Genesis 11:1-9
The Tower of Babel
1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
After the great flood, Noah's sons and their descendants spread out over the earth...This group had a common language...Imagine, the entire population of the world understanding everyone...As many moved east, many men settled in Shinar, also called Babylonia...
The builders wanted to make a name for themselves...As a reference point in time, the builders (if Genesis is in chronological order) probably worked on the tower less than two years...In the next verse, Genesis 11:10, Moses writes of Abraham's descendants, "two years" after the flood (however, they could have been building long after the story of Abraham)...
As God watched the building of the tower, He made a decision...He did not want man (or man at this time) to have a common language...The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them...Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other..." God does make this point, if one people speak the same language, then man becomes very powerful, and nothing they do will be impossible for them...God did not want this...
So God confused these builders, by having their neighbors speak a different language...So God stopped their building of the tower and scattered them all over the earth...Now the world no longer had a common language...Thus we have many different languages all over the earth today...Many languages were set up as the LORD scattered them over the different places on the earth...When this happened there was much more diversity on earth as many languages were being set up among the different groups of people...
We are all different, yet we are all alike...The Tower of Babel helps explain about some of the diversity we have in the world...People speak similarly and are more alike in the areas each of us live...We sound alike and have similar accents in different regions of the United States and of the rest of the world...
We must praise God for His wisdom, our diversity, and not worry about making a name for ourselves...