Commentaires bibliques

The old distinction between the sons of God and the sons of men (professors and profane) survived the flood, and now appeared again, when men began to multiply: according to this distinction we have, in this chapter, I. The dispersion of the sons of men at Babel (Ge 11:1-9), where we have, 1. Their presumptuous provoking design, which was to build a city and a tower, Ge 11:1-4. 2. The righteous judgment of God upon them in disappointing their design, by confounding their language, and so scattering them, Ge 11:5-9. II. The pedigree of the sons of God down to Abraham (Ge 11:10-26), with a general account of his family, and removal out of his native country, Ge 11:27-32, etc.

All the inhabitants of the earth, speaking one language and dwelling in one place, Genesis 11:1, Genesis 11:2, purpose to build a city and a tower to prevent their dispersion, Genesis 11:3, Genesis 11:4. God confounds their language, and scatters them over the whole earth, Genesis 11:5-9. Account of the lives and families of the postdiluvian patriarchs. Shem, Genesis 11:10, Genesis 11:11. Arphaxad, Genesis 11:12, Genesis 11:13. Salah, Genesis 11:14, Genesis 11:15. Eber, Genesis 11:16, Genesis 11:17. Peleg, Genesis 11:18, Genesis 11:19. Ragau or Reu, Genesis 11:20, Genesis 11:21. Serug, Genesis 11:22, Genesis 11:23. Nahor, Genesis 11:24, Genesis 11:25. Terah and his three sons, Haran, Nahor, and Abram, Genesis 11:26, Genesis 11:27. The death of Haran, Genesis 11:28. Abram marries Sarai, and Nahor marries Milcah, Genesis 11:29. Sarai is barren, Genesis 11:30. Terah, Abram, Sarai, and Lot, leave Ur of the Chaldees, and go to Haran, Genesis 11:31. Terah dies in Haran, aged two hundred and five years, Genesis 11:32.

Genesis gen 11:0 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, Gen 11:1 and of their design to build a city and tower, to make them a name and keep them together, which they put in execution, Gen 11:3 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, Gen 11:5 then follows a genealogy of Shem's posterity down to Abraham, Gen 11:10 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, Gen 11:27.

Ch. Genesis 11:1-9. The Story of the Tower of Babel. (J.)

The story of the Tower of Babel, contained in this short passage, preserves the recollection of a strange Israelite piece of folk-lore. No trace of this narrative has with any certainty, up to the present time, been discovered in the cuneiform inscriptions. Nor is this altogether surprising. The story connects the famous capital of Babylonia (Babel = Babylon) with an enterprise which is described as so colossal in its insolent impiety as to necessitate the personal interposition of the Almighty, Jehovah Himself. The success of the enterprise is frustrated by the simple exercise of the Divine Will; and the result is that the human race, which before had possessed one language, became in an instant subdivided into different communities by diversity of speech. The strangeness and the simplicity of the story inevitably seize upon the imagination. That it is devoid of any foundation in history or science hardly requires to be stated. So far as concerns the diversity of languages, science shews no tendency to favour the hypothesis, either of Babylonia having been the point of dispersion for the languages of the world, or, indeed, of the languages of the world having had any single common origin. Even the hopeful attempt in the 19th century to reduce the languages of the world to three great families, or groups of dialects, each characterized by distinctive features of word formation and grammar, has in recent years been abandoned. The recognition of the existence of a far larger number of independent languages than before was supposed possible has shewn that the problem is one of immense complexity. We are led to suspect that the mystery of the origin of distinct languages belongs to the dim obscurity of the infancy of the human race, an infinitely remote and prehistoric age.

With this conclusion the account in the Book of Genesis stands in some measure of agreement. The story of the Tower of Babel is suddenly interposed between the genealogies which lead up to the birth of Abram. Though it supplies a theory which would account for the dispersion of the peoples of the world, it is evident that the Hebrews themselves did not regard the story as satisfying the problem. The tenth chapter of Genesis had already recorded the standard Hebrew tradition. It attributed the peopling of the world and the diversity of languages (Genesis 11:5; Genesis 11:20; Genesis 11:31) to the dispersion of the descendants of the three sons of Noah. This was the working hypothesis, if we may so call it, of Israelite tradition in explaining the origin of the races. The present story by the suddenness of its introduction, the vagueness of its details, and the abruptness with which it breaks off, as well as by its startling anthropomorphic features, reminds us of the parenthesis in Genesis 6:1-4. It reads like a fragment of an independent primitive tradition. It possessed an interest which justified its preservation, even though its details were hardly reconcilable with the narratives in 9 and 10. It preserved a legend which (1) accounted for the diversity of race by the diversity of language; (2) attributed the diversity of language, with its attendant train of evils (misunderstanding, discord, hostility, and war), to the punishment or curse inflicted upon an impious race by a Divine decree; (3) associated with Babylon, the most ancient centre of civilization and town-life, the insolent impiety of a generation that sought to scale Heaven; (4) recorded the impression produced on the minds of the early Hebrews by the sight of the towers, Ziggurats, or temples which rose in many towns of Assyria and Babylonia to an immense height, and of which the meaning was unknown to nomad tribesmen or to wayfaring foreigners.

Ge 11:1-32.

CONFUSION OF TONGUES.

1. the whole earth was of one language. The descendants of Noah, united by the strong bond of a common language, had not separated, and notwithstanding the divine command to replenish the earth, were unwilling to separate. The more pious and well-disposed would of course obey the divine will; but a numerous body, seemingly the aggressive horde mentioned

(Ge 10:10),

determined to please themselves by occupying the fairest region they came to.

• The Confusion of Tongues

1. נסע nāsa‛ "pluck out, break up, journey." מקדם mı̂qedem "eastward, or on the east side" as in Genesis 2:14; Genesis 13:11; Isaiah 9:11 (12).

2. החלם hachı̂lām "their beginning", for החלם hăchı̂lām, the regular form of this infinitive with a suffix. יזמוּ yāzmû as if from יזם yāzam equals זמם zāmam.

3. נבלה nābelâh usually said to be for נבלה nābolâh from בלל bālal; but evidently designed by the punctuator to be the third singular feminine perfect of נבל nābal "to be confounded," having for its subject שׂפה śāpâh, "and there let their lip be confounded." The two verbs have the same root.

4. בבל bābel Babel, "confusion," derived from בל bl the common root of בלל bālal and נבל nābel, by doubling the first radical.

Having completed the table of nations, the sacred writer, according to his wont, goes back to record an event of great moment, both for the explanation of this table and for the future history of the human race. The point to which he reverts is the birth of Peleg. The present singular passage explains the nature of that unprecedented change by which mankind passed from one family with a mutually intelligible speech, into many nations of diverse tongues and lands.

Genesis 11:1

The previous state of human language is here briefly described. "The whole land" evidently means the whole then known world with all its human inhabitants. The universality of application is clearly and constantly maintained throughout the whole passage. "Behold, the people is one." And the close is on this point in keeping with the commencement. "Therefore was the name of it called Babel, because the Lord had there confounded the lip of all the land."

Of one lip, and one stock: of words. - In the table of nations the term "tongue" was used to signify what is here expressed by two terms. This is not undesigned. The two terms are not synonymous or parallel, as they form the parts of one compound predicate. "One stock of words," then, we conceive, naturally indicates the matter, the substance, or material of language. This was one and the same to the whole race. The term "lip," which is properly one of the organs of articulation, is, on the other hand, used to denote the form, that is, the manner, of speaking; the mode of using and connecting the matter of speech; the system of laws by which the inflections and derivations of a language are conducted. This also was one throughout the human family. Thus, the sacred writer has expressed the unity of language among mankind, not by a single term as before, but, with a view to his present purpose, by a combination of terms expressing the two elements which go to constitute every organic reality.

The whole earth was of one language - The whole earth - all mankind was of one language, in all likelihood the Hebrew; and of one speech - articulating the same words in the same way. It is generally supposed, that after the confusion mentioned in this chapter, the Hebrew language remained in the family of Heber. The proper names, and their significations given in the Scripture, seem incontestable evidences that the Hebrew language was the original language of the earth - the language in which God spake to man, and in which he gave the revelation of his will to Moses and the prophets. "It was used," says Mr. Ainsworth, "in all the world for one thousand seven hundred and fifty-seven years, till Phaleg, the son of Heber, was born, and the tower of Babel was in building one hundred years after the flood, Genesis 10:25; Genesis 11:9. After this, it was used among the Hebrews or Jews, called therefore the Jews' language, Isaiah 36:11, until they were carried captive into Babylon, where the holy tongue ceased from being commonly used, and the mixed Hebrew (or Chaldee) came in its place." It cannot be reasonably imagined that the Jews lost the Hebrew tongue entirely in the seventy years of their captivity in Babylon; yet, as they were mixed with the Chaldeans, their children would of course learn that dialect, and to them the pure Hebrew would be unintelligible; and this probably gave rise to the necessity of explaining the Hebrew Scriptures in the Chaldee tongue, that the children might understand as well as their fathers. As we may safely presume the parents could not have forgotten the Hebrew, so we may conclude the children in general could not have learned it, as they did not live in an insulated state, but were mixed with the Babylonians. This conjecture removes the difficulty with which many have been embarrassed; one party supposing that the knowledge of the Hebrew language was lost during the Babylonish captivity, and hence the necessity of the Chaldee Targums to explain the Scriptures; another party insisting that this was impossible in so short a period as seventy years.

And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech,.... Or had been (w), before the flood, and from that time to this, and still was, until the confusion took place; the account of which, and the occasion of it, are given in this chapter: by the whole earth is meant the inhabitants of it, see Isa 37:18 and so the Jerusalem Targum paraphrases the words,"and all the generations of the earth were of one language, and of one speech, and of one counsel, for they spoke in the holy tongue in which the world was created at the beginning;''and to the same purpose the Targum of Jonathan: all the posterity of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, used the same language, though it does not appear that they were all in one counsel or consultation, or of one mind about building a city or tower, which the Targum seems to suggest; for it is not likely that Shem and his sons were in it: nor by "one lip" and "the same words or things" (x), as these phrases may be rendered, are we to understand the same simplicity of speech and business, and likeness of manners; for it appears there was a difference with respect to these in the immediate sons of Noah, and it may be supposed to be much more in their remote offspring; nor as if they were all of the same religion, embraced the same doctrines, and spoke the same things; for as idolatry and superstition obtained in the race of Cain before the flood, so Ham and his posterity soon fell into the same, or the like, afterwards: and it may be observed that the same distinction was made of the children of God, and of the children of men, before the confusion and dispersion, as was before the flood, Gen 11:5 from whence it appears they were not in the same sentiments and practice of religion: but this is to be understood of one and the same language, without any diversity of dialects, or without any hard and strange words, not easily understood; and perhaps it was pronounced by the lip and other instruments of speech in the same way; so that there was no difficulty in understanding one another, men, women, and children, all the people in common, princes and peasants, wise and unwise, all spoke the same language and used the same words; and this the Targumists take to be the holy or Hebrew language; and so Jarchi and Aben Ezra, and the Jewish writers in general, and most Christians; though some make a question of it, whether it might not be rather the Syriac, or Chaldee, or Arabic; but there is no need of such a question, since these with the Hebrew are all one and the same language; and no doubt it was the eastern language, without giving it any other name, which now subsists in the above dialects, though not in anyone alone, which was first spoken; though more purely and without the difference of dialects it now consists of, or without the various different inflexions now made in it; for nothing is more reasonable to suppose, than that the language Adam spoke was used by Noah, since Adam lived within one hundred years and a little more of the birth of Noah; and it is not to be questioned but Noah's sons spoke the same language as he did, and their posterity now, which was but little more than one hundred years after the flood: there are various testimonies of Heathens confirming this truth, that originally men spoke but one language; thus Sibylla in Josephus (y), who says,"when all men were of the same language, some began to build a most high tower, &c.''so Abydenus (z) an Heathen historian, speaking of the building of the tower of Babel, says,"at that time men were of the same tongue;''in like manner Hyginus (a), speaking of Phoroneus, the first of mortals, that reigned, says,"many ages before, men lived without towns and laws, "una lirgua loquentes", speaking one language, under the empire of Jove.'' (w) "et fuerat", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "caeterum fuit olim", Schmidt. (x) "unum labium et verba eadem", Schmidt; "Labii unius et sermonum eorundem, vel rerum", Clarius. (y) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 4. sect. 3. (z) Apud Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 9. c. 14. p. 416. (a) Fabulae, Fab. 143.