Genesis 11:4-6

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

⁴And they said, Come, let us build us a city and a tower whose top reaches into the sky, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered over the whole earth.

⁵And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.

⁶And the Lord said, Behold, they are one people and they have ^[a]all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do, and now nothing they have imagined they can do will be impossible for them.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

Genesis 11:6 Some noted philologists have declared that a common origin of all languages cannot be denied. One, Max Mueller (The Science of Language), said “We have examined all possible forms which language can assume, and now we ask, can we reconcile with these three distinct forms, the radical, the terminational, the inflectional, the admission of one common origin of human speech? I answer decidedly, ‘Yes’.” The New Bible Commentary says, “The original unity of human language, though still far from demonstrable, becomes increasingly probable.”