Gen 11:3 | NET2full | STEP | Then they said to one another , “ Come , let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly .” (They had brick instead of stone and tar instead of mortar .)

‏ Genesis 11:3

3 Then they said to one another, ^{▼▼tn Heb “a man to his neighbor.” The Hebrew idiom may be translated “to each other” or “one to another.”} “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” ^{▼▼tn The speech contains two cohortatives of exhortation followed by their respective cognate accusatives: “let us brick bricks” (נִלְבְּנָה לְבֵנִים, nilbenah levenim) and “burn for burning” (נִשְׂרְפָה לִשְׂרֵפָה, nisrefah lisrefah). This stresses the intensity of the undertaking; it also reflects the Akkadian text which uses similar constructions (see E. A. Speiser, Genesis [AB], 75-76).} (They had brick instead of stone and tar ^{▼▼tn Or “bitumen” (cf. NEB, NRSV).} instead of mortar.) ^{▼▼tn The disjunctive clause gives information parenthetical to the narrative.}