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But though these nations are said to have been dispersed according to
their languages, yet the narrator recurs to that time when all had but
one language, and explains how it came to pass that a diversity of
languages was introduced. "The whole earth," he says, "was of one
lip, and all had one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed
from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and
dwelt there. And they said one to another, Come, and let us make
bricks, and burn them thoroughly. And they had bricks for stone, and
slime for mortar. And they said, Come, and let us build for
ourselves a city, and a tower whose top shall reach the sky; and let
us make us a name, before we be scattered abroad on the face of all the
earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which
the children of men builded. And the Lord God said, Behold, the
people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to
do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have
imagined to do. Come, and let us go down, and confound there their
language, that they may not understand one another's speech. And
God scattered them thence on the face of all the earth: and they left
off to build the city and the tower. Therefore the name of it is
called Confusion; because the Lord did there confound the language of
all the earth: and the Lord God scattered them thence on the face of
all the earth." This city, which was called Confusion, is the same
as Babylon, whose wonderful construction Gentile history also
notices. For Babylon means Confusion. Whence we conclude that the
giant Nimrod was its founder, as had been hinted a little before,
where Scripture, in speaking of him, says that the beginning of his
kingdom was Babylon, that is, Babylon had a supremacy over the other
cities as the metropolis and royal residence; although it did not rise
to the grand dimensions designed by its proud and impious founder. The
plan was to make it so high that it should reach the sky, whether this
was meant of one tower which they intended to build higher than the
others, or of all the towers, which might be signified by the singular
number, as we speak of "the soldier," meaning the army, and of the
frog or the locust, when we refer to the whole multitude of frogs and
locusts in the plagues with which Moses smote the Egyptians.1 But
what did these vain and presumptuous men intend? How did they expect
to raise this lofty mass against God, when they had built it above all
the mountains and the clouds of the earth's atmosphere? What injury
could any spiritual or material elevation do to God? The safe and
true way to heaven is made by humility, which lifts up the heart to the
Lord, not against Him; as this giant is said to have been a" hunter
against the Lord." This has been misunderstood by some through the
ambiguity of the Greek word, and they have translated it, not
"against the Lord," but "before the Lord;" for e?anti?on means
both "before" and "against." In the Psalm this word is rendered,
" Let us weep before the Lord our Maker."2 The same word occurs
in the book of Job, where it is written, "Thou hast broken into
fury against the Lord."3 And so this giant is to be recognized as a
"hunter against the Lord." And what is meant by the term "hunter"
but deceiver, oppressor, and destroyer of the animals of the earth?
He and his people therefore, erected this tower against the Lord,
and so gave expression to their impious pride; and justly was their
wicked intention punished by God, even though it was unsuccessful.
But what was the nature of the punishment? As the tongue is the
instrument of domination, in it pride was punished; so that man, who
would not understand God when He issued His commands, should be
misunderstood when he himself gave orders. Thus was that conspiracy
disbanded, for each man retired from those he could not understand,
and associated with those whose speech was intelligible; and the
nations were divided according to their languages, and scattered over
the earth as seemed good to God, who accomplished this in ways hidden
from and incomprehensible to us.
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