Genesis 11:3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

◄ Genesis 11:3 ►

Parallel Verses

New International Version
They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

English Standard Version
And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.

New American Standard Bible
They said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.

King James Bible
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.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
They said to each other, "Come, let us make oven-fired bricks." They used brick for stone and asphalt for mortar.

International Standard Version
They told each other, "Come on! Let's burn bricks thoroughly." They used bricks for stone and tar for mortar.

American Standard Version
And they said one to another, Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And each one said to his neighbour: Come, let us make brick, and bake them of stones, and slime instead of mortar.

Darby Bible Translation
And they said one to another, Come on, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar.

Young's Literal Translation
and they say each one to his neighbour, 'Give help, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly:' and the brick is to them for stone, and the bitumen hath been to them for mortar.

Cross References

Genesis 14:10
And the vale of Siddim was full of slime pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain.

Exodus 1:14
And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigor.

Exodus 2:3
And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink.

Exodus 5:14
And the officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, Why have you not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and to day, as heretofore?

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Commentaries

Matthew Henry's Commentary

11:1-4 How soon men forget the most tremendous judgments, and go back to their former crimes! Though the desolations of the deluge were before their eyes, though they sprang from the stock of righteous Noah, yet even during his life-time, wickedness increases exceedingly. Nothing but the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit can remove the sinful lusts of the human will, and the depravity of the human heart. God's purpose was, that mankind should form many nations, and people all lands. In contempt of the Divine will, and against the counsel of Noah, the bulk of mankind united to build a city and a tower to prevent their separating. Idolatry was begun, and Babel became one of its chief seats. They made one another more daring and resolute. Let us learn to provoke one another to love and to good works, as sinners stir up and encourage one another to wicked works.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown

3. brick—There being no stone in that quarter, brick is, and was, the only material used for building, as appears in the mass of ruins which at the Birs Nimroud may have been the very town formed by those ancient rebels. Some of these are sun-dried—others burnt in the kiln and of different colors.

slime—bitumen, a mineral pitch, which, when hardened, forms a strong cement, commonly used in Assyria to this day, and forming the mortar found on the burnt brick remains of antiquity.