Genesis Chapter 11 verse 2 Holy Bible
And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
read chapter 11 in ASV
And it came about that in their wandering from the east, they came to a stretch of flat country in the land of Shinar, and there they made their living-place.
read chapter 11 in BBE
And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and dwelt there.
read chapter 11 in DARBY
And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
read chapter 11 in KJV
And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.
read chapter 11 in WBT
It happened, as they traveled east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they lived there.
read chapter 11 in WEB
and it cometh to pass, in their journeying from the east, that they find a valley in the land of Shinar, and dwell there;
read chapter 11 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 2. - And it came to pass, as they journeyed. Literally, in their journeyings. The root (גָקַע, to pull up, as, e.g., the stakes of a tent when a camp moves, Isaiah 33:20) suggests the idea of the migration of nomadic hordes (cf. Genesis 12:9; Genesis 33:17). From the east. Ab oriente (Ancient Versions, Calvin, et alii), meaning either that they started from Armenia, which was in the east respectu terrae Canaan (Luther), or from that portion of the Assyrian empire which was east of the Tigris, and called Orientalis, as distinguished from the Occidentalis on the west (Bochart); or that they first traveled westwards, following the direction of the Euphrates in one of its upper branches (Bush); or that, having roamed to the east of Shinar, they ultimately returned occidentem versus (Junius). The phrase, however, is admitted to be more correctly rendered ad orientem (Drusius, Lange, Keil, Murphy), as in Genesis 13:11. Kalisch interprets generally in oriente, agreeing with Luther that the migrations are viewed by the writer as taking place in the east; while T. Lewis prefers to read from one front part (the original meaning of kedem) to another - onwards. That they found a plain בִּקְעָה; not a valley between mountain ranges, as in Deuteronomy 8:7; Deuteronomy 11:11; Psalm 104:8, but a widely-extended plain (πεδίον, LXX.), like that in which Babylon was situated (Herod., lib. 1:178, κέεται ἐν πεδιῳ μεγάλῳ; cf. Strabo, lib. 2:109). In the land of Shinar. Babylonia (cf. Genesis 10:10). The derivation of the term is unknown (Gesenius), though it probably meant the land of the two rivers (Alford). Its absence from ancient monuments (Rawlinson) suggests that it was the Jewish name for Chaldaea. And they dwelt there.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(2) As they journeyed.--The word literally refers to the pulling up of the tent-pegs, and sets the human family before us as a band of nomads, wandering from place to place, and shifting their tents as their cattle needed fresh pasture.From the east.--So all the versions. Mount Ararat was to the north-west of Shinar, and while so lofty a mountain could not have been the spot where the ark rested, yet neither could any portion of Armenia or of the Carduchian mountains be described as to the east of Babylonia. The Chaldean legends make the ark rest on Mount Nizir, or Elwend, on the east of Assyria; and though Ararat may possibly signify Aryaverta, "Holy Land," yet the transference of the name from Elwend to Armenia is not easily explicable. Moreover, the Bible elsewhere seems to point to Armenia as the cradle of the human race. Most modern commentators, therefore, translate eastward, and such certainly is the meaning of the word in Genesis 13:11, where also the versions, excepting our own, render from the east.Land of Shinar.--See on Genesis 10:10. The whole of Chaldea is a level plain, and the soil immensely rich, as it is an alluvial deposit, which still goes on forming at the head of the Persian Gulf, at the rate of a mile in a period estimated at from seventy to thirty years (Rawlinson, Anc. Mon., i. 4). A strip of land 130 miles in breadth has been added to the country, by the deposit of the earth washed down by the Tigris and Euphrates, since the time when Ur of the Chaldees was a great port.
