Genesis 11:1-9

1 At this time the whole world spoke one language, and everyone used the same words.

2 As people moved from the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there.

3 They said to each other, "Let's make bricks and bake them to make them hard." So they used bricks instead of stones, and tar instead of mortar.

4 Then they said to each other, "Let's build a city and a tower for ourselves, whose top will reach high into the sky. We will become famous. Then we will not be scattered over all the earth."

5 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people had built.

6 The Lord said, "Now, these people are united, all speaking the same language. This is only the beginning of what they will do. They will be able to do anything they want.

7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not be able to understand each other."

8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

9 The place is called Babeln since that is where the Lord confused the language of the whole world. So the Lord caused them to spread out from there over the whole world.

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.