Kejadian 11:3-4
Konteks11:3 Then they said to one another, 1 “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” 2 (They had brick instead of stone and tar 3 instead of mortar.) 4 11:4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens 5 so that 6 we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise 7 we will be scattered 8 across the face of the entire earth.”
Kejadian 11:7
Konteks11:7 Come, let’s go down and confuse 9 their language so they won’t be able to understand each other.” 10
Kejadian 11:2
Konteks11:2 When the people 11 moved eastward, 12 they found a plain in Shinar 13 and settled there.
Kisah Para Rasul 5:5
Konteks5:5 When Ananias heard these words he collapsed and died, and great fear gripped 14 all who heard about it.
Yesaya 5:5
Konteks5:5 Now I will inform you
what I am about to do to my vineyard:
I will remove its hedge and turn it into pasture, 15
I will break its wall and allow animals to graze there. 16
Yakobus 4:13
Konteks4:13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into this or that town 17 and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.”
Yakobus 5:1
Konteks5:1 Come now, you rich! Weep and cry aloud 18 over the miseries that are coming on you.
[11:3] 1 tn Heb “a man to his neighbor.” The Hebrew idiom may be translated “to each other” or “one to another.”
[11:3] 2 tn 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).
[11:3] 3 tn Or “bitumen” (cf. NEB, NRSV).
[11:3] 4 tn The disjunctive clause gives information parenthetical to the narrative.
[11:4] 5 tn 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.
[11:4] 6 tn 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.
[11:4] 7 tn The Hebrew particle פֶּן (pen) expresses a negative purpose; it means “that we be not scattered.”
[11:4] 8 sn The Hebrew verb פָּוָץ (pavats, 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.
[11:7] 9 tn 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
[11:7] 10 tn Heb “they will not hear, a man the lip of his neighbor.”
[11:2] 11 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
[11:2] 12 tn Or perhaps “from the east” (NRSV) or “in the east.”
[11:2] 13 tn Heb “in the land of Shinar.”
[11:2] sn Shinar is the region of Babylonia.
[5:5] 14 tn Or “fear came on,” “fear seized”; Grk “fear happened to.”
[5:5] 15 tn Heb “and it will become [a place for] grazing.” בָּעַר (ba’ar, “grazing”) is a homonym of the more often used verb “to burn.”
[5:5] 16 tn Heb “and it will become a trampled place” (NASB “trampled ground”).