But the Lord came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building.
Parallel translations
- WEB Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.
- KJV And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
- BSB Then the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men were building.
- NKJV But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
- NASB Now the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the men had built.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Yahweh came down to see the city and tower the people were building. God graciously, and ironically, condescends to inspect their lofty work.
Overview
The image of God coming down to see the tower that was meant to reach heaven exposes the smallness of human pride before the Almighty. What seemed great to the builders required God to stoop even to observe it. This divine condescension to examine human affairs anticipates the greater coming down of God in Christ, who descends in mercy to save.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Ps 33:13–14Yahweh looks from heaven. He sees all the sons of men.
- Gen 18:21I will go down now, and see whether their deeds are as bad as the reports which have come to me. If not, I will know.”
- John 3:13No one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended out of heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.
- Heb 4:13There is no creature that is hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.
- Jer 23:23–24“Am I a God at hand,” says Yahweh, “and not a God afar off?
- Exod 19:11and be ready against the third day; for on the third day Yahweh will come down in the sight of all the people on Mount Sinai.
- Exod 19:20Yahweh came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. Yahweh called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.
- Ps 11:4Yahweh is in his holy temple. Yahweh is on his throne in heaven. His eyes observe. His eyes examine the children of men.
- Exod 3:8I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
- Exod 19:18All of Mount Sinai smoked, because Yahweh descended on it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.
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Christ at the center
From the first promise that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent (3:15), through Abraham's blessing to all nations and Judah's coming ruler, Genesis sows every seed that flowers in Christ — the true offspring, the better Adam, the ram caught for Isaac.
How Genesis 11:5 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.