Genesis 11:5

Summary

Genesis 11:5 narrates that Yehovah (H3068G) descends to inspect the city and tower that "the children of humankind" had built. The verse marks a narrative shift, moving the perspective from the builders on the ground to a divine viewpoint that comes down toward them.

Key words

• va-yYered ("and he came down", H3381) — qal narrative form, marking the next sequential action in the story; the verb "to descend" often signals movement from a higher to a lower plane in this text.
• li-rot ("to see", H7200G) — qal infinitive construct with prefixed preposition li ("to", H9005), expressing purpose: the descent happens in order to see.
• asher ("which/that", H0834A) — relative particle introducing the clause that describes the tower as the object built.
• banu ("they had built", H1129) — qal perfect, denoting a completed action prior to or leading up to the moment of "seeing"; the perfect aspect frames the building as an accomplished fact from the narrator's vantage point.
• bene ha-Adam ("children of humankind", H1121A + H0120G) — construct chain: bene ("children of") governs ha-Adam ("the humankind"), identifying the builders collectively as humanity rather than naming specific individuals.

What the text says

The sentence opens with the narrative vav va (H9001) attached to yYered (H3381), continuing the story sequence begun in earlier verses: "and he came down." The subject is Yehovah (H3068G), placed immediately after the verb, a common verb-subject order in Biblical Hebrew narrative. The purpose of the descent is expressed through the infinitive construct li-rot (H7200G), "to see," governed by the preposition li (H9005).

The object of seeing is compound: et-ha-ir ("the city", H5892B) and, joined by ve ("and", H9002), et-ha-migdal ("the tower", H4026M). Both nouns carry the direct object marker et (H0853), which has no independent meaning but signals that "city" and "tower" are the grammatical objects of "to see." Each noun also carries the definite article ha (H9009), marking them as specific, previously mentioned structures.

The relative clause asher banu bene ha-Adam ("which the children of humankind had built") modifies "tower" (and by extension the whole building project). The verb banu (H1129) is in the perfect aspect, indicating the building was already completed or underway before the moment of divine observation — a temporal layering that situates the "seeing" as a response to an already-existing human action. The construct phrase bene ha-Adam (H1121A + H0120G) identifies the builders generically as "children of humankind," a collective designation rather than a specific named group.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text explicitly repeats the direct object marker et (H0853) before both "the city" and "the tower," a grammatical feature with no lexical equivalent; the Greek (LXX) and Latin (Vulgate) versions render this simply through direct accusative/object constructions, as expected in their own grammars, without any corresponding untranslatable particle. The Vulgate renders bene ha-Adam as "filii Adam" ("sons of Adam"), which can be read as pointing to a proper name "Adam," whereas the Hebrew ha-Adam (H0120G) includes the definite article, more consistent with a generic sense "the humankind" or "the man" rather than a personal name in this clause.