Genesis 11:7 Commentary and Bible Study

So God now says, ‘Go to.’ This echoes the language commanding the people to build the tower of Babel. In the case of Nimrod, it indicated a chain of command, so it is as though God says, I will command: ‘Let us go down and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ God, when he comes down, speaking in the plural, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as the Trinity, echoes their words. The division of speech. It is an amazing thing to have happened. You are working as a brick layer, and you are talking about how this and that is going to be done. You need to cooperate, and suddenly you have not the slightest idea what your colleague is talking about. God has so altered the whole mechanism of language from person to person, and the languages are created. You find you can only converse with those of your own family or tribal unit. There is no such thing as an interpreter. It would take years before interpreters appeared. This was astonishing, astounding. It would frighten the life out of most people. It was obviously of God. They were surely deeply convicted of their sin. This was a judgment from on high because they had been in total disobedience to God, and his command was not being complied with. People would be alarmed, and afraid of each other. Suddenly you are deeply aware that those people you were working with are different from you. They have different ancestors, they have come from different parents, they are potentially hostile to us. So the reaction at once is for people to down tools, huddle together in their own tribal or family groups, and God succeeds that easily in bringing about obedience to his command.What a gentle judgment . ‘I will not send another flood’, says the Lord. And the implication is that if God is going to keep judging by floods, he will be doing it every few years because of the sin of man. He is not going to do that on a regular basis, not until the end of time. So here is a gentle judgment . Nobody died so far as we know, yet how effective it is. And it is an abiding judgment , which divides the people up and stops them having this one-world ambition. And it will last throughout time, because although man is ingenious and we learn each other’s languages and we have interpreters, we are still divided. The flood had to be withdrawn for life to continue; but the confusion of tongues could persist until the end of time.Most of all, it preserves the godly seed. The godly line, the church has been overwhelmed by the world. Why? Because they are all in one town, one city, having one language, under one ruler, Nimrod, the evil one. A great tower is going up, so they have got gods of human achievement. Somehow, the godly family have got to be delivered from all this. They have got too close to the world, and have been sucked in, and now there are possibly very few of them left, only those like Eber – if the Jewish tradition is right – who are taking a stand and are not involved in this rebellious building project. So God’s solution is so perfect: the confusion of tongues so that the godly line is led clear of the masses and drawn out once again.