Genesis Chapter 11 verse 1 Holy Bible
And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
read chapter 11 in ASV
And all the earth had one language and one tongue.
read chapter 11 in BBE
And the whole earth had one language, and the same words.
read chapter 11 in DARBY
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
read chapter 11 in KJV
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
read chapter 11 in WBT
The whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
read chapter 11 in WEB
And the whole earth is of one pronunciation, and of the same words,
read chapter 11 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 1. - And the whole earth. I.e. the entire population of the globe, and not simply the inhabitants of the land of Shinar (Ingiis; cf. Genesis 9:29). Was. Prior to the dispersion spoken of in the preceding chapter, though obviously it may have been subsequent to that event, if, as the above-named author believes, the present paragraph refers to the Shemites alone. Of one language. Literally, of one lip, i.e. one articulation, or one way of pronouncing their vocables. And of one speech. Literally, one (kind of) words, i.e. the matter as well as the form of human speech was the same. The primitive language was believed by the Rabbins, the Fathers, and the older theologians to be Hebrew; but Keil declares this view to be utterly untenable. Bleek shows that the family of Abraham spoke in Aramaic (cf. Jegar-sahadutha, Genesis 31:47), and that the patriarch himself acquired Hebrew from the Canaanites, who may themselves have adopted it from the early Semites whom they displace& While regarding neither the Aramaic, Hebrew, nor Arabic as the original tongue of mankind, he thinks the Hebrew approaches nearest the primitive Semite language out of which all three were developed.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English ReadersXI.(1) The whole earth.--That is, all mankind. After giving the connection of the various races of the then known world, consisting of Armenia, the regions watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, the Arabian peninsula, the Nile valley, with the districts closely bordering on the Delta, Palestine, the Levant, and the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete; with Lud on his journey to Asia Minor, and the Japhethites breaking their way into Europe through the country between the Caspian and the Black Sea: after this, we go back to the reason of this dispersion, which is found in the confusion of tongues.Of one language, and of one speech.--Literally, of one lip, and of words one: that is, both the pronunciation and the vocabulary were identical. As regards this primitive language, whereas but a few years ago the differences between the Sanscrit and the Semitic tongues were regarded as irreconcilable, recent inquiries tend to show that both have a common basis.
