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So, the people in an act of rebellion have built a tower with a goal of building it so high it will reach up to heaven. The story continues in verse 5. 

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people 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.

(Gen 11: 5-6)

The Lord “came down” phrase is interesting. Many I point out that in the New Testament we are also told how God came down in the person of Christ. In the New Testament God came down and dwelt among us in the person of Christ. God came down in an act of redemption. In this case God comes down in an act of judgement. God comes down and he sees a city being built and tower being constructed. He sees that the builders expecting to ascend to heaven and trying access him on the back of their own efforts.  The people of Babel tried to meet God on their terms instead, God descends to the earth an met them on His terms. 

The Lord also concluded that it was the unity of language was what made it possible for them to stay in one location which was contrary to his will. This unity of language has led to a unity of purpose, to follow their own wills and that s soon created a unity of purpose to commit sin. The point of verse six is a very important one. If people were unified in this way, then they could do anything they wanted. Meaning their spiritual and emotional drive would be to seek out and do every conceivable type of sin they could think of.  God’s response to this is in the next  verse.

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.

(Gen 11: 7-8)

The term “Let us” is pretty good indication of the Trinity here but that’s beyond the scope of what I am talking about today. Remember God after the flood said that he would never destroy the whole earth that way again. However, a radical solution is needed to a catastrophic problem, but this time God says I am going to deal with this in another way. I'm going to do it by confusing their language so they can't communicate with one another easily. So, God uses the confusion created by the speaking of different languages to cause them to scatter over the whole earth. The building project must have come to a screeching halt. Imagine going to work on a building project where all the workers are speaking different languages, with no means of translation. I can only imagine the chaos and disruption that would cause, and because of all of that, the construction on the tower stops and they are scattered. Here we see that a single nation becomes scattered with its people now speaking different languages and thereafter different civilizations with distinctive cultures begin to appear worldwide. Vs 9

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.

(Gen 11: 9)

This place gets called Babel because that's where God confused the languages. So, what are we to make of this passage of scripture? What does this passage teach us? 

Well, we will begin to look at that next time.