Genesis 11:7

Go to, let us go down, [and] there confound their language,.... These words are not spoken to the angels, as the Targum and Aben Ezra; for, as Philo the Jew observes (h), they are said to some as

Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

Let us, i.e. the blessed Trinity. See . Confound their language, by making them forget their former language, and by putting into their minds several languages; not a distinct language into each person, but into each family, or rather into each nation; that thereby they may be disenabled from that mutual commerce which was altogether necessary for the carrying on of that work.

Genesis 11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’ s speech.Ver. 7. Go to, let us go down.] "Go to," say they: "Go to," saith He. "Let us build to heaven," say they: "Let us go down and see it," saith He. "Let us make us a name," say they: "Let us confound their language, that they may not so much as know their own names," saith He. "Lest we be scattered," say they: "Let us scatter them abroad the world," saith He. Thus God words it with them, and confutes their folly from point to point. Thus he sets himself in battle array against the proud, as St James has it, and overthrows them in plain field. He dealt more severely with David for numbering the people than for the matter of Uriah. He turned Nebuchadnezzar grazing among beasts, for pruning and priding himself upon this Babel. "Is not this great Babel, that I have built?" Why, no; Nimrod built it, and Ninus, and Semiramis: Nebuchadnezzar only beautified it, or, at utmost, enlarged it. But pride detracts from God and man, and is therefore justly hated and scorned of both. And there confound their language.] When men began once θεομαχειν, they were compelled by God λογομαχειν. “ Bring me, quoth one, a trowel quickly; quick One brings him up a hammer; hew this brick, Another bids, and then they cleave a tree; Make fast this rope, and then they let it flee. One calls for plank; another mortar lacks: They bring the first a stone, the last an axe.” - Dubartus. Neither is there any better understanding and agreement among the Babel builders at this day ( Babylon enim altera, nempe propinquior atque recentior adhuc stat, cito itidem casura, si essetis viri , said Petrarch long since); witness their many sects and deadly dissensions among themselves, of which read the "Peace of Rome," "Rhemes against Rome," and various other English treatises to the same purpose. Bellarmine teaches, that the bread in the sacrament is not turned into Christ’ s body productive, but adductive. And this, saith he, is the opinion of the Church of Rome. This Suarez denies, and saith, it is not the Church’ s opinion. Thus these great master-builders are confounded in their language, and understand not their own mother. The greatest clerks among them cannot yet determine how the saints know our hearts and prayers - whether by hearing or seeing, or presence everywhere, or by God’ s relating or revealing men’ s prayers and needs unto them. All which ways some of them hold as possible or probable; and others deny and confute them as untrue. Alsted calls Baronius’ s "Annals" the Tower of Babel. And another saith, Baronius doth not write annals, but maketh them.

(5-7) The Lord came down.—The narrative is given in that simple anthropological manner usual in the Book of Genesis, which so clearly sets before us God’s loving care of man, and here and in Genesis 18:21 the equity of Divine justice. For Jehovah is described as a mighty king, who, hearing in His upper and heavenly dwelling of man’s ambitious purpose, determines to go and inspect the work in person, that having seen, he may deal with the offenders justly. He views, therefore, “the city and the tower;” for the city was as important a portion of their purpose as the tower, or even more so. The tower, which, no doubt, was to be the citadel and protection of the city, was for the latter’s sake to give the people a sense of strength and security. Having, then, inspected the tower and the city nestling round it, the Deity affirms that this centralisation is injurious to man’s best interests, and must be counteracted by an opposite principle, namely, the tendency of mankind to make constant changes in language, and thereby to break up into different communities, kept permanently apart by the use of different tongues. At present “it is one people, and there is one lip to all of them, and this is what they begin to do,” &c. Already there are thoughts among them of universal empire, and if thus the spread of mankind be hindered, and its division into numerous nations, each contributing its share to the progress and welfare of the world, be stopped, man will remain a poor debased creature, and will fail utterly in accomplishing the purpose for which he was placed upon earth. “Go to,” therefore, He says, in irony of their twice repeated phrase, “we will go down, and make their speech unintelligible to one another.” Now, though there is no assertion of a miracle here, yet we may well believe that there was an extraordinary quickening of a natural law which existed from the first. This, however, is but a secondary question, and the main fact is the statement that the Divine means for counteracting man’s ambitious and ever-recurring dream of universal sovereignty is the law of diversity of speech. In ancient times there was little to counteract this tendency, and each city and petty district had its own dialect, and looked with animosity upon its neighbours who differed from it in pronunciation, if not in vocabulary. In the present day there are counteracting influences; and great communities, by the use of the same Bible and the possession of the same classical literature, may long continue to speak the same language. In days also when communication is so easy, not only do men travel much, but newspapers and serials published at the centre are dispersed to the most distant portions of the world. In old time it was not so, and probably Isaiah would not have been easily understood thirty miles from Jerusalem, nor Demosthenes a few leagues; from Athens.

Verse 7. Go to] A form of speech which, whatever it might have signified formerly, now means nothing. The Hebrew העה habah signifies come, make preparation, as it were for a journey, the execution of a purpose, c. Almost all the versions understand the word in this way the Septuagint have δευτε, the Vulgate venite, both signifying come, or come ye. This makes a very good sense, Come, let its go down, &c. For the meaning of these latter words see Genesis 1:26, and Genesis 18:21.

7. Go to, let us go down] For 1st pers. plur. see notes on Genesis 1:26, Genesis 3:5; Genesis 3:22. Jehovah is represented probably as enthroned above the heaven, and either as addressing the powers of heaven, “the sons of Elohim,” who attend Him and minister to Him (cf. Job 1:6), or as announcing His purpose in the deliberative 1st pers. plur.

7. Let us… confound their language — The solemn deliberation and decision of the Triune God is mysteriously intimated in this language. See note on Genesis 1:1; Genesis 1:26.