Genesis 11:4

And in the three and thirtieth jubilee, in the first year in the second week, Peleg took to himself a wife, whose name was Lomna the daughter of Sina'ar, and she bare him a son in the fourth year of this week, and he called his name Reu; for he said: 'Behold the children of men have become evil through the wicked purpose of building for themselves a city and a tower in the land of Shinar.' For they departed from the land of Ararat eastward to Shinar; for in his days they built the city and the tower, saying, 'Go to, let us ascend thereby into heaven.' And they began to build, and in the fourth week they made brick with fire, and the bricks served them for stone, and the clay with which they cemented them together was asphalt which comes out of the sea, and out of the fountains of water in the land of Shinar. And they built it: forty and three years were they building it; its breadth was 203 bricks, and the height (of a brick) was the third of one; its height amounted to 5433 cubits and 2 palms, and (the extent of one wall was) thirteen stades (and of the other thirty stades). And the Lord our God said unto us: Behold, they are one people, and (this) they begin to do, and now nothing will be withholden from them. Go to, let us go down and confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech, and they may be dispersed into cities and nations, and one purpose will no longer abide with them till the day of judgment.' And the Lord descended, and we descended with him to see the city and the tower which the children of men had built. And he confounded their language, and they no longer understood one another's speech, and they ceased then to build the city and the tower. For this reason the whole land of Shinar is called Babel, because the Lord did there confound all the language of the children of men, and from thence they were dispersed into their cities, each according to his language and his nation. And the Lord sent a mighty wind against the tower and overthrew it upon the earth, and behold it was between Asshur and Babylon in the land of Shinar, and they called its name 'Overthrow'. In the fourth week in the first year in the beginning thereof in the four and thirtieth jubilee, were they dispersed from the land of Shinar.

VI. Then all they that had been divided and dwelt upon the earth gathered together there after, and dwelt together; and they set forth from the East and found a plain in the land of Babylon: and there they dwelt, and they said every man to his neighbour: Behold, it will come to pass that we shall be scattered every man. from his brother, and in the latter days we shall be fighting one against another. Now, therefore, come and let us build for ourselves a tower, the head whereof shall reach unto heaven, and we shall make us a name and a renown upon the earth.

2. And they said everyone to his neighbour: Let us take bricks (lit. stones), and let us, each one, write our names upon the bricks and burn them with fire: and that which is thoroughly burned shall be for mortar and brick. (Perhaps, that which is not thoroughly burned shall be for mortar, and that which is, for brick.)

3. And they took every man their bricks, saving 12 men, which would not take them, and these are their names: Abraham, Nachor, Loth, Ruge, Tenute, Zaba, Armodath, Iobab, Esar, Abimahel, Saba, Auphin.

4. And the people of the land laid hands on them and brought them before their princes and said: These are the men that have transgressed our counsels and will not walk in our ways. And the princes said unto them: Wherefore would ye not set every man your bricks with the people of the land? And they answered and said: We will not set bricks with you, neither will we be joined with your desire. One Lord know we, and him do we worship. And if ye should cast us into the fire with your bricks, we will not consent to you.

5. And the princes were wroth and said: As they have said, so do unto them, and if they consent not to set bricks with you, ye shall burn them with fire together with your bricks.

6. Then answered Jectan which was the first prince of the captains: Not so, but there shall be given them a space of 7 days. And it shall be, if they repent of their evil counsels, and will set bricks along with us, they shall live; but if not, let them be burned according to your word. But he sought how he might save them out of the hands of the people; for he was of their tribe, and he served God.

7. And when he had thus said he took them and shut them up in the king's house: and when it was evening the prince commanded 50 mighty men of valour to be called unto him, and said unto them: Go forth and take to-night these men that are shut up in mine house, and put provision for them from my house upon 10 beasts, and the men bring ye to me, and their provision together with the beasts take ye to the mountains and wait for them there: and know this, that if any man shall know what I have said unto you, I will burn you with fire.

8. And the men set forth and did all that their prince commanded them, and took the men from his house by night; and took provision and put it upon beasts and took them to the hill country as he commanded them.

9. And the prince called unto him those 12 men and said to them: Be of good courage and fear not, for ye shall not die. For God in whom ye trust is mighty, and therefore be ye stablished in him, for he will deliver you and save you. And now lo, I have commanded So men to take [you with] provision from my house, and go before you into the hill country and wait for you in the valley: and I will give you other 50 men which shall guide you thither: go ye therefore and hide yourselves there in the valley, having water to drink that floweth down from the rocks: hold yourselves there for 30 days, until the anger of the people of the land be appeased and until God send his wrath upon them and break them. For I know that the counsel of iniquity which they have agreed to perform shall not stand, for their thought is vain. And it shall be when 7 days are expired and they shall seek for you, I will say unto them: They have gone forth and have broken the door of the prison wherein they were shut up and have fled by night, and I have sent 100 men to seek them. So will I turn them from their madness that is upon them.

10. And there answered him 11 of the men saying: Thy servants have found favour in thy sight, in that we are set free out of the hands of these proud men.

11. But Abram only kept silence, and the prince said unto him: Wherefore answerest thou not me, Abram, servant of God? Abram answered and said: Lo, I flee away to-day into the hill country, and if I escape the fire, wild beasts will come out of the mountains and devour us. Or our victuals will fail and we shall die of hunger; and we shall be found fleeing from the people of the land and shall fall in our sins. And now, as he liveth in whom I trust, I will not remove from my place wherein they have put me: and if there be any sin of mine so that I be indeed burned, the will of God be done. And the prince said unto him: Thy blood be upon thy head, if thou refuse to go forth with these. But if thou consent, thou shall be delivered. Yet if thou wilt abide, abide as thou art. And Abram said: I will not go forth, but I will abide here.

12. And the prince took those 11 men and sent other 50 with them, and commanded them saying: Wait, ye also, in the hill country for 15 days with those 50 which were sent before you; and after that ye shall return and say We have not found them, as I said to the former ones. And know that if any man transgress one of all these words that I have spoken unto you, he shall be burned with fire. So the men went forth, and he took Abram by himself and shut him up where he had been shut up aforetime.

13. And after 7 days were passed, the people were gathered together and spake unto their prince saying: Restore us the men which would not consent unto us, that we may burn them with fire. And they sent captains to bring them, and they found them not, save Abram only. And they gathered all of them to their prince saying: The men whom ye shut up are fled and have escaped that which we counselled.

14. And Phenech and Nemroth said unto Jectan: Where are the men whom thou didst shut up? But he said: They have broken prison and fled by night: but I have sent 100 men to seek them, and commanded them if they find them that they should not only burn them with fire but give their bodies to the fowls of the heaven and so destroy them.

15. Then said they: This fellow which is found alone, let us burn him. And they took Abram and brought him before their princes and said to him: Where are they that were with thee? And he said: Verily at night I slept, and when I awaked I found them not.

16. And they took him and built a furnace and kindled it with fire, and put bricks burned with fire into the furnace. Then Jectan the prince being amazed (lit. melted) in his mind took Abram and put him with the bricks into the furnace of fire.

17. But God stirred up a great earthquake, and the fire gushed forth of the furnace and brake out into flames and sparks of fire and consumed all them that stood round about in sight of the furnace; and all they that were burned in that day were 83,500. But upon Abram was there not any the least hurt by the burning of the fire.

18. And Abram arose out of the furnace, and the fiery furnace fell down, and Abram was saved. And he went unto the 11 men that were hid in the hill country and told them all that had befallen him, and they came down with him out of the hill country rejoicing in the name of the Lord, and no man met them to affright them that day. And they called that place by the name of Abram, and in the tongue of the Chaldeans Deli, which is being interpreted, God.

1. Now the sons of Noah were three, - Shem, Japhet, and Ham, born one hundred years before the Deluge. These first of all descended from the mountains into the plains, and fixed their habitation there; and persuaded others who were greatly afraid of the lower grounds on account of the flood, and so were very loath to come down from the higher places, to venture to follow their examples. Now the plain in which they first dwelt was called Shinar. God also commanded them to send colonies abroad, for the thorough peopling of the earth, that they might not raise seditions among themselves, but might cultivate a great part of the earth, and enjoy its fruits after a plentiful manner. But they were so ill instructed that they did not obey God; for which reason they fell into calamities, and were made sensible, by experience, of what sin they had been guilty: for when they flourished with a numerous youth, God admonished them again to send out colonies; but they, imagining the prosperity they enjoyed was not derived from the favor of God, but supposing that their own power was the proper cause of the plentiful condition they were in, did not obey him. Nay, they added to this their disobedience to the Divine will, the suspicion that they were therefore ordered to send out separate colonies, that, being divided asunder, they might the more easily be Oppressed.

2. Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it was through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach! and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers!

3. Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being in any degree negligent about the work: and, by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than any one could expect; but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that thereby its great height seemed, upon the view, to be less than it really was. It was built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water. When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them diverse languages, and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, confusion. The Sibyl also makes mention of this tower, and of the confusion of the language, when she says thus: "When all men were of one language, some of them built a high tower, as if they would thereby ascend up to heaven, but the gods sent storms of wind and overthrew the tower, and gave every one his peculiar language; and for this reason it was that the city was called Babylon." But as to the plan of Shinar, in the country of Babylonia, Hestiaeus mentions it, when he says thus: "Such of the priests as were saved, took the sacred vessels of Jupiter Enyalius, and came to Shinar of Babylonia."

And they arose and came from the land of the east; and, as they went through the land, they chanced upon the land of Shinar, which was exceeding broad; where they took in hand to build a tower. They sought means thereby to go up to heaven, and be able to leave their work as a memorial to those men who should come after them. And the building was made with burnt bricks and bitumen: and the boldness of their audacity went forward, as they were all of one mind and consent, and by means of one speech they served the purpose of their desires. But that the work should advance no further, God divided their tongues, that they should longer be able to understand one another. And so they were scattered and planted out, and took possession of the world, and dwelt in groups and companies each according to his language: whence came the diverse tribes and various languages upon the earth. So then, whereas three races of men took possession of the earth, and one of them was under the curse, and two under the blessing, the blessing first of all came to Shem, whose race dwelt in the east and held the land of the Chaldeans.

They foolishly began to build a tower that touched the stars and thought they might be able to climb the skies with it. But God, seeing that their work proceeded because they spoke the same language, intervened and caused them to speak different languages. Then he scattered them by isolating them in the islands of the earth, so that nations speaking different tongues arose.

But I do not understand how he can imagine the overturning of the tower (of Babel) to have happened with a similar object to that of the deluge, which effected a purification of the earth, according to the accounts both of Jews and Christians. For, in order that the narrative contained in Genesis respecting the tower may be held to convey no secret meaning, but, as Celsus supposes, may be taken as true to the letter, the event does not on such a view appear to have taken place for the purpose of purifying the earth; unless, indeed, he imagines that the so-called confusion of tongues is such a purificatory process. But on this point, he who has the opportunity will treat more seasonably when his object is to show not only what is the meaning of the narrative in its historical connection, but what metaphorical meaning may be deduced from it. Seeing that he imagines, however, that Moses, who wrote the account of the tower, and the confusion of tongues, has perverted the story of the sons of Aloeus, and referred it to the tower, we must remark that I do not think any one prior to the time of Homer has mentioned the sons of Aloeus, while I am persuaded that what is related about the tower has been recorded by Moses as being much older not only than Homer, but even than the invention of letters among the Greeks. Who, then, are the perverters of each other's narratives? Whether do they who relate the story of the Aloadæ pervert the history of the time, or he who wrote the account of the tower and the confusion of tongues the story of the Aloadæ? Now to impartial hearers Moses appears to be more ancient than Homer. The destruction by fire, moreover, of Sodom and Gomorrha on account of their sins, related by Moses in Genesis, is compared by Celsus to the story of Phæthon — all these statements of his resulting from one blunder, viz., his not attending to the (greater) antiquity of Moses. For they who relate the story of Phæthon seem to be younger even than Homer, who, again, is much younger than Moses. We do not deny, then, that the purificatory fire and the destruction of the world took place in order that evil might be swept away, and all things be renewed; for we assert that we have learned these things from the sacred books of the prophets. But since, as we have said in the preceding pages, the prophets, in uttering many predictions regarding future events, show that they have spoken the truth concerning many things that are past, and thus give evidence of the indwelling of the Divine Spirit, it is manifest that, with respect to things still future, we should repose faith in them, or rather in the Divine Spirit that is in them.

Moses represents God as descending to the tower that the sons of men were building, seeking to inspect it and saying, “Come, let us go down quickly, and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” Who do the heretics think was the God that descended to the tower in this passage and then sought to visit these men? Was he God the Father? In that case, God is enclosed in a place. If so, how then does he embrace all things? Or is it possible that he speaks of an angel descending with other angels and saying, “Come, let us go down quickly, and there confuse their language”? On the contrary, we note in Deuteronomy that it was God who recounted these things and God who spoke, where it is written: “When he scattered abroad the sons of Adam, he set up the boundaries of the people according to the number of the angels of God.” Therefore the Father did not descend, nor did an angel command these things, as the narrative clearly indicates. Accordingly, the only remaining conclusion is that he descended of whom the apostle Paul says, “He who descended, he it is who ascended also above all heavens, that he might fill all things,” that is, the Son of God, the Word of God.

AGAIN, whereas Moses wrote an account of the building of the tower, and how from one language men passed into the confusion of many dialects, the author just before mentioned, in his work entitled Of Assyrian History, bears the like testimony, speaking as follows:

[ABYDENUS] 'But there are some who say that the men who first arose out of the earth, being puffed up by their strength and great stature, and proudly thinking that they were better than the gods, raised a huge tower, where Babylon now stands: and when they were already nearer to heaven, the winds came to the help of the gods, and overthrew their structure upon them, the ruins of which were called Babylon. And being up to that time of one tongue, they received from the gods a confused language; and afterwards war arose between Cronos and Titan.

[JOSEPHUS] 'And the place in which they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of what at first was clear in their language. For the Hebrews call confusion "Babel." '

And if any one cites the confusion of tongues that took place at the building of the tower, as contradicting what I have said, not even there is God spoken of as creating men’s languages, but as confounding the existing one, that all might not hear all. For when all lived together and were not as yet divided by various differences of race, the aggregate of men dwelt together with one language among them; but when by the Divine will it was decreed that all the earth should be replenished by mankind, then, their community of tongue being broken up, men were dispersed in various directions and adopted this and that form of speech and language, possessing a certain bond of union in similarity of tongue, not indeed disagreeing from others in their knowledge of things, but differing in the character of their names. For a stone or a stick does not seem one thing to one man and another to another, but the different peoples call them by different names. So that our position remains unshaken, that human language is the invention of the human mind or understanding. For from the beginning, as long as all men had the same language, we see from Holy Scripture that men received no teaching of God’s words, nor, when men were separated into various differences of language, did a Divine enactment prescribe how each man should talk. But God, willing that men should speak different languages, gave human nature full liberty to formulate arbitrary sounds, so as to render their meaning more intelligible. Accordingly, Moses, who lived many generations after the building of the tower, uses one of the subsequent languages in his historical narrative of the creation, and attributes certain words to God, relating these things in his own tongue in which he had been brought up, and with which he was familiar, not changing the names for God by foreign peculiarities and turns of speech, in order by the strangeness and novelty of the expressions to prove them the words of God Himself.

This in fact is the way the Lord is accustomed to behave. This is what he did in the beginning in the case of the [first] woman as well. She had abused the status conferred on her, and for that reason he subjected her to her husband. Again, too, in the case of Adam, since he drew no advantage from the great ease he enjoyed and from life in the garden but rather rendered himself liable to punishment through the fall, God drove him out of the garden and inflicted on him everlasting punishment in the words “thorns and thistles let the earth yield.” So when the people in the present case, who had been dignified with similarity of language, used the privilege given them for evil purposes, he put a stop to the impulse of their wickedness through creating differences in language. “Let us confuse their speech,” he says, “so that they will be unable to understand one another’s language.” His purpose was that, just as similarity of language achieved their living together, so difference in language might cause dispersal among them.

“When they traveled from the east, they found open country in the land of Sennar [Shinar] and settled there.” Notice how the human race, instead of managing to keep to its own boundaries, always longs for more and reaches out for greater things. This is what the human race has lost in particular, not being prepared to recognize the limitations of its own condition but always lusting after more, entertaining ambitions beyond its capacity. In this regard, too, when people who chase after the things of the world acquire for themselves much wealth and status, they lose sight of their own nature, as it were, and aspire to such heights that they topple into the very depths. You could see this happening every day without others being any the wiser from the sight of it. Instead, they pause for a while but immediately lose all recollection of it and take the same road as the others and fall over the same precipice. This is exactly what you can see happening to these people in the present instance: “When they traveled from the east, they found open country in the land of Sennar [Shinar] and settled there.” See how in gradual stages it teaches us the instability of their attitude. When they saw the open country (the text says), they packed up and left their previous dwelling and settled down there.

Verse 2. "And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand." The fact that Jehoiachim is recorded to have been given over shows that it was not a victory for the might of his enemies but rather it was of the will of the Lord. "...and some of the vessels of the house of God, and he brought them to the land of Shinar to the house of his god, and he conveyed them into the treasure house of his god" (Gen. 11). The land of Shinar is a region of Babylon in which the plain of Dura was located, and also the tower which those who had migrated from the East attempted to build up to heaven. From this circumstance and from the confusion of tongues the region received the name Babylon, which, translated into our language, means "confusion." At the same time it ought to be noted, by way of spiritual interpretation, that the king of Babylon was not able to transport all of the vessels of God, and place them in the idol-house which he had built himself, but only a part of the vessels of God's house. By these vessels we are to understand the dogmas of truth. For if you go through all of the works of the philosophers, you will necessarily find in them some portion of the vessels of God. For example, you will find in Plato that God is the fashioner of the universe, in Zeno the chief of the Stoics, that there are inhabitants in the infernal regions and that souls are immortal, and that honor is the one (true) good. But because the philosophers combine truth with error and corrupt the good of nature with many evils, for that reason they are recorded to have captured only a portion of the vessels of God's house, and not all of them in their completeness and perfection.

This city named "Confusion" was none other than Babylon, to whose marvelous construction pagan history brings testimonies. For Babylon means "confusion." It would seem that the founder of the city was the giant Nimrod, as was noticed above. In mentioning him, the Scripture tells us that Babylon was the head of his kingdom, meaning at the head of all the other cities, the capital where the government of the kingdom had its seat. However, the city never reached the kind of completion that the pride of impious men had dreamed. The actual plan called for an immense height—it was meant to reach the sky. This perhaps refers to one of its towers, which was to be higher than all the others, or perhaps the word tower may mean all the towers much as "horse" can mean thousands of horsemen.

After the flood, as if striving to fortify themselves against God, as if there could be anything high for God or anything secure for pride, certain proud men built a tower, ostensibly so that they might not be destroyed by a flood if one came later. For they had heard and recalled that all iniquity had been destroyed by the flood. They were unwilling to abstain from iniquity. They sought the height of a tower against a flood; they built a lofty tower. God saw their pride, and he caused this disorder to be sent upon them, that they might speak but not understand one another, and tongues became different through pride.

But when the threatenings of the mighty God
Are fulfilled, which he threatened mortals once,
When in Assyrian land they built a tower;--
120 (And they all spoke one language, and resolved
To mount aloft into the starry heaven;
But on the air the Immortal straightway put
A mighty force; and then winds from above
Cast down the great tower and stirred mortals up
125 To wrangling with each other; therefore men
Gave to that city the name of Babylon);--
Now when the tower fell and the tongues of men
Turned to all sorts of sounds, straightway all earth
Was filled with men and kingdoms were divided;

Come, he said, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top may reach to heaven. The wicked teachers make a city for themselves when, having left the heavenly city, whose architect and builder is God—that is, the holy Church—they gather their own assemblies. All the reprobates make a city for themselves when, neglecting the protection of God's commandments, they follow the thoughts and desires of their own hearts in their actions or words. They build the city of Babylon when they perform works worthy of confusion. They also make a tower whose top may reach to heaven when, to the injury of their Creator, they exercise impious tongues; when, according to the voice of the Psalmist, they speak iniquity against the Most High, when they set their mouth against heaven, which the heathens do by worshipping many gods, the heretics by polluting the faith of the one God with errors, the Jews by denying Christ the Son of God, false Catholics by profaning the true faith with evil deeds or schisms. To all these, the Psalmist's cry to the Lord fits: Their pride rises always against you (Psalm 73:23), that is, it rises to you in the remembrance of your just judgment. But since the pride of the wicked rises to heaven like the top of a cursed tower, it is right that the Creator of heaven, descending, should destroy the unanimous works of the wicked, and first offer them this benefit, that not having the capacity to complete what they began, they may not be condemned more gravely for eternity; then that, having their harmful conspiracy torn apart and dissension among them, they may do less harm to the good. This He once did by descending from heaven Himself: this He does daily through His preachers in the Church: for He confounds the proud languages of the Jews, who, against the grace of the Gospel which He preached, unanimously rebel, as if all with one lip; and retarding them from impious conquests, He scattered them over the whole world. He also precipitates and divides, through Catholic doctors, the tongues of heretics, and, dissociating them from each other, prevents them from raising the gates of Hell against His Church. For there is no heresy which is not attacked by other heretics; no sect of secular philosophy which is not rebutted by other equally foolish philosophical sects; thus it happens that while the reprobates have confused tongues among themselves, such that none can understand the voice of his neighbor with the same understanding, they prove that the name of Babylon, that is, confusion, fits them, and they harm less the vision of peace in which the Church glories. For it is evident that the more the wicked teachers or evil workers are separated from each other in dissenting spirit, the more space they provide for the Church to gather.

And they said: Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower, whose top may reach heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves before we are scattered over the face of the whole earth. When it says whose top, it refers not to the city but to the tower, that is, the citadel, which they planned to make higher than the other walls in a more elevated place. Truly, it is amazing with what intention they planned to raise the top of their tower up to heaven, and yet at the same time claimed they would be divided over the entire earth; unless they foolishly and most arrogantly thought to divide themselves throughout the world in such a way that if they should be discontented with earthly habitation, or if a flood of water again threatened the earth, they might seek the upper regions of the air or the sky through this tower.