Discovery BoxGenesis 11:3 
Context11:3 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
Genesis 11:7
Context11:7 Come, let’s go down and confuse 5 their language so they won’t be able to understand each other.” 6
1 tn Heb “a man to his neighbor.” The Hebrew idiom may be translated “to each other” or “one to another.”
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).
3 tn Or “bitumen” (cf. NEB, NRSV).
4 tn The disjunctive clause gives information parenthetical to the narrative.
5 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
6 tn Heb “they will not hear, a man the lip of his neighbor.”
