And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
After the Flood, when Noah's descendants had increased, the whole earth still shared one language and one speech before the confusion at Babel. That common speech gave harmony and cooperation and made united action possible. That unity was turned to rebellion against God, with the great majority fully united to thwart His purposes and establish a kingdom embracing the whole earth for self-exaltation and independence of Him. They set out to build a city with a tower reaching to heaven to secure safety against another deluge and to exalt their own pride and power. God sent angels to confound their language in the relay of orders, ending harmony and stopping the work, and those who could still understand one another gathered into separate groups and scattered across the earth so that different languages and nations arose.
Common Speech Before Confusion
The whole earth after the Flood was still of one language and one speech while Noah's descendants increased in number, before the confusion of tongues at Babel. All people throughout the earth spoke the same language, and those who could understand one another would afterward gather together when speech was confounded. That common speech formed the setting for the united effort to build a city and tower.
It gave harmony and cooperation, allowing communication and working together and making united action possible. Before the confusion they could communicate and cooperate in the building, but when language was confounded communication failed and the work fell into disorder and stopped. Those who could still understand one another then formed separate groups and scattered across the earth, so that different languages and nations arose.
Even with one speech, apostasy had already produced division between those who desired to forget their Creator and cast off the restraint of His law and the worshipers of God. The rebels separated themselves from the worshipers of God and journeyed to the plain of Shinar on the banks of the Euphrates. They used their unity of language and speech to keep their community together in one body there instead of dispersing throughout the earth to replenish and subdue it as God had directed. Their common speech thus enabled their confederacy to unite in the plain to build a city and tower and to resist God's direction to spread across the earth.
The background among those turning from God included differing responses to the Flood, with some denying God and explaining it by natural causes while others believed God had sent it but rebelled against Him for destroying the people and cursing the earth. The verse belongs to the account of the dispersion from the tower of Babel, about the time of which Nineveh was founded.
Rebellion, Judgment, and Aftermath
The one speech became the instrument of a heaven-daring confederacy born of rebellion against God, in which the great majority united fully to thwart His purposes and heed their own, to establish a kingdom and a monarchy embracing the whole earth for self-exaltation and not for His glory, and to make themselves independent of Him. Determined men, inspired and urged on by Satan the first great rebel, would permit nothing to stop their evil course. Not all were of one mind in this, for some God-fearing men living among them had been deceived and drawn into the schemes yet refused to join the confederacy to thwart God's purposes, refusing to be deceived by wonderful representations and grand outlook. For the sake of these loyal and faithful ones judgment was delayed to give the ungodly time to reveal their true character.
Their united purpose was a city with a tower reaching to heaven, so high that no flood could rise above it and so massive that nothing could sweep it away, intended to be the wonder of the world. It was to secure safety against another deluge, for they would not trust to be saved again by a boat like the ark, and to ascend to the region of the clouds to ascertain the cause of the flood. The devising showed wonderful talent, but the project was ambitious, meant to exalt the pride of its projectors and to turn future generations away from God toward idolatry. When the tower was partly built, part served as a dwelling for the builders while other apartments, splendidly furnished and adorned, were devoted to their idols, and the people rejoiced in their success and praised gods of silver and gold and set themselves against the Ruler of heaven and earth.
They had separated themselves from the faithful followers of God and corrupted the sacrificial system first established with Adam after his fall and taught by him to his descendants, already corrupted before the Flood. They had no faith in the Redeemer to come, but sacrificed to gods of their own choosing instead of the God of heaven, offering many animals to gain favor, prosperity and riches. Their superstition taught that the more valuable the offerings the greater the pleasure of their gods and the greater the prosperity and riches of the nation, leading to great extravagances including the frequent sacrifice of human beings to senseless idols. Their superstition and laws without divine grace became cruel in the extreme, made by men whose hearts were not softened, passing over the most debasing crimes lightly while visiting small offenses with cruel punishment.
Had that united power been permitted to go on unchecked it would have borne sway as a mighty power demoralizing the world by its wonderful plans. It would have banished righteousness and banished knowledge of Jehovah's holy and just and good statutes and law from minds that would see no need to obey them and would not think obedience to the divine statutes necessary, ignoring and forgetting them. It would have inaugurated a new false religion by mixing religious ideas with erroneous theories, and in place of the divine precepts would have substituted laws framed from selfish hearts according to the desires of selfish hearts to carry out their purposes. Carried out and perfected, those errors would have closed the door to peace, happiness and security.
God sent angels to bring the builders' purpose to naught when the tower had grown so lofty that workmen at the top could not communicate directly with those at the base, so men were stationed at different points each to receive and report to the one next below the orders for needed material and other directions down the line. As messages passed from one to another the language was confounded in that relay, so material was called for which was not needed and directions were delivered often the reverse of those given. Confusion and dismay followed and all work came to a standstill, with no further harmony or cooperation, and the builders, unable to account for the strange misunderstandings, in rage and disappointment reproached one another, and their confederacy ended in strife and bloodshed. Lightnings from heaven in evidence of God's displeasure broke off the upper portion of the tower and cast it to the ground, to make men feel that there is a God who rules in the heavens and is supreme and is able to confuse and multiply confusion, to teach that such ambitious movements gain nothing but confusion and that men are only men.
Their work fell into disorder, and those who could still understand one another gathered together into separate groups and scattered across the earth, so different languages and nations arose and the work was abandoned. The barrier between people's languages resulted from sin, and the former oneness of speech stands in contrast with the future hope of unhindered communion among people.
After the Flood, when Noah's descendants had increased, the whole earth still shared one language and one speech before the confusion at Babel. That common speech gave harmony and cooperation and made united action possible. That unity was turned to rebellion against God, with the great majority fully united to thwart His purposes and establish a kingdom embracing the whole earth for self-exaltation and independence of Him. They set out to build a city with a tower reaching to heaven to secure safety against another deluge and to exalt their own pride and power. God sent angels to confound their language in the relay of orders, ending harmony and stopping the work, and those who could still understand one another gathered into separate groups and scattered across the earth so that different languages and nations arose.
Common Speech Before Confusion
The whole earth after the Flood was still of one language and one speech while Noah's descendants increased in number, before the confusion of tongues at Babel. All people throughout the earth spoke the same language, and those who could understand one another would afterward gather together when speech was confounded. That common speech formed the setting for the united effort to build a city and tower.
It gave harmony and cooperation, allowing communication and working together and making united action possible. Before the confusion they could communicate and cooperate in the building, but when language was confounded communication failed and the work fell into disorder and stopped. Those who could still understand one another then formed separate groups and scattered across the earth, so that different languages and nations arose.
Even with one speech, apostasy had already produced division between those who desired to forget their Creator and cast off the restraint of His law and the worshipers of God. The rebels separated themselves from the worshipers of God and journeyed to the plain of Shinar on the banks of the Euphrates. They used their unity of language and speech to keep their community together in one body there instead of dispersing throughout the earth to replenish and subdue it as God had directed. Their common speech thus enabled their confederacy to unite in the plain to build a city and tower and to resist God's direction to spread across the earth.
The background among those turning from God included differing responses to the Flood, with some denying God and explaining it by natural causes while others believed God had sent it but rebelled against Him for destroying the people and cursing the earth. The verse belongs to the account of the dispersion from the tower of Babel, about the time of which Nineveh was founded.
Rebellion, Judgment, and Aftermath
The one speech became the instrument of a heaven-daring confederacy born of rebellion against God, in which the great majority united fully to thwart His purposes and heed their own, to establish a kingdom and a monarchy embracing the whole earth for self-exaltation and not for His glory, and to make themselves independent of Him. Determined men, inspired and urged on by Satan the first great rebel, would permit nothing to stop their evil course. Not all were of one mind in this, for some God-fearing men living among them had been deceived and drawn into the schemes yet refused to join the confederacy to thwart God's purposes, refusing to be deceived by wonderful representations and grand outlook. For the sake of these loyal and faithful ones judgment was delayed to give the ungodly time to reveal their true character.
Their united purpose was a city with a tower reaching to heaven, so high that no flood could rise above it and so massive that nothing could sweep it away, intended to be the wonder of the world. It was to secure safety against another deluge, for they would not trust to be saved again by a boat like the ark, and to ascend to the region of the clouds to ascertain the cause of the flood. The devising showed wonderful talent, but the project was ambitious, meant to exalt the pride of its projectors and to turn future generations away from God toward idolatry. When the tower was partly built, part served as a dwelling for the builders while other apartments, splendidly furnished and adorned, were devoted to their idols, and the people rejoiced in their success and praised gods of silver and gold and set themselves against the Ruler of heaven and earth.
They had separated themselves from the faithful followers of God and corrupted the sacrificial system first established with Adam after his fall and taught by him to his descendants, already corrupted before the Flood. They had no faith in the Redeemer to come, but sacrificed to gods of their own choosing instead of the God of heaven, offering many animals to gain favor, prosperity and riches. Their superstition taught that the more valuable the offerings the greater the pleasure of their gods and the greater the prosperity and riches of the nation, leading to great extravagances including the frequent sacrifice of human beings to senseless idols. Their superstition and laws without divine grace became cruel in the extreme, made by men whose hearts were not softened, passing over the most debasing crimes lightly while visiting small offenses with cruel punishment.
Had that united power been permitted to go on unchecked it would have borne sway as a mighty power demoralizing the world by its wonderful plans. It would have banished righteousness and banished knowledge of Jehovah's holy and just and good statutes and law from minds that would see no need to obey them and would not think obedience to the divine statutes necessary, ignoring and forgetting them. It would have inaugurated a new false religion by mixing religious ideas with erroneous theories, and in place of the divine precepts would have substituted laws framed from selfish hearts according to the desires of selfish hearts to carry out their purposes. Carried out and perfected, those errors would have closed the door to peace, happiness and security.
God sent angels to bring the builders' purpose to naught when the tower had grown so lofty that workmen at the top could not communicate directly with those at the base, so men were stationed at different points each to receive and report to the one next below the orders for needed material and other directions down the line. As messages passed from one to another the language was confounded in that relay, so material was called for which was not needed and directions were delivered often the reverse of those given. Confusion and dismay followed and all work came to a standstill, with no further harmony or cooperation, and the builders, unable to account for the strange misunderstandings, in rage and disappointment reproached one another, and their confederacy ended in strife and bloodshed. Lightnings from heaven in evidence of God's displeasure broke off the upper portion of the tower and cast it to the ground, to make men feel that there is a God who rules in the heavens and is supreme and is able to confuse and multiply confusion, to teach that such ambitious movements gain nothing but confusion and that men are only men.
Their work fell into disorder, and those who could still understand one another gathered together into separate groups and scattered across the earth, so different languages and nations arose and the work was abandoned. The barrier between people's languages resulted from sin, and the former oneness of speech stands in contrast with the future hope of unhindered communion among people.