Gen. 11. One language in the earth, Gen. 11:1. They journey from the east, settle in a plain in the land of Shinar, Gen. 11:2; make bricks, which they burn and use with slime, Gen. 11:3; build a city and tower that they might not be scattered, Gen. 11:4. God sees it, Gen. 11:5.

Earth is oft put for its inhabitants, as Gen. 6:21, 1 Chron. 16:23, Ps. 33:8. Of one speech, which even heathen writers acknowledge; and that probably was the Hebrew tongue.

As they journeyed from the east, i.e. Nimrod and the rest of his confederates of Ham’s posterity; not from Armenia, where the ark rested, which was north from Babel, and is called north in Scripture, as Jer. 25:9; Jeremiah 26:0, &c.

Let us make brick, for in that low and fat soil they had no quarries of stones. The heathen writers agree that Babylon’s walls were made of brick. The slime was a kind of clay called bitumen, which, as Pliny testifieth, is liquid and glutinous, and fit to be used in brick buildings, as Strabo,…

Whose top may reach unto heaven, i.e. a very high tower; a usual hyperbole, both in Scripture, as Deut. 1:28, Deut. 9:1, and in other authors. This tower and its vast height is noted by Herodotus, Diodorus, and others. Let us make us a name, i.e. a great name, as the phrase is elsewhere used.

Not by local descent, for he is every where; but by the manifestation of his presence and the effects of his power in that place. To see the city and the tower, i.e.

The Lord said this in way of holy scorn and derision. Compare Gen. 3:22.

Let us, i.e. the blessed Trinity. See Gen. 1:26. Confound their language, by making them forget their former language, and by putting into their minds several languages; not a distinct language into each person, but into each family, or rather into each nation; that thereby they may be disenabled…

Thus they brought upon themselves the very thing they feared, and that more speedily and more mischievously to themselves; for now they were not only divided in place, but in language too, and so were unfitted for those confederacies and correspondences which they mainly designed, and for the…

Not all the generations of Shem, as appears both from Gen. 11:11, and from the former chapter; but of those who were the seminary of the church, and the progenitors of Christ.

So that he lived almost all the time of Abraham; which was a singular blessing, both to himself, who hereby saw his children of the tenth generation; and to the church of God, which by this means enjoyed the counsel and conduct of so great a patriarch.

So that he was the longest lived of all the patriarchs which were born after the flood.

Nahor was the first patriarch who fell to idolatry.

i.e. Began to beget, as Gen. 5:32. Abram, who is first named in order of dignity, (for which cause Shem is put before Ham and Japheth, and Moses before Aaron), not in order of time, which seems to be this: Haran probably was the eldest, because Nahor married his daughter; Nahor the second; and…

i.e. In the presence and during the life of his father.

Such marriages of uncles and nieces being permitted then, Ex. 6:20, (as in the beginning of the world the marriages of brethren and sisters were), though afterwards, the church being very much enlarged, they were severely forbidden, Lev. 18:12, Lev. 18:14.

See Gen. 16:1–2, Gen. 18:11–12.

See Josh. 24:2, Neh. 9:7, 1 Chron. 1:26. Being informed by his son of the command of God, Terah did not despise it, because it came to him by the hands of his inferior, but cheerfully obeyeth it; and therefore he is so honourably mentioned as the head and governor of the action.