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LXX Genesis

Septuagint

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Chapter 11

1 And all the earth was one lip, and there was one language to all. 2 And it happened as they moved from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they lived there.⁠ 3 And a man said to his neighbor, Come, let us make bricks and bake them with fire. And the brick was to them for stone, and their mortar was bitumen. 4 And they said, Come, let us build to ourselves a city and tower, whose top shall be to heaven, and let us make to ourselves a name, before we are scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth.⁠ 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men built. 6 And the Lord said, Look, there is one race, and one lip of all, and they have begun to do this, and now nothing shall fail from them of all that they may have undertaken to do. 7 Come, and having gone down let us there confound their tongue, that they may not understand⁠ each the voice of his neighbor. 8 And the Lord scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city and the tower. 9 On this account its name was called Confusion, because there the Lord confounded the languages of all the earth, and from there the Lord God scattered them upon the face of all the earth. 10 And these are the generations of Shem: and Shem was a son of one hundred years when he fathered Arphaxad, the second year after the flood.⁠ 11 And Shem lived, after he had fathered Arphaxad, five hundred years, and fathered sons and daughters, and died.⁠ 12 And Arphaxad lived one hundred and thirty-five years, and fathered Cainan.⁠ 13 And Arphaxad lived after he had fathered Cainan, four hundred and thirty years, and fathered sons and daughters, and died. And Cainan lived one hundred and thirty years and fathered Shelah; and Cainan lived after he had fathered Shelah, three hundred and thirty years, and fathered sons and daughters, and died. 14 And Shelah lived one hundred and thirty years, and fathered Heber. 15 And Shelah lived after he had fathered Heber, three hundred and thirty years, and fathered sons and daughters, and died. 16 And Heber lived one hundred and thirty-four years, and fathered Peleg. 17 And Heber lived after he had fathered Peleg three hundred and seventy years, and fathered sons and daughters, and died. 18 And Peleg lived one hundred and thirty years, and fathered Reu. 19 And Peleg lived after he had fathered Reu, two hundred and nine years, and fathered sons and daughters, and died. 20 And Reu lived one hundred thirty and two years, and fathered Serug. 21 And Reu lived after he had fathered Serug, two hundred and seven years, and fathered sons and daughters, and died. 22 And Serug lived one hundred and thirty years, and fathered Nahor. 23 And Serug lived after he had fathered Nahor, two hundred years, and fathered sons and daughters, and died. 24 And Nahor lived seventy-nine years, and fathered Terah. 25 And Nahor lived after he had fathered Terah, one hundred and twenty-nine years, and fathered sons and daughters, and he died. 26 And Terah lived seventy years, and fathered Abram, and Nahor, and Haran. 27 And these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram and Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. 28 And Haran died in the presence of Terah his father, in the land in which he was born, in the country of the Chaldeans. 29 And Abram and Nahor took to themselves wives, the name of the wife of Abram was Sarai, and the name of the wife of Nahor, Milcah, daughter of Haran, and he was the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. 30 And Sarai was barren, and did not bear children. 31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, the son of his son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, the wife of Abram his son, and led them forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, to go into the land of Canaan, and they came as far as Haran, and he lived there. 32 And the days of Terah in Haran were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.

Texts in conversation

Compare LXX Genesis 11:7 and Acts 2:6

Septuagint · New Testament

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Summary

The Greek Septuagint version of Genesis uses a specific verb for God confusing the languages of everyone at Babel. Acts uses the same verb of the crowd at Pentecost, who are confused because each one hears the disciples in his own language.

Passages

LXX Genesis 11:7

Septuagint
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men built. 6 And the Lord said, Look, there is one race, and one lip of all, and they have begun to do this, and now nothing shall fail from them of all that they may have undertaken to do. 7 Come, and having gone down let us there confound their tongue, that they may not understand each the voice of his neighbor. 8 And the Lord scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city and the tower. 9 On this account its name was called Confusion, because there the Lord confounded the languages of all the earth, and from there the Lord God scattered them upon the face of all the earth.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Genesis

Acts 2:6

New Testament
4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them. 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven residing in Jerusalem. 6 When this sound occurred, a crowd gathered and was in confusion because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7 Completely baffled, they said, “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that each one of us hears them in our own native language?
70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Acts

References

“... The two words in bold are crucial for understanding the underlying Old Testament significance of Acts 2 and the events of Pentecost. The Greek word syncheō, translated “bewildered,” is used in the Septuagint version of the Tower of Babel story in Gen 11:7: “Come, and let us go down there to confound [syncheō] their language” (LES). Both Acts 2:6 and the Septuagint version of Genesis 11:7 link syncheō with confusion over human speech. In Genesis 11, of course, the context is the division of the nations (and their languages) at Babel. [...] These two terms are likely allusions to the story of Babel, so Luke is drawing on the Septuagint of Gen 11 and Deut 32 to connect the events of Acts 2 with the imagery of Babel and the Table of Nations. In Acts 2, Jews from around the known world were present in Jerusalem on Pentecost; many of them heard the good news in their native languages ... ”
Michael S. Heiser, The Bible Unfiltered: Approaching Scripture on Its Own Terms (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2017), 136.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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LXX Genesis 11:7 and Acts 2:6

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