Читать книгу Bereshit, The Book of Beginnings - David B. Friedman - Страница 17

1 All mankind spoke one language, and had the same vocabulary.1

2 In their travels from the east, they found a valley in the land of Shinar, and lived there.

3 People said to each other, “Let’s make bricks in a furnace.” So they used bricks instead of stone, and clay for mortar.

4 They further said, “Let’s build a city for ourselves, with a tower whose top reaches up to the sky. By doing this, we can become great and independent, so that we won’t be spread across the earth.”2

5 Then God came down to see the city and the tower that men had built.

6 And God said, “So, they are united and everyone has one common language. They have already begun to work together, and now they won’t hold themselves back from anything that they conceive of doing.

7 Let’s go down there and scramble their speech, so that no one will understand another’s language.”

8 Then God scattered them from there throughout the entire earth, and they abandoned their building of that city.

9 Because of this, the city’s name was called Bavel, since it was there that God scrambled the language of mankind, and from there God scattered them throughout the earth.3

10 This is the family history of Shem: Shem was 100 years old when he fathered Arpakshad, two years after the great flood.

11 Shem lived another 500 years after he fathered Arpakshad, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

12 Arpakshad was 35 years old when he fathered Shelach.

13 Arpakshad lived another 403 years after he fathered Shelach, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

14 Shelach was 30 years old when he fathered Ever.

15 Shelach lived another 403 years after he fathered Ever, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

16 Ever was 34 years old when he fathered Peleg.

17 Ever lived another 430 years after he fathered Peleg, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

18 Peleg was 30 years old when he fathered Re’u.

19 Peleg lived another 290 years after he fathered Re’u, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

20 Re’u was 32 years old when he fathered Serug.

21 Re’u lived another 207 years after he fathered Serug, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

22 Serug was 30 years old when he fathered Nachor.

23 Serug lived another 200 years after he fathered Nachor, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

24 Nachor was 29 years old when he fathered Terach.

25 Nachor lived another 119 years after he fathered Terach, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

26 Terach was 70 years old when he fathered Avram, then Nachor and then Haran.

27 This is Terach’s family history: Terach fathered Avram, Nachor, and Haran. Haran fathered Lot.

28 Haran died in Ur, his hometown in the Kasdim region, during the lifetime of Terach, his father.4

29 Avram and Nachor both married. Avram’s wife was named Sarai, and Nachor’s wife was Milkah, who along with her sister Yiskah were Haran’s daughters.

30 Sarai was infertile, and could not have children.

31 Terach then took his son Avram along with his daughter-in-law Sarai, who was Avram’s wife, as well as Lot his grandson, who was born to his son Haran. They arrived at Charan and settled there.

32 Terach lived to be 205 years old, and finally he died at Charan.

1. 1v. 1: Although it is impossible to determine what language this may have been, the development of human language groups from one older, single language is a known feature of human history. Proto-Semitic is an example of this phenomenon. Scholars have identified this language as the possible single source tongue for all Semitic languages (Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Syriac, Akkadian, etc.). I refer the reader to a short, descriptive article on Proto-Semitic, entitled “Proto-Semitic Language and Culture” (www.bartleby.com/61/10.html), as well as the scholarly reference work, A Proto-Semitic Grammar and Textbook by H. J. Shem, Winged Bull Press, 2006, for more intense study. Additionally, the idea of uniting mankind as one and then trying to build a utopian world is a theme that occurs throughout Jewish history (with Jewish civilization, usually, the victim of such a plot). This is the first historic recollection of such a plan. The book of Maccabees from the 1st century BC records another one (when the Seleucid Empire attempted to unite the Levant as “one people,” including trying to subdue Israel and incorporate it into a Seleucid-Hellenist utopian empire). In the 1st and 2nd centuries, the Roman Empire attempted to do the same by subduing Israel during the Pax Romana, while making Jerusalem judenrein. In recent history, the Nazis did the same, trying to unify Europe in an Aryan-led racist “utopian” society, while attempting genocide against European Jewry. The theme of international, unifying plots has a negative connotation to it in Jewish history. I interpret the description of this one in chapter 11 in the same manner.

2. v. 4: Ziggurats are ancient buildings that are similar to this description. The remains of thirty-two ziggurats have been found in modern day Iraq and Iran, some dating from the 4th millennium BC. It was believed that deities inhabited them. Made of baked bricks, they had a pyramidal structure.

3. v. 9: “Bavel” is a play on the world balal, which is an ancient Hebrew onomatopoeia for the sound of unintelligible babble. In later Semitic linguistics, bab is a gate (as it is in modern Arabic) and el refers to a deity; thus the name may be a later Hebrew designation for the “entryway” or “gate” to heaven (or God), which fits the context well. Some scholars believe that this particular tower was a seven-floor high ziggurat with a temple dedicated to the idol Marduk sitting at the very top.

4. vv. 28 and 31: The name Haran (Avraham’s brother) has a soft ‘h’ pronounced as the first sound of the name, as it begins with the Hebrew letter “he” (equivalent to an English letter h). The site Charan has a harder “ch” sound at its beginning, as it begins with the Hebrew letter “chet.” Thus, Terach did not name this site after his deceased son.