“Look!” he said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them!
Parallel translations
- WEB Yahweh said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing will be withheld from them, which they intend to do.
- KJV 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.
- BSB And the LORD said, “If they have begun to do this as one people speaking the same language, then nothing they devise will be beyond them.
- NKJV And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.
- NASB And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they have started to do, and now nothing which they plan to do will be impossible for them.
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 observed that as one united people with one language, nothing they purposed would be beyond them. Their unity in rebellion poses a real danger.
Overview
God notes that human unity, unrestrained, would only accelerate sin and self-exaltation. His concern is not jealousy but the protection of humanity from the unchecked consequences of its own rebellion. The verse reveals God's wisdom in restraining evil, a restraint that serves His larger plan to redeem and rightly unite a people in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Ps 2:1–4Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot a vain thing?
- Gen 3:22Yahweh God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...”
- Gen 11:1The whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
- Luke 1:51He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
- Eccl 11:9Rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes; but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.
- Gen 9:19These three were the sons of Noah, and from these, the whole earth was populated.
- Gen 6:5Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was continually only evil.
- Gen 8:21Yahweh smelled the pleasant aroma. Yahweh said in his heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake because the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. I will never again strike every living thing, as I have done.
- Acts 17:26He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings,
- Judg 10:14Go and cry to the gods which you have chosen. Let them save you in the time of your distress!”
- 1 Kgs 18:27At noon, Elijah mocked them, and said, “Cry aloud; for he is a god. Either he is deep in thought, or he has gone somewhere, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he sleeps and must be awakened.”
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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 11:6 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.