Genesis 11:1-9

Universal Language, Babel, Confusion

1 Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.

2 It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land ¹of Shinar and settled there.

3 They said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And they used brick for stone, and they used ²tar for mortar.

4 They said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top ³will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves ⁴a name, otherwise we ⁵will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth."

5 ⁶The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.

6 The LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have ⁷the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing * which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.

7 "Come, ⁸let Us go down and there ⁹confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech."

8 So the LORD ¹⁰scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.

9 Therefore * its name was called ¹¹Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.

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.

Cross References

• 1. Genesis 10:10; Genesis 14:1; Daniel 1:2
• 2. Genesis 14:10
• 3. Deuteronomy 1:28; Deuteronomy 9:1; Psalms 107:26
• 4. Genesis 6:4; 2 Samuel 8:13
• 5. Deuteronomy 4:27
• 6. Genesis 18:21; Exodus 3:8; Exodus 19:11, 18, 20
• 7. Genesis 11:1
• 8. Genesis 1:26
• 9. Genesis 42:23; Exodus 4:11; Deuteronomy 28:49; Isaiah 33:19; Jeremiah 5:15
• 10. Genesis 11:4; Psalms 92:9; Luke 1:51
• 11. Genesis 10:10

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit "was one lip"
• [b]. Or "few" or "one" set of "words"
• [c]. Lit "dwelt"
• [d]. Lit "one lip"
• [e]. Lit "withheld from"
• [f]. Lit "lip"
• [g]. Lit "lip"
• [h]. Or "Babylon;" cf Heb "balal," confuse
• [i]. Lit "lip"