Genesis 11:6

Summary

Genesis 11:6 records Yehovah's assessment of humanity's unified project at Babel: they form one people with one language, and this unity has enabled them to begin a collective undertaking. The verse concludes that nothing they plan to do will now be withheld from them.

Key words

• hen ("here!", H2005) — an interjection drawing attention to the situation, often translated "behold" or "look," introducing Yehovah's observation as a direct perception.
• 'am 'echad ("a people, one", H5971A + H0259) — noun + cardinal number in apposition, emphasizing singularity: "one people" as a unified collective.
• sapah 'achat ("a language, one", H8193K + H0259) — parallel construction to 'am 'echad, "one language," reinforcing the theme of unity through repeated grammatical patterning.
• ha.chi.Lam ("their beginning", H2490C) — hiphil infinitive with pronominal suffix "them," a causative form indicating they have initiated or caused something to start.
• yibbatzer ("it will be withheld", H1219) — niphal (passive) imperfect, indicating a future/ongoing passive action: nothing "will be withheld" from them, i.e., no external restraint applies.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative marker va ("and", H9001) plus yomer ("he said", H0559), the standard formula introducing direct speech by Yehovah. The interjection hen ("here!", H2005) frames what follows as an observed fact rather than a hypothesis. Two parallel noun phrases follow: 'am 'echad ("a people, one") and ve-sapah 'achat le-khullam ("and a language, one, to all of them"), both using the cardinal number 'echad/'achat ("one", H0259) in apposition to stress singularity of people and speech. The phrase le-khullam ("to all of them") uses the construct noun kullam ("all of them", H3605 + suffix) to indicate that this one language belongs collectively to the whole group.

The clause ve-zeh ha.chi.lam la'asot ("and this [is] their beginning to do") pairs two infinitives — ha.chi.lam (hiphil, "to begin", H2490C) and la'asot (qal, "to do", H6213A) — describing the initiation of an action, with the demonstrative zeh ("this", H2088) pointing to the building project narrated earlier in the chapter.

The final clause shifts to a niphal imperfect verb, yibbatzer ("it will be withheld", H1219), a passive/reflexive form describing what will or will not happen to them from an external source (mehem, "from them"). The relative clause asher yazmu la'asot ("that they will plan to do") uses the qal imperfect yazmu ("they will plan", H2161) to describe future intentions, closing the verse with a statement about the scope of what remains achievable for them.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders sapah ("language/lip", H8193K) as χεῖλος ("lip"), a literal rendering of the Hebrew idiom for language, while the Vulgate uses labium ("lip"), matching this same idiom. The Hebrew zeh hachilam la'asot ("this is their beginning to do") is rendered by the LXX as τοῦτο ἤρξαντο ποιῆσαι ("this they began to do"), shifting the nominal construction into a finite verb form. The BSB restructures the verse as a conditional ("If they have begun..."), which is not present as a conditional particle in the Hebrew text.