Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Tower of Babel, 1563. Public domain.
Genesis 11 · Story · Featured Study
The Tower of Babel: Genesis 11
Genesis 11:1 to 9 is the account of how the place Babel got its name, told in nine verses.
The scattering of tongues at Babel is answered and reversed at Pentecost (Acts 2).
“Come,” they said, “let us build for ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of all the earth.”
- Where
- Babel
The scattering of tongues at Babel is answered and reversed at Pentecost (Acts 2).
Summary
Genesis 11:1 to 9 stands between the Table of Nations in Genesis 10 and the call of Abram in Genesis 12.
- God confuses their language and scatters them across the earth.
- Genesis 10:8 to 10 sets the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom in Babylon in the land of Shinar, and Genesis 11 names no builder of the tower.
- Rashi asks why the builders were scattered while the generation of the flood was destroyed, and answers from Genesis Rabbah 38:6.
- Christians differ on whether the LORD divided the speech itself into languages or confused how the same words were spoken and meant.
One Language on the Plain of Shinar
Genesis 11:1 to 9, from the settling in Shinar to the naming of Babel
The whole world has one language and a common form of speech. People moving eastward settle on a plain in the land of Shinar, and there they make bricks and bake them, using brick instead of stone and tar instead of mortar (Genesis 11:1 to 3). Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible, explains the brick and the tar by a want of stone in that district.
“Come,” they said, “let us build for ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of all the earth.”On the plain of Shinar, humanity unites to build a city and a tower to make a name for itself, as the mighty men before the flood were men of renown (Genesis 6:4).
The whole world has one language and a common form of speech. People moving eastward settle on a plain in the land of Shinar, and there they make bricks and bake them, using brick instead of stone and tar instead of mortar (Genesis 11:1 to 3). Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible, explains the brick and the tar by a want of stone in that district.
The LORD comes down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men are building (Genesis 11:5). He says that nothing the one people devise will be beyond them, and He confuses their language so that they will not understand one another's speech (Genesis 11:6 to 7). His “Come, let Us go down” answers the builders' “Come” of verses 3 and 4.
So the LORD scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city.The scattering the builders built against in verse 4 comes upon them, and the work on the city stops.
That is why it is called Babel, for there the LORD confused the language of the whole world, and from that place the LORD scattered them over the face of all the earth.The name Babel sounds like balal, the Hebrew verb to mix that this verse renders confused, and the verse gives that confusion as the reason for the name.
Nimrod, Before the Story Starts
Genesis 10:8 to 10, the hunter whose cities stood in Shinar
Chapter 11 never names who built the tower. Chapter 10 has already named Nimrod, a grandson of Ham through Cush, a mighty one on the earth and a mighty hunter. Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible, thought it probable that the band of ambitious Nimrod was in the work.
His kingdom began in Babylon, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.The plain named here is the one where chapter 11 opens, and Babylon is Babel in the Hebrew, the name Genesis 11:9 explains.
The Table of Nations
Genesis 10 and the scattering of Genesis 11
Genesis 10 charts the descent of all peoples from the three sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, seventy nations spreading over the earth. Babel, in Genesis 11, explains how they were scattered. The whole scattering sets the stage for one man, Abraham, through whom “all the families of the earth” will be blessed (Genesis 12:3).
All these are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their generations and nations. From these the nations of the earth spread out after the flood.The chapter closes on the nations by their clans, and Genesis 10:5, 20 and 31 give each its own language.
What the Text Leaves Unsaid
the date, the height, the first language, the tower's end and the reason for the scattering
When was the tower built, and how tall was it?Genesis 11:4
Genesis gives no date for the tower and no measure of its height. It says only that the builders meant it to reach to the heavens.
What was the one language?Genesis 11:1
Genesis does not name the language the whole world spoke, and it gives no count of the languages that came of the confusion. Rashi, the eleventh-century Jewish commentator of France, reads it as the Holy Tongue, Hebrew, after Midrash Tanchuma.
“If there were any different languages before the flood, yet Noah's only, which it is likely was the same with Adam's, was preserved through the flood, and continued after it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Genesis 11:1Puritan
Was the tower finished or thrown down?Genesis 11:8
Genesis says that the builders stopped building the city, and it records no fall of the tower.
Why were the builders scattered when the generation of the flood was destroyed?Genesis 11:9
Genesis does not give the reason. Rashi, after Genesis Rabbah 38:6, answers that the generation of the flood were violent robbers with strife among them, while the builders kept love and friendship among themselves. He draws from it how hateful strife is to God.
Babel Reversed at Pentecost
the tongues confused in Genesis 11 and the tongues given in Acts 2
At the feast of Pentecost, God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven were dwelling in Jerusalem, and each one heard the disciples speaking his own language (Acts 2:5 to 6).
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.Luke names the Spirit as the giver of the tongues, as Genesis 11:7 names the LORD as the one who confused the language.
A table of four rows sets Babel in Genesis 11 beside Pentecost in Acts 2.
| Babel, Genesis 11 | Pentecost, Acts 2 |
|---|---|
| One tongue, turned to rebellion | Many tongues, turned to praise |
| A name for themselves (Genesis 11:4) | The wonders of God declared (Acts 2:11) |
| A tower reaching up to heaven | The Spirit poured down from heaven |
| Confusion and scattering | Understanding and gathering, as every nation hears |
How Babel Has Been Taught
two readings, from Gregory the Dialogist and Matthew Henry
died 604 · Gregory the Dialogist
Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 30
The quotation1 quotation
“For you have heard that the Holy Spirit appeared upon the disciples in tongues of fire and gave them knowledge of all languages. What indeed was signified by this miracle, except that the holy Church, filled with the same Spirit, would speak with the voice of all nations? Those who attempted to build a tower against God lost the communion of one language, but in these who humbly feared God all languages were united. Here therefore humility merited virtue; there pride earned confusion.”
Gregory the Dialogist · Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 30 · on Acts 2:3Patristic
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Commentary on the Whole Bible
The quotation1 quotation
“God had tried, by his commands and admonitions, to bring them off from this project, but in vain; therefore he must take another course with them. See here, First, The sinfulness of sin, and the wilfulness of sinners; ever since Adam would not be restrained from the forbidden tree, his unsanctified seed have been impatient of restraint and ready to rebel against it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Genesis 11:6Puritan
What Was Confused at Babel
two readings of Genesis 11:7 to 9, each with its holders
Readers differ on what the LORD confused at Babel.
The speech itself, divided into languagesheld by Matthew Henry and John Wesley
Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible, holds that from Babel the Hebrew tongue was the common speech of the Hebrews only, until the captivity in Babylon.
“The imagination of a late writer, that God did not confound their tongues, but their religious worship, is grounded on criticisms concerning the meaning of the Hebrew word, which are absolutely false. Beside, would God confound their religious worship? Surely, He is a God of order, and not of confusion.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament · on Genesis 11:7Evangelical
Readers of the second position reply that Genesis 11:9 speaks of one language confused and names no new language.
How the same words were spoken and meantheld by Adam Clarke, with Rashi on the one speech
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible, holds on Genesis 11:9 that the builders were given a different way of pronouncing the same words and different ideas to attach to them. He judges that this, more than any new language, was the confounding. On Genesis 11:6 he joins their one language to a unity of design and sentiment. Rashi, on Genesis 11:1, reads their one speech as one plan, to ascend to the skies and make war upon God, after Genesis Rabbah 38:6.
The first reading answers that Genesis 11:7 names their speech as what the LORD confused, so that they would not understand one another.
Books to Read Next
four commentaries on Genesis 11, from Rashi to Adam Clarke
Commentary on the Whole Bible
Matthew Henry · 1710
Henry's commentary takes the whole Bible in order, and his notes on Genesis 11 follow the account verse by verse.
Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament
John Wesley · 1765
Wesley's notes on Genesis 10 and 11 read Nimrod as reviving the spirit of the giants before the flood, and the builders as one people unwilling to separate.
Commentary on the Bible
Adam Clarke · 1832
Clarke's notes on Genesis 10 and 11 place Shinar in the southern part of Mesopotamia and read Nimrod's kingdom as founded in apostasy from God.
Pentateuch with Rashi's Commentary
M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, translators · 1929 to 1934
Rashi draws on the midrash for Genesis 11 and names the source of each reading, from Genesis Rabbah to the Talmud.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
Everyone Who Calls on the Name
The text asks the reader to give up pride and trust the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom the scattered families of the earth are blessed.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible TBESH lexicon (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0)
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Genesis 11.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765), on Genesis 10:8, 11:1 and 11:7.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, on Genesis 11:3, 11:6 and 11:9.
- Rashi on Genesis 11, in Pentateuch with Rashi's Commentary, translated by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann (1929 to 1934), public domain.
- Gregory the Dialogist, Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 30, on Acts 2:3.
Keep Studying
People and groups4
Doctrines6
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