Genesis 11:3

And they said one to another, go to,.... Advising, exhorting, stirring up, and encouraging one another to the work proposed, of building a city and tower for their habitation and protection; saying,

And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. Go to - an adverb, interjectionally used as a term of incitement or exhortation.

Let us make brick, for in that low and fat soil they had no quarries of stones. The heathen writers agree that Babylon’ s walls were made of brick. The slime was a kind of clay called bitumen, which, as Pliny testifieth, is liquid and glutinous, and fit to be used in brick buildings, as Strabo, Dion, and others note. And that Babylon was built with this, as is here said, we have the joint and express testimony of Berosus, Ctesias, Dion, Curtius, and many others.

Genesis 11:3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.Ver. 3. And they said one to another.] One broached this counsel, and the rest soon consented. Let us consider one another to whet on to love and good works. One live coal may set a whole stack on fire. When Silas came, Paul "burned in spirit," and preached lustily. Let us make brick, &c.] Thus, wanting stones, they devised matter for their cursed building. Good cause hath the Church to be as ingenious and sedulous in building staircases for heaven, as the devil and his imps in digging descents to hell. And they had brick for stone, and slime for mortar.] And yet though the walls were high and huge, this city was taken first by Cyrus, afterwards by Alexander, and plundered at several times by many other enemies. Shusa in Persia was first built by Tithonus and his son Memnon, who was so exceeding prodigal, that, as Cassiodorus writes, he joined the stones together with gold; so rich it was that Aristagoras thus cheered up his soldiers that besieged it. This city if you can take, you may vie with Jove himself for wealth and riches. Here Alexander found 50,000 talents of gold, besides silver. But what is all this to the heavenly Jerusalem, whose pavement is pure gold, and her walls garnished with all precious stones? Why do we then labour in the fire, to "load ourselves with thick clay"? Why doth not this "kingdom of heaven suffer violence by us, sith the violent take it by force," or make a prey, a prize of it (so Hilany rendereth it) as soldiers do of a city they have taken? Oh that we could say of heaven, as Sextus Ruffus doth of Cyprus, Cyprus famosa divitiis paupertatem populi Rom. ut occuparetur sollicitavit ! This island was anciently called Macaria: Heaven more truly. συνειχετο. Intus et apud se aestuabat praezeli ardore . Apud Babylone Traianus Imp. vidit lacum bituminis, ex quo moenia Babylonis aedificata fuerant, cuius tanta vis est, ut permixtum cum lateribus, quovis saxo sit aut ferro potentius . - Dio in Vita Trajan. Iam cum Iove de divitiis licet certetis . - Cassiod., lib. vii.; Var., epist. xv. Diripiunt metaph. a castris aut arce quapiam, quae irrumpentibus hostibus diripitur . - Hilar.

(3) Let us make brick, and burn them throughly.—Heb., for a burning. Bricks in the East usually are simply dried in the sun, and this produces a sufficiently durable building material. It marks a great progress in the arts of civilisation that these nomads had learned that clay when burnt becomes insoluble; and their buildings with “slime,” or native pitch, for cement would be virtually indestructible. In fact, Mr. Layard says that at Birs-Nimroud it was scarcely possible to detach the bricks one from another, as the cement by which they were united was most tenacious (Nineveh and Babylon, p. 499).

Verse 3. Let us make brick] It appears they were obliged to make use of brick, as there was an utter scarcity of stones in that district; and on the same account they were obliged to use slime, that is, bitumen, (Vulg.) ασφαλτος, (Septuagint) for mortar: so it appears they had neither common stone nor lime-stone; hence they had brick for stone, and asphaltus or bitumen instead of mortar.

3. brick for stone, &c.] For a description of building with bricks held together with bitumen in Babylonia, see Herodotus, i. 179. The writer here is evidently more familiar with building in stone and mortar than in brick and bitumen: another indication that the story is Israelite in origin. slime] That is, bitumen, LXX ἄσφαλτος, Lat. bitumen. The Hebrew word ḥ ?κmar is found here and in Genesis 14:10, Exodus 2:3. The word for bitumen or pitch used in Genesis 6:14 (kopher) resembles the Assyrian; and the fact that it is not used here tells for the Israelite character of the story.

3. Said one to another — Hebrews, each man to his neighbour. Go to — An obsolete English expression, equivalent to come on.