The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 239

EXPOSITION. original tongue or mankind, he thinks the CHAPTER XI. Hebrew approaches nearest the primitive Ver. 1.-Ancl the whole earth. I. e. the Semite language out of which all three were entire population of the globe, and not simply developed. the inhabitants of the land of Shinar (Inglis ; Ver. 2.-Ancl it came to pass, as they cf. eh. ix. 29}. Was. Prior to the dis- journeyed. Literally, in their journeyings. persion spoken of in the preceding chapter, The root (Vj:)l, to pull up, as, e. g., the stakes though obviously it may have been, subse- of a tent when a camp moves, Isa. x.,:riii. quent to thnt event, if, ns the above-named 20) suggests the idea of the migration of author believes, the present paragraph refers nomadic hordes (et: eh. xii. 9 ; xxxiii. 17). to the Shcmites alone. Of one language. From the eut. .tlb or,.'ente (Ancient Versions. Literally, of one lip, i. e. one articulation, Calvin, et alii), meaning either that they or one way of pronouncing their vocables. started from Armenia, which was in the eOJ!t And of one speech. Literally, one (kind of) respectu terrce Canaan (Luther), or from word.s, i. o. the matter as well as the form that portion of the Assyrian empire which of human speech was the same. The pl'imi- was cast of the Tigris, and called Orientalis, tive language wns believed by the Rnbbins, as distinguished from the Occidentalis on the Fathers, and the older theologians to be the west (Bochart) ; or tho.t they fi.nlt tra- Hebrew ; but Keil decla1·es this view to be velled westwards, following the direction or utterly untenable. Bleck shows thnt the the Euphrates in one of its uprr branches family of Ahraham spoke in Ammnie (cf. (Bush) ; or that, having ronme to the east Jegu-sahaduth11, eh. xxxi. 47), and that of Shinar, they ultimately returned occi- the patriarch himself acquired Hebrew from dentem versus (Junius). 'l'he phrase, how- the Canannites, who may themselves hnve ever, is admittml to be more correctly rendered o.dopted it from tho early Semites whom act orienten~ (Drusius, Lange, Keil, Murphy), they displaced, While regnl'lling neither ns in eh. xiii. 11. Kalisch interprets gener- the Aramaic, Hebrew, nor Arabic 11s the 11Jly in oi'i,mte, 11greeing with Luth~r thl\t 11 2  IG4 THE BOOK OF GENESIS. [cu. iu. 1-9.