translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: GEN

label: NET translator note

text: 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.


text: Heb “they”; the referent (the people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.


text: Or perhaps “from the east” (NRSV) or “in the east.”


text: Heb “in the land of Shinar.” sn Shinar is the region of Babylonia.


text: Heb “a man to his neighbor.” The Hebrew idiom may be translated “to each other” or “one to another.”


text: The speech contains two cohortatives of exhortation followed by their respective cognate accusatives: “let us brick bricks” ( נִלְבְּנָה לְבֵנִים , nilbbÿnah lÿvenim ) and “burn for burning” ( נִשְׂרְפָה לִשְׂרֵפָה , nisrÿfah lisrefah ). 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).


text: Or “bitumen” (cf. NEB, NRSV).


text: The disjunctive clause gives information parenthetical to the narrative.


text: A translation of “heavens” for שָׁמַיִם ( shamayim ) fits this context because the Babylonian ziggurats had temples at the top, suggesting they reached to the heavens, the dwelling place of the gods.


text: The form וְנַעֲשֶׂה ( vÿna ’ aseh , from the verb עשׂה , “do, make”) could be either the imperfect or the cohortative with a vav ( ו ) conjunction (“and let us make…”). Coming after the previous cohortative, this form expresses purpose.


text: The Hebrew particle פֶּן ( pen ) expresses a negative purpose; it means “that we be not scattered.”


text: 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.


text: The Hebrew text simply has בָּנוּ ( banu ), but since v. 8 says they left off building the city, an ingressive idea (“had started building”) should be understood here.


text: Heb “and one lip to all of them.”


text: Heb “and now.” The foundational clause beginning with הֵן ( hen ) expresses the condition, and the second clause the result. It could be rendered “If this…then now.”


text: Heb “all that they purpose to do will not be withheld from them.”


text: 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.


text: Heb “they will not hear, a man the lip of his neighbor.”


text: The infinitive construct לִבְנֹת ( livnot , “building”) here serves as the object of the verb “they ceased, stopped,” answering the question of what they stopped doing.


text: The verb has no expressed subject and so can be rendered as a passive in the translation.


text: The word “other” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for stylistic reasons.


label: NET textual note

text: 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 .


text: Heb “upon the face of Terah his father.”


text: Heb “And the days of Terah were.”


text: Heb “Terah”; the pronoun has been substituted for the proper name in the translation for stylistic reasons.