Genesis 11:3-6

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

11:5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people ⁹  had started ¹⁰  building. 11:6 And the Lord said, “If as one people all sharing a common language ¹¹  they have begun to do this, then ¹²  nothing they plan to do will be beyond them. ¹³ 

¹ tn Heb “a man to his neighbor.” The Hebrew idiom may be translated “to each other” or “one to another.”

² 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).

³ tn Or “bitumen” (cf. NEB, NRSV).

⁴ tn The disjunctive clause gives information parenthetical to the narrative.

⁵ 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.

⁶ 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.

⁷ tn The Hebrew particle פֶּן (pen) expresses a negative purpose; it means “that we be not scattered.”

⁸ 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.

⁹ 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.

¹⁰ 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 tn Heb “and one lip to all of them.”

¹² 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.”

¹³ tn Heb “all that they purpose to do will not be withheld from them.”