The Thoughts of Wesley son of Cornelius

“Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar [Babylonia] and settled there. They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 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.’ … The LORD said, ‘Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’ So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.” (Genesis 11:1-4, 7, 8 NIV)

First of all, it is interesting that Moses wrote that they used brick instead of stone. “The building-material was largely brick, for stone was lacking in Babylonia, and to be found only in certain regions of Assyria.” (ref.) This knowledge from a man connected to Egypt and Canaan, where stone was the common building material, either adds to his credibility or increases the insight of God’s Word.

I picture the events occurring this way. As man came out of the mountains, they started to spread farther and farther apart. A few men—possibly tribal leaders—decided to try and unify the several family tribes who had migrated to the Mesopotamia area. They built a capital with a glorious tower in the center. As we will see in a later post, this tower was probably built to honor a god. The real God came down and put a stop to the development of this early empire. He then scattered them over the whole earth.

The different people groups would separate with different languages. However, they would part with common memories. And these memories might motivate later generations in literature, religion, architecture, and language.

REF: Moscati, Sabatino. Ancient Semitic Civilizations. Elek Books Limitied: New York, 1957. (p. 92)