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At Babel, Half the Builders Killed the Other Half

Genesis says Babel ended with scattered languages. Before the dispersal there was a massacre at the tower's foot, and half the builders killed the other half.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Last Moment of One Language
  2. What Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer Records
  3. Language and the Violence That Follows Its Loss
  4. The Half That Survived

The Last Moment of One Language

They had been the most cooperative workforce the world had ever assembled. One language, one speech, one purpose. The logistics of hauling fired bricks to a height that aspired to reach heaven required coordination across thousands of workers. They had developed signals, schedules, supply chains. They knew each other's tasks. They had built something that was genuinely impressive in its ambition and its execution, and they had done it without any division of language to slow them down.

Then one man turned to his fellow and spoke, and his fellow looked at him without understanding, and reached for his sword.

What Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer Records

The plain text of Genesis gives a gentle account of what followed. God confused the languages, the builders could not understand one another, they stopped building, God scattered them over the face of the earth, and that is why the place was called Babel, because God mixed up the speech of all the earth. Diaspora as a linguistic consequence of unified ambition.

Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, the early medieval narrative midrash from Palestine, records a sequence of violence that the plain text omits. The workers turned on each other. The confusion of language was immediate and total: a man spoke to his fellow and the words came out as noise. Frustration became rage. Rage reached for weapons. The same coordination that had moved bricks to impossible heights was now directing violence. Half the world fell there by the sword. Half survived into exile.

Then God scattered them over the face of the earth, which means the scattering was not of an intact population. It was of survivors.

Language and the Violence That Follows Its Loss

The builders had been unified precisely because of their shared language. Genesis 11:1 opens: the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. That unity was the precondition for the project. When the language broke, the unity broke with it, and what had been the foundation of their cooperation became the engine of their destruction. They could not understand what was being said to them, and the only response available to people who cannot understand and feel threatened by what they cannot understand was the one they had always had available: force.

The Book of Jasher, the ancient chronicle of the early world, does not describe the massacre in the same terms as Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, but it does trace the aftermath: the sons of Noah spreading across the earth in defined territorial domains, the languages separating and hardening into distinct peoples, the world that had been one splitting into the seventy nations of the table in Genesis 10. What Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer preserves is the violence of the moment before that separation became permanent.

The Half That Survived

The tradition does not tell us which half survived. It does not sort the living from the dead by their intentions at the tower, or by the faction they belonged to, or by whether they had wanted to wage war with God or set up idols or shoot arrows at heaven. Half fell. Half were scattered. The survivors carried their confused languages into every territory they settled, and the languages hardened over generations into the distinct speech of distinct peoples, and the unity they had at Babel became the most remote thing in the world.

The rabbinic tradition sees in this a lesson about what unified human ambition, cut off from any higher reference, eventually produces. The project was impressive. The coordination was real. The bricks were well-made. But the foundation was wrong, and when God removed the one thing that had made the project possible, language, the thing that had been built on the wrong foundation did not gradually unravel. It exploded.

BabelTowerNimrodLanguageWarMidrash AggadahCreation
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From the tradition

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 24:12Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer

That, according to Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, is precisely what happened at the Tower of Babel.

The story goes that the builders of the Tower, all speaking the same language, suddenly found themselves unable to communicate. They wished to speak in the language of their fellow but understanding failed. Frustration boiled over. What did they do? They drew their swords. They fought to destroy each other. Half the world, it says, fell there by the sword. And from that chaos, God scattered them across the face of the earth. As it says in (Genesis 11:8), "So the Lord scattered them abroad on that account, upon the face of all the earth."

Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer doesn't stop there. It segues into another fascinating, and frankly, bizarre tale – one involving Esau, Jacob, and the coveted garments of Nimrod.

Rabbi Meir offers a captivating interpretation: Esau, brother of Jacob, saw Nimrod’s coats (presumably garments of power or significance) and coveted them. He was so overcome with desire, that he slew Nimrod and seized them. How do we know they were desirable? Because, as it says, "And Rebecca took the precious raiment of Esau, her elder son" (Genesis 27:15). These weren't just any clothes!

The text continues, suggesting that when Esau donned these garments, he himself became a mighty hero. "And Esau was a cunning hunter" (Genesis 25:27), it says, implying the clothes played a part in his prowess. It's like a superhero origin story, but with ancient outerwear!

Now, here's where it gets even more interesting. When Jacob left his father Isaac's presence, he declared that Esau, "the wicked one," was unworthy to wear these coats. So what did Jacob do? He dug a hole and hid them, as it says, "A noose is hid for him in the earth" (Job 18:10). A noose, a trap, a hidden destiny buried in the ground.

What are we to make of these two seemingly disparate stories juxtaposed in this way? Perhaps Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer is suggesting a connection between ambition, violence, and the loss of understanding. The builders of Babel sought to reach the heavens, Esau coveted Nimrod’s power. Both desires led to conflict and scattering. And what of Jacob's act of hiding the garments? Was it an act of righteousness, preventing Esau from wielding their power? Or was it a selfish act, burying potential for good along with the bad?

These ancient texts often leave us with more questions than answers, don't they? Maybe that's the point. To make us think, to make us question, and to remind us that even the oldest stories can still resonate with our modern struggles.

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Jasher 7Book of Jasher

Those passages are easy to skim that part of the Noah story, but the Book of Jasher, an ancient Hebrew text of legend and lore, dives right in! Chapter 7 is all about the generations that followed Noah, tracing the lineages of his sons, Japheth, Ham, and Shem.

First, we get a roll call. Japheth had seven sons: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. Then comes the list of their children: Askinaz, Rephath, Tegarmah, and so on. The text gives us a sense of scale, mentioning that the descendants of Japheth numbered around 460 men in those early days.

Next up is Ham, with his four sons: Cush, Mitzraim, Phut, and Canaan. This line includes Seba, Havilah, and other names that might ring a bell from other parts of the Bible.

Finally, we arrive at Shem, whose line includes Elam, Ashur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. Their descendants totaled around 300 men. It’s interesting to see how the populations of each line are quantified, giving us a glimpse into the post-Flood world according to this tradition.

But the chapter doesn't stop at simple genealogy. It introduces a key figure: Peleg. Now, the name Peleg itself is significant. It means "division," and the verse says that "in his days the sons of men were divided, and in the latter days, the earth was divided." This hints at the scattering of peoples and the emergence of different languages, a theme we see echoed in the story of the Tower of Babel. His brother’s name was Yoktan, meaning that in his day the lives of the sons of men were diminished and lessened.

And who was the great-great-great-great-great grandson of Shem? Why, Terah, who was the father of… Abraham!

Then, the narrative takes an intriguing turn with the introduction of Nimrod. You might know him as a mighty hunter, but Jasher paints him as something more. He was the son of Cush, from the line of Ham, and he was no ordinary man.

According to the Book of Jasher, the garments that God made for Adam and Eve after they left the Garden of Eden were passed down through generations: from Adam and Eve to Enoch, then to Methuselah, and finally to Noah. These weren't just any clothes; they were imbued with a special power. Ham stole them from his father Noah when they exited the ark, and eventually, they came into the possession of Nimrod.

When Nimrod wore these garments, he became incredibly strong and mighty. "And Nimrod became strong when he put on the garments, and God gave him might and strength, and he was a mighty hunter in the earth." He wasn't just hunting animals; he was building altars and offering sacrifices. He united people, led them in battle, and became their king.

The verse reads, "Therefore it became current in those days, when a man ushered forth those that he had trained up for battle, he would say to them, Like God did to Nimrod… so may God strengthen us." Nimrod became a legend in his own time, a symbol of strength and victory.

He even built a city called Shinar, because "the Lord had vehemently shaken his enemies and destroyed them." All nations came to him, offering tribute, and he reigned over all the sons of Noah. However, Nimrod "did not go in the ways of the Lord." He made idols and led his people astray, becoming a symbol of wickedness.

Terah, the father of Abraham, was a prince in Nimrod's court. The text says, "Terah the son of Nahor, prince of Nimrod's host, was in those days very great in the sight of the king." Later on, of course, Abraham will challenge the very idolatry that Nimrod championed.

So, what do we make of all this? Chapter 7 of Jasher isn't just a dry list of names. It’s a bridge between the story of Noah and the rise of Abraham, connecting the dots between the Flood and the emergence of new nations. It gives us a glimpse into a world where power, lineage, and even magical garments played a role in shaping history. And it sets the stage for the coming conflict between Abraham, the monotheist, and the idolatrous world represented by Nimrod. A conflict that, in many ways, continues to this day.

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