Genesis 11:1-32

The Dispersion of the Nations at Babel

11:1 The whole earth ¹  had a common language and a common vocabulary. ²  11:2 When the people ³  moved eastward, ⁴  they found a plain in Shinar ⁵  and settled there. 11:3 Then they said to one another, ⁶  “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” ⁷  (They had brick instead of stone and tar ⁸  instead of mortar.) ⁹  11:4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens ¹⁰  so that ¹¹  we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise ¹²  we will be scattered ¹³  across the face of the entire earth.”

11:5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people ¹⁴  had started ¹⁵  building. 11:6 And the Lord said, “If as one people all sharing a common language ¹⁶  they have begun to do this, then ¹⁷  nothing they plan to do will be beyond them. ¹⁸  11:7 Come, let’s go down and confuse ¹⁹  their language so they won’t be able to understand each other.” ²⁰ 

11:8 So the Lord scattered them from there across the face of the entire earth, and they stopped building ²¹  the city. 11:9 That is why its name was called ²²  Babel ²³  – because there the Lord confused the language of the entire world, and from there the Lord scattered them across the face of the entire earth.

The Genealogy of Shem

11:10 This is the account of Shem.

Shem was 100 old when he became the father of Arphaxad, two years after the flood. 11:11 And after becoming the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other ²⁴  sons and daughters.

11:12 When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah. 11:13 And after he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other ²⁵  sons and daughters. ²⁶ 

11:14 When Shelah had lived 30 years, he became the father of Eber. 11:15 And after he became the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other ²⁷  sons and daughters.

11:16 When Eber had lived 34 years, he became the father of Peleg. 11:17 And after he became the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.

11:18 When Peleg had lived 30 years, he became the father of Reu. 11:19 And after he became the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

11:20 When Reu had lived 32 years, he became the father of Serug. 11:21 And after he became the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

11:22 When Serug had lived 30 years, he became the father of Nahor. 11:23 And after he became the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.

11:24 When Nahor had lived 29 years, he became the father of Terah. 11:25 And after he became the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

11:26 When Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

The Record of Terah

11:27 This is the account of Terah.

Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. 11:28 Haran died in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans, ²⁸  while his father Terah was still alive. ²⁹  11:29 And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, ³⁰  and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah; ³¹  she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. 11:30 But Sarai was barren; she had no children.

11:31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (the son of Haran), and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and with them he set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. When they came to Haran, they settled there. 11:32 The lifetime ³²  of Terah was 205 years, and he ³³  died in Haran.

Genesis 16:2

16:2 So Sarai said to Abram, “Since ³⁴  the Lord has prevented me from having children, have sexual relations with ³⁵  my servant. Perhaps I can have a family by her.” ³⁶  Abram did what ³⁷  Sarai told him.

Genesis 26:2

26:2 The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; ³⁸  settle down in the land that I will point out to you. ³⁹ 

Joshua 9:27

9:27 and that day made them woodcutters and water carriers for the community and for the altar of the Lord at the divinely chosen site. (They continue in that capacity to this very day.) ⁴⁰ 

Joshua 18:1

The Tribes Meet at Shiloh

18:1 The entire Israelite community assembled at Shiloh and there they set up the tent of meeting. ⁴¹  Though they had subdued the land, ⁴² 

Joshua 18:1

The Tribes Meet at Shiloh

18:1 The entire Israelite community assembled at Shiloh and there they set up the tent of meeting. ⁴³  Though they had subdued the land, ⁴⁴ 

Joshua 8:16

8:16 All the reinforcements ⁴⁵  in Ai ⁴⁶  were ordered ⁴⁷  to chase them; they chased Joshua and were lured away from the city.

Joshua 8:20

8:20 When the men of Ai turned around, they saw ⁴⁸  the smoke from the city ascending into the sky and were so shocked they were unable to flee in any direction. ⁴⁹  In the meantime the men who were retreating to the desert turned against their pursuers.

Joshua 8:29

8:29 He hung the king of Ai on a tree, leaving him exposed until evening. ⁵⁰  At sunset Joshua ordered that his corpse be taken down from the tree. ⁵¹  They threw it down at the entrance of the city gate and erected over it a large pile of stones (it remains to this very day). ⁵² 

Joshua 14:1

Judah’s Tribal Lands

14:1 The following is a record of the territory assigned to the Israelites in the land of Canaan by Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the Israelite tribal leaders. ⁵³ 

Joshua 14:1

Judah’s Tribal Lands

14:1 The following is a record of the territory assigned to the Israelites in the land of Canaan by Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the Israelite tribal leaders. ⁵⁴ 

Joshua 22:1-2

Joshua Sends Home the Eastern Tribes

22:1 Then Joshua summoned the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh 22:2 and told them: “You have carried out all the instructions of Moses the Lord’s servant, and you have obeyed all I have told you. ⁵⁵ 

Joshua 7:12

7:12 The Israelites are unable to stand before their enemies; they retreat because they have become subject to annihilation. ⁵⁶  I will no longer be with you, ⁵⁷  unless you destroy what has contaminated you. ⁵⁸ 

Psalms 78:68

78:68 He chose the tribe of Judah,

and Mount Zion, which he loves.

Psalms 87:2-3

87:2 The Lord loves the gates of Zion

more than all the dwelling places of Jacob.

87:3 People say wonderful things about you, ⁵⁹ 

O city of God. (Selah)

John 4:20-22

4:20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, ⁶⁰  and you people ⁶¹  say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” ⁶²  4:21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, ⁶³  a time ⁶⁴  is coming when you will worship ⁶⁵  the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 4:22 You people ⁶⁶  worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. ⁶⁷ 

Hebrews 12:22

12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion, the city ⁶⁸  of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the assembly

Revelation 14:1

An Interlude: The Song of the 144,000

14:1 Then ⁶⁹  I looked, and here was ⁷⁰  the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him were one hundred and forty-four thousand, who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.

[11:1]  ¹ sn The whole earth. Here “earth” is a metonymy of subject, referring to the people who lived in the earth. Genesis 11 begins with everyone speaking a common language, but chap. 10 has the nations arranged by languages. It is part of the narrative art of Genesis to give the explanation of the event after the narration of the event. On this passage see A. P. Ross, “The Dispersion of the Nations in Genesis 11:1-9,” BSac 138 (1981): 119-38.

[11:1]  ² tn Heb “one lip and one [set of] words.” The term “lip” is a metonymy of cause, putting the instrument for the intended effect. They had one language. The term “words” refers to the content of their speech. They had the same vocabulary.

[11:2]  ³ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:2]  ⁴ tn Or perhaps “from the east” (NRSV) or “in the east.”

[11:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the land of Shinar.”

[11:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “a man to his neighbor.” The Hebrew idiom may be translated “to each other” or “one to another.”

[11:3]  ⁷ tn The speech contains two cohortatives of exhortation followed by their respective cognate accusatives: “let us brick bricks” (נִלְבְּנָה לְבֵנִים, nilbbÿnah lÿvenim) and “burn for burning” (נִשְׂרְפָה לִשְׂרֵפָה, nisrÿfah lisrefah). This stresses the intensity of the undertaking; it also reflects the Akkadian text which uses similar constructions (see E. A. Speiser, Genesis [AB], 75-76).

[11:3]  ⁸ tn Or “bitumen” (cf. NEB, NRSV).

[11:3]  ⁹ tn The disjunctive clause gives information parenthetical to the narrative.

[11:4]  ¹⁰ tn A translation of “heavens” for שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) fits this context because the Babylonian ziggurats had temples at the top, suggesting they reached to the heavens, the dwelling place of the gods.

[11:4]  ¹¹ tn The form וְנַעֲשֶׂה (vÿna’aseh, from the verb עשׂה, “do, make”) could be either the imperfect or the cohortative with a vav (ו) conjunction (“and let us make…”). Coming after the previous cohortative, this form expresses purpose.

[11:4]  ¹² tn The Hebrew particle פֶּן (pen) expresses a negative purpose; it means “that we be not scattered.”

[11:4]  ¹³ sn The Hebrew verb פָּוָץ (pavats, translated “scatter”) is a key term in this passage. The focal point of the account is the dispersion (“scattering”) of the nations rather than the Tower of Babel. But the passage also forms a polemic against Babylon, the pride of the east and a cosmopolitan center with a huge ziggurat. To the Hebrews it was a monument to the judgment of God on pride.

[11:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the sons of man.” The phrase is intended in this polemic to portray the builders as mere mortals, not the lesser deities that the Babylonians claimed built the city.

[11:5]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew text simply has בָּנוּ (banu), but since v. 8 says they left off building the city, an ingressive idea (“had started building”) should be understood here.

[11:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and one lip to all of them.”

[11:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and now.” The foundational clause beginning with הֵן (hen) expresses the condition, and the second clause the result. It could be rendered “If this…then now.”

[11:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “all that they purpose to do will not be withheld from them.”

[11:7]  ¹⁹ tn The cohortatives mirror the cohortatives of the people. They build to ascend the heavens; God comes down to destroy their language. God speaks here to his angelic assembly. See the notes on the word “make” in 1:26 and “know” in 3:5, as well as Jub. 10:22-23, where an angel recounts this incident and says “And the Lord our God said to us…. And the Lord went down and we went down with him. And we saw the city and the tower which the sons of men built.” On the chiastic structure of the story, see G. J. Wenham, Genesis (WBC), 1:235.

[11:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “they will not hear, a man the lip of his neighbor.”

[11:8]  ²¹ tn The infinitive construct לִבְנֹת (livnot, “building”) here serves as the object of the verb “they ceased, stopped,” answering the question of what they stopped doing.

[11:9]  ²² tn The verb has no expressed subject and so can be rendered as a passive in the translation.

[11:9]  ²³ sn Babel. Here is the climax of the account, a parody on the pride of Babylon. In the Babylonian literature the name bab-ili meant “the gate of God,” but in Hebrew it sounds like the word for “confusion,” and so retained that connotation. The name “Babel” (בָּבֶל, bavel) and the verb translated “confused” (בָּלַל, balal) form a paronomasia (sound play). For the many wordplays and other rhetorical devices in Genesis, see J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis (SSN).

[11:11]  ²⁴ tn The word “other” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.

[11:13]  ²⁵ tn The word “other” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.

[11:13]  ²⁶ tc The reading of the MT is followed in vv. 11-12; the LXX reads, “And [= when] Arphaxad had lived thirty-five years, [and] he fathered [= became the father of] Cainan. And after he fathered [= became the father of] Cainan, Arphaxad lived four hundred and thirty years and fathered [= had] [other] sons and daughters, and [then] he died. And [= when] Cainan had lived one hundred and thirty years, [and] he fathered [= became the father of] Sala [= Shelah]. And after he fathered [= became the father of] Sala [= Shelah], Cainan lived three hundred and thirty years and fathered [= had] [other] sons and daughters, and [then] he died.” See also the note on “Shelah” in Gen 10:24; the LXX reading also appears to lie behind Luke 3:35-36.

[11:15]  ²⁷ tn Here and in vv. 16, 19, 21, 23, 25 the word “other” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.

[11:28]  ²⁸ sn The phrase of the Chaldeans is a later editorial clarification for the readers, designating the location of Ur. From all evidence there would have been no Chaldeans in existence at this early date; they are known in the time of the neo-Babylonian empire in the first millennium b.c.

[11:28]  ²⁹ tn Heb “upon the face of Terah his father.”

[11:29]  ³⁰ sn The name Sarai (a variant spelling of “Sarah”) means “princess” (or “lady”). Sharratu was the name of the wife of the moon god Sin. The original name may reflect the culture out of which the patriarch was called, for the family did worship other gods in Mesopotamia.

[11:29]  ³¹ sn The name Milcah means “Queen.” But more to the point here is the fact that Malkatu was a title for Ishtar, the daughter of the moon god. If the women were named after such titles (and there is no evidence that this was the motivation for naming the girls “Princess” or “Queen”), that would not necessarily imply anything about the faith of the two women themselves.

[11:32]  ³² tn Heb “And the days of Terah were.”

[11:32]  ³³ tn Heb “Terah”; the pronoun has been substituted for the proper name in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[16:2]  ³⁴ tn Heb “look.” The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) introduces the foundational clause for the imperative to follow.

[16:2]  ³⁵ tn Heb “enter to.” The expression is a euphemism for sexual relations (also in v. 4).

[16:2]  ³⁶ tn Heb “perhaps I will be built from her.” Sarai hopes to have a family established through this surrogate mother.

[16:2]  ³⁷ tn Heb “listened to the voice of,” which is an idiom meaning “obeyed.”

[26:2]  ³⁸ sn Do not go down to Egypt. The words echo Gen 12:10, which reports that “Abram went down to Egypt,” but state the opposite.

[26:2]  ³⁹ tn Heb “say to you.”

[9:27]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “and Joshua made them in that day woodcutters and water carriers for the community, and for the altar of the Lord to this day at the place which he chooses.”

[18:1]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “the tent of assembly.”

[18:1]  ⁴² tn Heb “and the land was subdued before them.”

[18:1]  ⁴³ tn Heb “the tent of assembly.”

[18:1]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “and the land was subdued before them.”

[8:16]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “All the people.”

[8:16]  ⁴⁶ tc Some textual witnesses read “the city.”

[8:16]  ⁴⁷ tn Or “were summoned”; or “were mustered.”

[8:20]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “and they saw, and look.” The Hebrew term הִנֵּה (hinneh, “look”) draws attention to the scene and invites the audience to view the events from the perspective of the men of Ai.

[8:20]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “and there was not in them hands to flee here or there.” The Hebrew term יָדַיִם (yadayim, “hands”) is idiomatic for “strength.”

[8:29]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “on a tree until evening.” The words “leaving him exposed” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[8:29]  ⁵¹ sn For the legal background of this action, see Deut 21:22-23.

[8:29]  ⁵² tn Heb “to this day.”

[14:1]  ⁵³ tn Heb “These are [the lands] which the sons of Israel received as an inheritance in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers of the tribes assigned as an inheritance to the sons of Israel.”

[14:1]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “These are [the lands] which the sons of Israel received as an inheritance in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers of the tribes assigned as an inheritance to the sons of Israel.”

[22:2]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “You have kept all which Moses, the Lord’s servant, commanded you, and you have listened to my voice, to all which I commanded you.”

[7:12]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “they turn [the] back before their enemies because they are set apart [to destruction by the Lord].”

[7:12]  ⁵⁷ tn The second person pronoun is plural in Hebrew, indicating these words are addressed to the entire nation.

[7:12]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “what is set apart [to destruction by the Lord] from your midst.”

[87:3]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “glorious things are spoken about you.” The translation assumes this is a general reference to compliments paid to Zion by those who live within her walls and by those who live in the surrounding areas and lands. Another option is that this refers to a prophetic oracle about the city’s glorious future. In this case one could translate, “wonderful things are announced concerning you.”

[4:20]  ⁶⁰ sn This mountain refers to Mount Gerizim, where the Samaritan shrine was located.

[4:20]  ⁶¹ tn The word “people” is not in the Greek text, but is supplied to indicate that the Greek verb translated “say” is second person plural and thus refers to more than Jesus alone.

[4:20]  ⁶² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[4:21]  ⁶³ sn Woman was a polite form of address (see BDAG 208-9 s.v. γυνή 1), similar to “Madam” or “Ma’am” used in English in different regions.

[4:21]  ⁶⁴ tn Grk “an hour.”

[4:21]  ⁶⁵ tn The verb is plural.

[4:22]  ⁶⁶ tn The word “people” is not in the Greek text, but is supplied to indicate that the Greek verb translated “worship” is second person plural and thus refers to more than the woman alone.

[4:22]  ⁶⁷ tn Or “from the Judeans.” See the note on “Jew” in v. 9.

[12:22]  ⁶⁸ tn Grk “and the city”; the conjunction is omitted in translation since it seems to be functioning epexegetically – that is, explaining further what is meant by “Mount Zion.”

[14:1]  ⁶⁹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.

[14:1]  ⁷⁰ tn The phrase “and here was” expresses the sense of καὶ ἰδού (kai idou).