(BA) Notes on Genesis 11

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The chapter opens with a united humankind speaking a single language. They arrive in Shinar, a biblical place name referring to part or all of Babylonia, and settle there. There, in an effort to avoid being scattered across the earth, they build a tower. Yahweh becomes unhappy with this project, and causes the people to speak mutually unintelligible languages. They then scatter around the world and live in all their various countries speaking their various languages.

The Babel narratives gives an account of how humans attempted to frustrate God's plan for them to live through the whole earth, and shows God judging and confounding their attempt to have a single city and language for all mankind. It should probably be read as a satirical comment, among other things, on the Babylonian Empire.

Following the account of the building of the Tower in verses 1-9, there follow the tolᵉdot of Shem, a genealogical passage that runs from Shem to Terah and forms an important part of the biblical chronology.

By a simple tabulation of years from Genesis 5, along with the note that Arphaxad was born when Shem was 100, we can place the birth of Arphaxad at 1656 AM. This chapter then will take the chronology along to the birth of Abraham. Shelah is born in the year 1691, Eber in 1721, Peleg in 1755, Reu in 1785, Serug in 1817, Nahor in 1845, Terah in 1874, and Abraham in 1944. We ignore for now the complication about Arphaxad being born "two years" after the Flood, along with potential ambiguities around when exactly Noah gave birth to Shem and when exactly Terah gave birth Abraham.

When it comes to the historical context behind the chronological data of Genesis 5 and 11, there is an obvious close relationship to the Babylonian King Lists.

(11:1) Literally, "Then was all the earth one tongue and unified words."

(11:2) eastward. The Hebrew is that tricky phrase miqqedem, which I think might be translated "eastward" or "from the east". If we read Genesis 11 in light of the flood story which locates mankind's first pre-flood location in Urartu ("Ararat"), then we would expect mankind to move "eastward" from there toward Sumer.

(11:2) Shinar. We can read this word as roughly equivalent perhaps to "Sumer". In any case, the region of Shinar refers to all or part of Babylonia.

(11:3) tar for mortar. In the consontantal Hebrew text, both the words "tar" and "mortar" are spelled the same way, so I'm at a bit of a loss how we can distinguish them. I should probably research this more thoroughly.

(11:4) with its top in the sky. There is a traditional interpretation, which I think is found in Josephus, which says that the goal in building the tower was to produce a place where people could survive any future flood God might send.

(11:4) *Make a name for ourselves** is a literal translation of the Hebrew expression here. But it would seem difficult for it to have the meaning of "become famous", because how can all humankind be famous? Where would their fame spread to? Perhaps it means something like "make a memorial to ourselves" or something along those lines.

(11:4) lest we be scattered, etc. This can be read as in defiance of God's command to "multiply and fill the earth" (Genesis 1:28) and the more specific command to "spread out and fill the earth" (9:7).

(11:5-6) The language, as so often in the Yahwist material, is anthropomorphic. The reader will have to decide whether the author pictures Yahweh as literally unable to see what is going on down below, or whether there is irony or something else going on in the passage.

(1:7) go down. But did Yahweh not already go down in verse 5? Has he now returned to the sky, where he is addressing some other beings about a return trip?

(1:9) "confused". The text is playing with the similarity between the name bbl (for Babylon or Babylonia) and bll (to confuse). It is possible to more or less replicate the wordplay in English in this case. For example, Robert Alter's translation of Genesis reads: "Therefore it is called Babel, for there the LORD made the language of all the earth babble"

(11:10) This verse introduces a chronological difficulty. 5:32 would seem on first glance to put the birth of Shem in Noah's five hundredth year, and therefore 1556. Thus when Shem is one hundred he gives birth to Arpachshad in the year 1656. On the other hand, the Flood narrative and Genesis 5 put the Flood in 1656, so if Arpachshad is born two years later it is 1658. I will tentatively follow the lead of James Barr ("Why the World Was Created in 4004 BC") in using the 1656 date for Arpachshad's birth.

(11:10) toledot. A traditional rendering of this term is "generations", but that's not quite an equivalent. Toldot is distinctively used in Genesis to introduce family histories, and there is a theory that a "Book of Toldot", which existed prior to Genesis, was incorporated into its text.

(11:11) This places the lifetime of Shem at 600 years, though the total is not explicitly given in the Masoretic Text. Just as in the Babylonian King Lists, the human lifespan begins to decline after the Flood. The Samaritan Pentateuch adds, "And all the days of Shem were six hundred years, and he died." It adds similar wording to verses 13, 15, 17, and so on -- adding totals like the ones which exist in Genesis 5. In these same verses of Genesis 11, the Septuagint does not give totals, but it does add the phrase "and he died" after the words "and begot sons and daughters" (Kittel).

(11:12) thirty-five years. Conveniently ignoring the issue with Arpachshad's birth year -- whether it is 1656 or 1658 years from the creation -- we may as well start counting years from the birth of Arpachshad here. The Samaritan Pentateuch and Septuagint read here "one hundred thirty-five" (Kittel).

Shelah. The Septuagint here has Arpachshad as the father of a person named Kainan, and Kainan in turn is the father of Shelah. See the NETS translation.

(11:13) four hundred three. This makes the whole of Arpachshad's life 438 years. Now human lifespans have, as it were, descended another level. Shelah and Eber will likewise live 400-some years. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads "three hundred three"; the Septuagint, "four hundred thirty".

(11:14) thirty years. This places the birth of Eber 65 years after the birth of Arpachshad. Eber is generally considered to be the Bible's putative ancestor of the "Hebrews" (Ibrim), but the Bible nowhere directly states this. However, Eber must be a significant figure because Shem is referred to in Genesis 10:21 as "the father of all the children of Eber". If there was some body of traditional stories or detail about Eber prior to the writing of Genesis, it did not survive.

Instead of "thirty", the Samaritan Pentateuch and Septuagint read "one hundred thirty" (Kittel).

(11:15) four hundred three. The The Samaritan Pentateuch reads "three hundred three". The Septuagint reads "three hundred thirty" (Kittel).

(11:16) thirty-four years. This places the birth of Peleg 99 years after the birth of Arpachshad. Instead of "thirty-four", the Samaritan Pentateuch and Septuagint read "one hundred thirty-four" (Kittel).

(11:17) four hundred thirty. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads "two hundred seventy", while the Septuagint reads "three hundred seventy" (Kittel).

(11:18) thirty years. This places the birth of Reu 129 years after the birth of Arpachshad. Instead of "thirty", the Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch read "one hundred thirty years" (Kittel).

(11:19) two hundred nine. This means Peleg lives 239 years. Again the human lifespan has dropped, and from Peleg to Terah everyone will live 200-some years, except Nahor, who dies at a "young" 148 years. "Two hundred nine" is the reading of the Masoretic Text and Septuagint. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads "one hundred nine" (Kittel).

(11:20) thirty-two years. This places the birth of Serug 161 years after the birth of Arpachshad. Instead of "thirty-two", the Samaritan Pentateuch and Septuagint read "one hundred thirty-two" (Kittel).

(11:21) two hundred seven. Following the Masoretic Text and Septuagint. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads "one hundred seven" (Kittel).

(11:22) thirty years. This places the birth of Nahor 191 years after the birth of Arpachshad. But instead of "thirty", the Samaritan Pentateuch and Septuagint read "one hundred thirty" (Kittel).

(11:23) two hundred. Following the Masoretic Text and Septuagint. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads "one hundred" (Kittel).

(11:24) twenty-nine. This places the birth of Terah 220 years after the birth of Arpachshad. But the Samaritan Pentateuch and Septuagint read "seventy-nine" instead of "twenty-nine".

(11:25) one hundred nineteen. The Septuagint reads "one hundred twenty-nine", the Samaritan Pentateuch "sixty-nine".

(11:26) seventy years. This places the birth of Abraham 290 years after the birth of Arpachshad, assuming that either Abram is the oldest child or that all three children were born in the same year. Notice that this verse strongly parallels the situation of Genesis 5:32 -- at the end of a genealogy, a man lives a certain number of years and then has three sons. For both Genesis 5:32 and 11:26, chronological data elsewhere in Genesis suggests that the first son listed was born later than the genealogy would suggest. I plan to note this when I get to Genesis 12.

(11:28) The traditional interpretation, I think it's fair to say, is that Ur is a city, and that Ur Kasdim means "Ur of the Kasdim", the Kasdim being perhaps better known in English as the "Chaldeans" or "Babylonians". But generally speaking Hebrew avoids putting a proper noun in the construct state. An alternative suggestion, because Hebrew does not have capitalization to distinguish common from proper nouns, is that ur is a common noun, and that Terah lived in the "ur of the Chadleans. Ur might then mean something like "region", so that Terah is living in the "Chaldean region": i.e. Babylonia, where the Tower of Babel story was set. The Septuagint reads "land of the Chaldees".

(11:29) There is a rabbinical tradition that "Iscah" is the same character as "Sarai", but this reading goes against the plain meaning of the text.

(11:30) "children". The Hebrew wld appears only here and in the Kethib of Oriental manuscripts of 2 Samuel 6:23 (see Gesenius-Tregelles, Kittel₁₉₀₉). But the word "barren" is clear enough, and a barren woman has no children. In addition, a well-known root for children and child-bearing is yld, so it should seem that wld must mean something like "children", "issue", "offspring". The Samaritan Pentateuch here has the much more common yld (Kittel).

(11:31) they went out with them. Kittel says we should follow the Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, Itala, and Vulgate, which read instead, "he brought them".

(11:31) to Haran. Though they look the same in English, there is no relationship in Hebrew between the person "Haran" mentioned earlier in this chapter and the place "Haran" mentioned here. They are spelled and pronounced differently. See the Anchor Bible Dictionary entry on "Haran" (the place), which locates Haran along the Balikh River valley, along with place names related to Terah, Nahor, and Serug. In terms of the narrative, we can say that at Haran Terah for some reason stopped without reaching Canaan.

(11:32) two hundred five years. This is worth noting, because a little math shows that if we read verse 26 as meaning that Abram is born when Terah is seventy, then Abraham is one hundred and thirty-five years old when Terah dies. This will then clash with the timeline of Abraham's life gleaned from the rest of Genesis. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads "one hundred forty-five". This difference has a bearing on the problem of whether Terah died before Abraham left Haran. Compare Acts 7:4. Kittel believes the Samaritan Pentateuch may have it right.

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