Genesis 11:1-9

1 The whole eretz was of one language and of one speech.

2 It happened, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shin`ar; and they lived there.

3 They said one to another, "Come, let's make brick, and burn them thoroughly." They had brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.

4 They said, "Come, let's build us a city, and a tower, whose top reaches to the sky, and let's make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad on the surface of the whole eretz."

5 The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.

6 The LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing will be withheld from them, which they intend to do.

7 Come, let's go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."

8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there on the surface of all the eretz. They stopped building the city.

9 Therefore the name of it was called Bavel, because the LORD confused the language of all the eretz, there. From there, the LORD scattered them abroad on the surface of all the eretz.

Genesis 11:1-9 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 11

This chapter gives an account of the inhabitants of the earth before the confusion of tongues at Babel, of their speech and language, which was one and the same, and of the place where they dwelt, Ge 11:1,2 and of their design to build a city and tower, to make them a name and keep them together, which they put in execution, Ge 11:3,4 of the notice the Lord took of this affair, and of the method he took to put a stop to their designs, by confounding their speech, and dispersing them abroad upon the face of the earth, Ge 11:5-9 then follows a genealogy of Shem's posterity down to Abraham, Ge 11:10-26 and a particular relation is given of Terah, the father of Abraham, and his family, and of his going forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, in order to go into the land of Canaan, and of his death at Haran by the way, Ge 11:27-32.