Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageThen they said, 'Come, let's build ourselves a city and a tower whose top reaches the heavens — let's make a name for ourselves, so we won't be scattered over the face of the whole earth.'
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GAnd they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its head in the skies, and make a name for ourselves — lest we be scattered over the face of all the earth.'
KJV
King James VersionAnd 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.
BSB
Berean Standard Bible“Come,” they said, “let us build for ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of all the earth.”
Footnotes
Migdal (מִגְדָּל) denotes a tower or fortress but in its Mesopotamian context almost certainly evokes a ziggurat — a staged temple-tower whose apex was understood as the meeting point of heaven and earth and the earthly residence of a deity. "Its head in the skies" (rosho bashamayim) was ziggurat theology, not mere arrogance. The word shem (שֵׁם, "name") carries rich irony: the builders want to make a shem for themselves, yet Shem is the ancestor whose genealogy frames this chapter, and in Gen 12:2 YHWH will promise Abram "I will make your name great" — a divine answer to humanity's self-naming project.
