the Hebrew Bible. Etymology Hebrew שנער ''Šinʿar'' is equivalent to the Egyptian ''Sngr'' and Hittite ''Šanḫar(a)'', all referring to southern M ...

(10:28), and his wife as Ora, daughter of Ur Kesed (11:1). He is said to have been born at the time when the

Tower of Babel The Tower of Babel ( he, , ''Mīgdal Bāḇel'') narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages. According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and mi ...

was begun. According to the

Masoretic text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...

(), Reu was 32 when Serug was born and lived to the age of 239 (when Abraham was either 18 or 78). The

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

and

Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Torah (Samaritan Hebrew: , ''Tōrāʾ''), also called the Samaritan Pentateuch, is a text of the Torah written in the Samaritan script and used as sacred scripture by the Samaritans. It dates back to one of the ancient versions ...

state that his age on fathering Serug was 132, and the

thus gives age at death as 339.

In popular culture

The biblical film

(1993) features Nadim Sawalha as a minor character named Reko, whose name is phonetically similar to Reu.

References

{{Reflist Book of Genesis people Book of Jubilees