--- title: "Genesis 11 - Study King James Bible with the church pulpit commentary" description: "Read Genesis 11 with the church pulpit commentary commentary. 1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. 2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land" image: "/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg" url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/genesis/11" --- [ Read](/kjv/genesis/11)[ Commentary](/study/genesis/11)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/genesis/11) Audio 1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.** 2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.* 3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.** 4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top *may reach* unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people *is* one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. 8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.* 10 ¶ These *are* the generations of Shem: Shem *was* an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood: 11 And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. 12 And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah: 13 And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters. 14 And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber: 15 And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters. 16 And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg:* 17 And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters. 18 And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu: 19 And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters. 20 And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug:* 21 And Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters. 22 And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor: 23 And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. 24 And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah:* 25 And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters. 26 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran. 27 ¶ Now these *are* the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot. 28 And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. 29 And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram’s wife *was* Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. 30 But Sarai was barren; she *had* no child. 31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. 32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran. [Genesis 10](/study/genesis/10) [Genesis 12](/study/genesis/12) ## Commentary To verse 1 *‘OF ONE LANGUAGE’* **‘And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.’** ** [Genesis 11:1](/kjv/genesis/11/1)** ** The New Testament is always converting into blessings the curses of the Old Testament. The burdens and severities of the Law are not only the types but the very substances of Gospel liberty and truth; the confusion of Babel leads to a greater harmony, and its dispersion ends in a more perfect union. **I. After the Flood the whole earth was of one language and one speech.** Now not even one country has one language within itself. No two persons that ever meet have it. The words may have the same spelling, but they do not carry to the hearer exactly the same sense in which they were spoken. There is not on this earth, in any fraction of it, one language and one speech; hence a great part of our sin and misery. **II. Even if there were a language perfectly the same, yet, until** there was a setting to rights of disorders which have come into human thought, and until minds were themselves set in one accord, **there could not he unity.** **III. The men of the old world determined to do two things which real unity never does.** They resolved to make a great monument to their own glory, and they thought to frustrate a law of God and to break a positive rule of our being. Their unity was a false unity. They sought their own praise, and it ran contrary to the mind of God. Their profane unity was dashed into hundreds of divergent atoms, and was carried by the four winds to the four corners of the earth. **IV. What were the consequences of this scattering of the race?** (1) It carried the knowledge of the true God and of the one faith into all the lands whither they went; (2) God replenished the whole surface of the globe by spreading men over it; (3) it was a plea for prayer, an argument for hope, a pledge of promise. **V. From that moment God has steadily carried on His design of restoring unity to the earth.** His choosing of Abraham, His sending of Christ, the coming of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, were all means to this very end. —Rev. Jas. Vaughan. **Illustration** (1) ‘One of the chief external hindrances to the spread of the Gospel is the confusion of tongues, such as we read of at the building of the tower of Babel. A strange language which the missionary meets when he crosses a sea or a mountain range, is like a wall that stops his progress, saying, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.” The men of Galilee, at Pentecost, surmounting that difficulty by a miracle of Divine power, might have sung with David, “By my God assisting me I overleap a wall.” Should we not break forth on every side and burst through or overleap the barrier of strange tongues and all other barriers that stand in the way, and never rest until the kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ?’ (2) ‘A Hindoo and New Zealander met upon the deck of a missionary ship. They had been converted from their heathenism and were brothers in Christ; but they could not speak to each other. *They pointed to their Bibles*, shook hands, and smiled in one another’s faces; but that was all. At last a happy thought occurred to the Hindoo. With sudden joy he exclaimed “Hallelujah.” The New Zealander in delight cried out “Amen.” These two words, not found in their own heathen tongues, were to them the beginning of “one language and one speech.” ’ ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com","name":"Real Bible Believers","description":"RBB","publisher":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/search?q={search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/genesis/11#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg","contentUrl":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg","width":672,"height":448,"caption":"Real Bible Believers"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/genesis/11#webpage","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/genesis/11","name":"Genesis 11 - Study King James Bible with the church pulpit commentary","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/genesis/11#primaryimage"},"author":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"description":"Read Genesis 11 with the church pulpit commentary commentary. 1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. 2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/genesis/11#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/genesis/11"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/genesis/11#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/","name":"Home"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study","name":"Study Bible"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary","name":"the church pulpit commentary"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/genesis","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/genesis","name":"Genesis"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":5,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/genesis/11","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-church-pulpit-commentary/genesis/11","name":"11"}}]},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#personlogo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/android-chrome-512x512.png","contentUrl":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/android-chrome-512x512.png","width":512,"height":512},"logo":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#personlogo"},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/RBiblebeliever","https://www.facebook.com/RBibleBelievers"]}]} ```