Part 7-Exploring Gender in the Bible: Tower of Babel
Author’s Note:
This article will cover all mentions of God’s and human’s genders in Genesis 11:1-9, inspecting the Hebrew language of each verse.
Of note, many places will have a certain verb marked as feminine in some places and masculine in others. This is because the original Hebrew translates differently than the transliteration used to mark the words. I have opted for transliterations however, because it makes it smoother for English readers.
As has been mentioned in previous articles, words in square brackets (i.e., “[ ]”) are those not included in the ESV translation that indicate gender in some way or have bearing on gender.
Because I do not speak Hebrew, I will be relying heavily on translations (primarily Strong’s Concordance) of individual words and my limited knowledge of grammatical structure.
While my research is based on an interlinear version, for ease of reading verses will be presented in the ESV translation, with words marked in the English character version of the original. It is of note that the translation to English characters is not always smooth and sometimes seems to lose the nuances of the original text. Some words appear the same, but have slightly different translations. In rare cases, the definition differs from the ESV translation. These words will be defined below the passage. A phrase I will commonly use is “As translated”, meaning that there is no translation for that word to my knowledge beyond the translation used in the text.
While in many places the word “he” or “she” is added, the Hebrew text frequently conveys this via its use of verbs. Hebrew verbs include a gender which points to the gender of the person or being portrayed (Van Pelt, n.d.). Typically speaking, this is how the gender is assigned in translations. Due to this nature of the verbs, I will include the gender for all verbs throughout, (excepting the rare verbs that convey no gender). That being said, I will leave it up to the reader to decipher who the character is to which it applies (do not forget inanimate objects such as the earth).
It is also of note that often one Hebrew word translates into several in English, and these are frequently shifted into a different order to fulfill grammatical rules within a passage. While it does not affect the translation (and in fact makes it more accurate), it does somewhat confuse the placement when Hebrew words are shown. The Hebrew version will always be placed after the last word of a series of words it translates to in the English version. This may be somewhat inaccurate, and I encourage you to look up an interlinear version (see bibliography at the end) in order to get a full picture of what words relate to which other words. This is also why some of the words and genders marked for a verb do not directly follow an English verb in the passage.
Some repetitiveness may occur in translations of words, this is to make references back to certain passages easier to read without referring back to notes on past verses.
My intention is that every word conveying gender is marked in some way. That being said however, some may slip through the cracks. Also, it is of note that some “he”/“she” has been added to English translations to convey the gender indicated in other ways in the Hebrew text. These naturally will not be marked with their meaning as the word essentially corresponds to a different word that is marked with a gender and/or definition. Much of the critical thinking is left to the reader to interpret the text.
Breakdown of Genesis 11:1-9:
Genesis 11:1
“Now the whole earth had (hāyâ, masculine) one language and the same words.”
(Genesis 11:1 ESV, BLB)
Genesis 11:2
“And as (hāyâ, masculine) people migrated from the east, they found (māṣā’, masculine) a plain in the land of Shinar and settled (yāšaḇ, masculine) there.”
(Genesis 11:2 ESV, BLB)
Genesis 11:3
“And they said (‘āmar, masculine) to one another, ‘Come (yāhaḇ, masculine), let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had (hāyâ, feminine) brick [used (hāyâ, masculine) (NASB95)] for stone, and bitumen for mortar.”
(Genesis 11:3 ESV, BLB)
Genesis 11:4
“Then they said (‘āmar, masculine), ‘Come (yāhaḇ, masculine), let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.’”
(Genesis 11:4 ESV, BLB)
Genesis 11:5
“And the Lord came down (yāraḏ, masculine) to see the city and the tower, which the children (bēn) of man (‘āḏām) had built.”
(Genesis 11:5 ESV, BLB)
Bēn typically refers to son, occasionally offspring in general, literal or figurative (Strong, 1890).
‘Āḏām means “man” or “human” or refers to Adam specifically, depending on context (Strong, 1890).
Genesis 11:6
“And the Lord said (‘āmar, masculine), ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose (zāmam, masculine) to do will now be impossible (bāṣar, masculine) for them.’”
(Genesis 11:6 ESV, BLB)
Genesis 11:7
“‘Come (yāhaḇ, masculine), let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand (šāmaʿ, masculine) one another’s speech.’”
(Genesis 11:7 ESV, BLB)
Genesis 11:8
“So the Lord dispersed (pûṣ, masculine) them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off (ḥāḏal, masculine) building the city.”
(Genesis 11:8 ESV, BLB)
Genesis 11:9
“Therefore its name was called (qārā’, masculine) Babel, because there the Lord confused (bālal, masculine) the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed (pûṣ, masculine) them over the face of all the earth.”
(Genesis 11:9 ESV, BLB)
Author’s Thoughts:
This passage, as with many others, is not directly gender oriented. The message of the passage has nothing to do with gender. That being said, it is being included exclusively for the sake of inclusivity, so to speak.
Despite this, there are some small bits of learning we can glean from the passage. Masculine verbs are used almost entirely over feminine. According to Biblical Hebrew, “The masculine plural pronouns are used to refer to groups of males or mixed-gender groups” (Biblical Hebrew, 2025), meaning that it is quite likely both were included here. The exception to this is Genesis 11:3 “And they had (hāyâ, feminine) brick [used (hāyâ, masculine) (NASB95)] for stone” (Genesis 11:3, ESV, BLB, NASB95). Feminine verbs are never used for mixed groups to my understanding, meaning that possibly the women had bricks that they (people in general or men) used as stones.
Overall, this passage gives us a neutral area in which to study the flow of the Hebrew language without deep diving into the meanings. It may seem irrelevant, but it is still of use to our study. The information applied here is useful in other passages more pertinent to our study as well.
Bibliography
Blue Letter Bible, Hebrew Interlinear, 2025
Biblical Hebrew (2025). The Use of the Masculine Plural in Biblical Hebrew
English Standard Version Bible, 2016
New American Standard Bible, 1995
Strong, J. (1890). Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BB10658005
Van Pelt, M. V. (n.d.). English grammar to ace Biblical Hebrew. Zondervan Academic.
