Genesis 11:2-4

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

¹ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Or perhaps “from the east” (NRSV) or “in the east.”

³ tn Heb “in the land of Shinar.”

⁴ tn Heb “a man to his neighbor.” The Hebrew idiom may be translated “to each other” or “one to another.”

⁵ 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).

⁶ tn Or “bitumen” (cf. NEB, NRSV).

⁷ tn The disjunctive clause gives information parenthetical to the narrative.

⁷ 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.

⁸ 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.

⁹ tn The Hebrew particle פֶּן (pen) expresses a negative purpose; it means “that we be not scattered.”

¹⁰ 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.