And they said …: And, required in the Hebrew narrative sequence, is often better omitted in translation. However, in some languages the transition between settling in Shinar and the reported speech event in verse 3 may require a transition such as “When they had done that,” “Some time later,” or “After some time had passed.” To one another is literally “each one to his neighbor,” a common idiomatic way of saying what Revised Standard Version translates. This expression is sometimes translated “They said it and everybody repeated it” or “Everybody said the same thing.”
Come, let us make bricks: Come is the second person masculine singular command. The same form is used in verse 7 with the LORD speaking. See also Exo 1.10. The word is used as an interjection with the sense of “Come on!” as in Good News Translation. Some translations say “Let’s go!” or “Come on, everybody!” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch says “To work!” Some translations find it sufficient to say “Let us make bricks.” In some translations the sense of the word Come is expressed in the verb that translates “said” at the beginning of the verse: “They urged each other, ‘Let’s make bricks….’ ”
The next Hebrew verb is a “let” command in the first person plural and means “Make we bricks.” In English let us or Good News Translation “Let’s” followed by a verb is a first person plural command (in contrast to the verb “let” meaning permit). Many languages that have different inclusive and exclusive forms of the first person plural pronouns naturally express this as “We [inclusive] will make bricks.” In other cases the equivalent expression may be “We must make bricks” or “All of us work together and make bricks.”
Bricks are square or oblong blocks made of mud or clay for constructing walls or buildings. They are dried in the sun or in heated ovens, called kilns. Although both brick and stone construction were used in the eastern Mediterranean area, bricks and pitch, or tar, were used principally in Babylonia.
In some languages the process of making bricks must be expressed as a series of two or more steps; for example, one translation has “… get some earth and make bricks with it, then burn them….” Another has “… mix earth with water [as in mixing cement], and bake it so that it becomes brick.” In areas where brickmaking is common, special verbs are often used for the stages of the process.
In areas where neither mud nor clay blocks are made and used in building, the translator may have to use a loan word with a classifier; for example, “Let’s make building blocks called bricks” or “… buildings from material called bricks.” In such cases it will be helpful to provide a footnote or an illustration.
Burn them thoroughly: burn in reference to bricks is used in Hebrew and many other languages with the sense of heating or baking the bricks in a kiln or oven made for this purpose. The bricks do not literally burn but are hardened by exposing them to high temperatures. “Bake them hard” (Good News Translation and New English Bible) expresses the thought of burn them thoroughly. Bible en français courant says “bake them in the oven.”
They had brick …: this now shifts back to a statement by the storyteller. They refers to the people who spoke in the first part of the verse. In some languages it is necessary to state as a transition that the people did what they said they would do: “They did this and so they had a lot of bricks for building….” One translation says “They piled those bricks up, and they had tar there too.” Brick in the Hebrew text is singular grammatically, but its sense is collective.
Brick for stone: the terms stone and mortar are used by the narrator, who may be comparing the building materials in Babylonia with those in his own country. New International Version brings out this sense of comparison with “brick instead of stone.” Good News Translation, which says “So they had bricks to build with,” does not mention stone and so drops the comparison. There is, however, a possible wordplay between the Hebrew words for brick and stone, which sound somewhat alike, as do also the words translated bitumen and mortar.
In areas where stone is not used for building, it may be necessary to follow Good News Translation or say, for example, “They made their building with bricks,” “They built with bricks,” or “They used bricks to make their buildings.”
Bitumen for mortar: bitumen translates a different word than used in 6.14, but it refers to the same substance. See there for description. Bitumen has never been found as a binding material in the construction of walls in ancient Israel. Mortar refers to a substance used to seal or cement stones or bricks together. Good News Translation says “and tar to hold them [the bricks] together.” A description used by one translation says “they used coal tar to stick together tight the joints between the bricks.”
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .