Genesis 11

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:2

(2) As they journeyed.—The word literally refers to the pulling up of the tent-pegs, and sets the human family before us as a band of nomads, wandering from place to place, and shifting their tents as their cattle needed fresh pasture.From the east.—So all the versions. Mount Ararat was to the north-west of Shinar, and while so lofty a mountain could not have been the spot where the ark rested, yet neither could any portion of Armenia or of the Carduchian mountains be described as to the east... read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:3

(3) Let us make brick, and burn them throughly.—Heb., for a burning. Bricks in the East usually are simply dried in the sun, and this produces a sufficiently durable building material. It marks a great progress in the arts of civilisation that these nomads had learned that clay when burnt becomes insoluble; and their buildings with “slime,” or native pitch, for cement would be virtually indestructible. In fact, Mr. Layard says that at Birs-Nimroud it was scarcely possible to detach the bricks... read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:4

(4) A tower, whose top may reach unto heaven.—The Hebrew is far less hyperbolical: namely, whose head (or top) is in the heavens, or skies, like the walls of the Canaanite cities (Deuteronomy 1:28). The object of the builders was twofold: first, they wished to have some central beacon which might guide them in their return from their wanderings; and secondly, they had a distinctly ambitious object, for by remaining as one nation they would be able to reduce to obedience all the tribes now... read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:5-7

(5-7) The Lord came down.—The narrative is given in that simple anthropological manner usual in the Book of Genesis, which so clearly sets before us God’s loving care of man, and here and in Genesis 18:21 the equity of Divine justice. For Jehovah is described as a mighty king, who, hearing in His upper and heavenly dwelling of man’s ambitious purpose, determines to go and inspect the work in person, that having seen, he may deal with the offenders justly. He views, therefore, “the city and the... read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:8

(8) The Lord (Jehovah) scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.—The tendency of men, as the result of a growing diversity of language, was to separate, each tribe holding intercourse only with those who spake their own dialect; and so the Divine purpose of occupying the world was carried into effect, while the project of this ambitious knot of men to hold mankind together was frustrated, and the building of their tower ceased. read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:9

(9) Therefore is the name of it called Babel.—Babel is, in Aramaic, Bab-el, the gate of God, and in Assyrian, Bab-ili (Genesis 10:10). It is strange that any one should have derived the word from Bab-Bel, the gate of Bel, for there is no trace that the second b was ever doubled; moreover, Bel is for Baal; and though we Westerns omit the strong guttural, because we cannot pronounce it, the Orientals would preserve it. El is the regular Semitic word for God—in Assyrian, Ili; in Arabic, Ilah; in... read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:10-26

THE TÔLDÔTH SHEM.(10-26) These are the generations of Shem.—Here also, as in Genesis 5:0, there is a very considerable divergence between the statements of the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Septuagint texts. According to the Hebrew, the total number of years from Shem to the birth of Abram was 390, according to the Samaritan, 1,040, and according to the LXX., 1,270. These larger totals are obtained by adding, as a rule, one hundred years to the age of each patriarch before the birth of his... read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:27

THE TÔLDÔTH TERAH.(27) Now these are the generations.—This tôldôth, which extends to Genesis 25:11, is one of the most interesting in the Book of Genesis, as it gives us the history of the patriarch Abraham, in whom God was pleased to lay the foundation of the interme diate dispensation and of the Jewish Church, by whose institutions and psalmists and prophets the light of true religion was to be maintained, and the way prepared for the coming of Christ. But though Abraham is the central... read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:28

(28) Haran died before his father.—Heb., in the presence of his father. This is the first recorded instance of a premature death caused by natural decay.In Ur of the Chaldees.—Ur-Casdim. A flood of light has been thrown upon this town by the translation of the cuneiform inscriptions, and we may regard it as certain that Ur is now represented by the mounds of the city of Mugheir. When first we read of this city, it was inhabited by a population of Accadians, a Turanian race, sprang probably from... read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:29

(29) Iscah.—Not the same as Sarai, for we learn in Genesis 20:12 that she was Abraham’s half-sister—that is, a daughter of Terah by another wife. Nor was she Lot’s wife, as Ewald supposed, for she was his full sister. Marriages between near relatives seem to have been allowed at this time, and were perhaps even common for religious reasons (see Genesis 24:3-4; Genesis 28:1-2), but not marriages between those actually by the same mother. Thus Abraham takes his half-sister to wife, and Nahor his... read more

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:2

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:3

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:4

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:5-7

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:8

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:9

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:10-26

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:27

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:28

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Genesis 11:29

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