Reu or Ragau (; ), according to Genesis in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Peleg Peleg (, in pausa , "division"; ) is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as one of the two sons of Eber, an ancestor of the Ishmaelites and the Israelites, according to the Generations of Noah in and . In Scriptures Peleg's son was Reu, born w ...

and the father of Serug, thus being

Abraham Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrews, Hebrew Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the Covenant (biblical), covenanta ...

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

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

and Ishmaelites.

In scriptures

According to the

apocryphal Apocrypha () are biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of scripture, some of which might be of doubtful authorship or authenticity. In Christianity, the word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to ...

Book of Jubilees The Book of Jubilees is an ancient Jewish apocryphal text of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, as well as by Haymanot Judaism, a denomination observed by members of Ethiopian Jewish ...

,'' Reu is said to have been born to Peleg and Lomna of Shinar at the time when the

Tower of Babel The Tower of Babel is an origin myth and parable in the Book of Genesis (chapter 11) meant to explain the existence of different languages and cultures. According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language migrates to Shin ...

was begun.

'Behold the children of men have become evil through the wicked purpose of building for themselves a city and a tower in the land of Shinar.' - (10:18)

His wife was Ora, daughter of 'Ûr, (the son of Kesed) (''Jubilees'' 11:1). According to the

Masoretic text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...

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

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

and

Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Pentateuch, also called the Samaritan Torah (Samaritan Hebrew: , ), is the Religious text, sacred scripture of the Samaritans. Written in the Samaritan script, it dates back to one of the ancient versions of the Torah that existe ...

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

thus gives age at death as 339.

In popular culture

The biblical film ''Abraham'' (1993) features Nadim Sawalha as a minor character named Reko, a name phonetically similar to Reu.

References

{{Adam to Muhammad Book of Genesis people Book of Jubilees