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 5:12

5:12 When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel.

Genesis 5:2

5:2 He created them male and female; when they were created, he blessed them and named them “humankind.” ³⁴ 

Colossians 4:11

4:11 And Jesus who is called Justus also sends greetings. In terms of Jewish converts, ³⁵  these are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me.

Colossians 1:1-4

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ³⁶  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 1:2 to the saints, the faithful ³⁷  brothers and sisters ³⁸  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ³⁹  from God our Father! ⁴⁰ 

Paul’s Thanksgiving and Prayer for the Church

1:3 We always ⁴¹  give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 1:4 since ⁴²  we heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints.

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ⁴³  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Colossians 4:16

4:16 And after ⁴⁴  you have read this letter, have it read ⁴⁵  to the church of Laodicea. In turn, read the letter from Laodicea ⁴⁶  as well.

Hebrews 9:27

9:27 And just as people ⁴⁷  are appointed to die once, and then to face judgment, ⁴⁸ 

Hebrews 9:2

9:2 For a tent was prepared, the outer one, ⁴⁹  which contained ⁵⁰  the lampstand, the table, and the presentation of the loaves; this ⁵¹  is called the holy place.

Hebrews 1:13-14

1:13 But to which of the angels ⁵²  has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”? ⁵³  1:14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to serve those ⁵⁴  who will inherit salvation?

Revelation 14:13

14:13 Then ⁵⁵  I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this:

‘Blessed are the dead,

those who die in the Lord from this moment on!’”

“Yes,” says the Spirit, “so they can rest from their hard work, ⁵⁶  because their deeds will follow them.” ⁵⁷ 

[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.

[5:2]  ³⁴ tn The Hebrew word used here is אָדָם (’adam).

[4:11]  ³⁵ tn Grk “those of the circumcision.” The verse as a whole is difficult to translate because it is unclear whether Paul is saying (1) that the only people working with him are Jewish converts at the time the letter is being written or previously, or (2) that Aristarchus, Mark, and Jesus Justus were the only Jewish Christians who ever worked with him. Verses 12-14 appear to indicate that Luke and Demas, who were Gentiles, were also working currently with Paul. This is the view adopted in the translation. See M. J. Harris, Colossians and Philemon (EGGNT), 207-8.

[1:1]  ³⁶ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[1:2]  ³⁷ tn Grk “and faithful.” The construction in Greek (as well as Paul’s style) suggests that the saints are identical to the faithful; hence, the καί (kai) is best left untranslated (cf. Eph 1:1). See ExSyn 281-82.

[1:2]  ³⁸ tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” or “fellow Christians” as here (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited).

[1:2]  ³⁹ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:2]  ⁴⁰ tc Most witnesses, including some important ones (א A C F G I [P] 075 Ï it bo), read “and the Lord Jesus Christ” at the end of this verse, no doubt to conform the wording to the typical Pauline salutation. However, excellent and early witnesses (B D K L Ψ 33 81 1175 1505 1739 1881 al sa) lack this phrase. Since the omission is inexplicable as arising from the longer reading (otherwise, these mss would surely have deleted the phrase in the rest of the corpus Paulinum), it is surely authentic.

[1:3]  ⁴¹ tn The adverb πάντοτε (pantote) is understood to modify the indicative εὐχαριστοῦμεν (eucaristoumen) because it precedes περὶ ὑμῶν (peri Jumwn) which probably modifies the indicative and not the participle προσευχόμενοι (proseucomenoi). But see 1:9 where the same expression occurs and περὶ ὑμῶν modifies the participle “praying” (προσευχόμενοι).

[1:4]  ⁴² tn The adverbial participle ἀκούσαντες (akousante") is understood to be temporal and translated with “since.” A causal idea may also be in the apostle’s mind, but the context emphasizes temporal ideas, e.g., “from the day” (v. 6).

[1:1]  ⁴³ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[4:16]  ⁴⁴ tn Grk “when.”

[4:16]  ⁴⁵ tn The construction beginning with the imperative ποιήσατε ἵνα…ἀναγνωσθῇ (poihsate Jina…anagnwsqh) should be translated as “have it read” where the conjunction ἵνα functions to mark off its clause as the direct object of the imperative ποιήσατε. The content of the clause (“reading the letter”) is what Paul commands with the imperative ποιήσατε. Thus the translation “have it read” has been used here.

[4:16]  ⁴⁶ sn This letter is otherwise unknown, but some have suggested that it is the letter known today as Ephesians.

[9:27]  ⁴⁷ tn Here ἀνθρώποις (anqrwpoi") has been translated as a generic noun (“people”).

[9:27]  ⁴⁸ tn Grk “and after this – judgment.”

[9:2]  ⁴⁹ tn Grk “the first,” in order of approach in the ritual.

[9:2]  ⁵⁰ tn Grk “in which [were].”

[9:2]  ⁵¹ tn Grk “which,” describing the outer tent.

[1:13]  ⁵² sn The parallel phrases to which of the angels in vv. 5 and 13 show the unity of this series of quotations (vv. 5-14) in revealing the superiority of the Son over angels (v. 4).

[1:13]  ⁵³ sn A quotation from Ps 110:1.

[1:14]  ⁵⁴ tn Grk “sent for service for the sake of those.”

[14:13]  ⁵⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.

[14:13]  ⁵⁶ tn Or “from their trouble” (L&N 22.7).

[14:13]  ⁵⁷ tn Grk “their deeds will follow with them.”