¹sn 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.
²tn 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.
³tn Heb “they;” the referent (the people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
⁴tn Or perhaps “from the east” (NRSV) or “in the east.”
⁵sn Shinar is the region of Babylonia.
⁶tn Heb “a man to his neighbor.” The Hebrew idiom may be translated “to each other” or “one to another.”
⁷tn The speech contains two cohortatives of exhortation followed by their respective cognate accusatives: “let us brick bricks” (<yn]b@l= hn`B=l=n] [n]lB=n`h l=b@n!<]) and “burn for burning” (hp*r}c=l! hp*r+c=n] [n!cr+p*h l!cr@p*h]). 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).
⁸tn Or “bitumen” (cf. NEB, NRSV).
⁹tn The disjunctive clause gives information parenthetical to the narrative.
¹⁰tn A translation of “heavens” for <y]m^v* (v*m^y!<) fits this context because the Babylonian ziggurats had temples at the top, suggesting they reached to the heavens, the dwelling place of the gods.
¹¹tn The form hc#u&n~w+ (w+n~u&c#h) could be either the imperfect or the cohortative with a vav conjunction (“and let us make…”). Coming after the previous cohortative, this form expresses purpose.
¹²tn The Hebrew particle /P# (P#/) expresses a negative purpose; it means “that we be not scattered.”
¹³sn The Hebrew verb P*w`J (JwP), 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.
¹⁴tn 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.
¹⁵tn The Hebrew text simply has WnB* (B*nW); but since v. 8 says they left off building the city, an ingressive idea (“had started building”) should be understood here.
¹⁶tn Heb “and one lip to all of them.”
¹⁷tn Heb “and now.” The foundational clause beginning with /h@ (h@/) expresses the condition, and the second clause the result. It could be rendered “If this…then now.”
¹⁸tn Heb “all that they purpose to do will not be withheld from them.”
¹⁹tn 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.
²⁰tn Heb “they will not hear, a man the lip of his neighbor.”
²¹tn The infinitive construct here (tn{b=l! [l!bn)t, “building”]) serves as the object of the verb “they ceased, stopped,” answering the question of what they stopped doing.
²²tn The verb has no expressed subject and so can be rendered as a passive in the translation.
²³sn 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” (B*b#l [lb#B*]) and the verb translated “confused” (B*l^l [ll^B*]) form a paronomasia (sound play). For the many wordplays and other rhetorical devices in Genesis, see J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis (SSN).
²⁴tn The word “other” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.
²⁵tn The word “other” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.
²⁶tc 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.
²⁷tn Here and in vv. 16, 19, 21, 23, 25 the word “other” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.
²⁸sn 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.
²⁹tn Heb “upon the face of Terah his father.”
³⁰sn 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.
³¹sn 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.
³²tn Heb “And the days of Terah were.”
³³tn Heb “Terah”; the pronoun has been substituted for the proper name in the translation for stylistic reasons.