Genesis 11

         All the descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth were speaking the same language and dialect. The phrase “one language” in verse 1 is translated as literally “one lip” from the original Hebrew. God had commanded Noah and his sons in chapter 9 to replenish the earth, to be fruitful and multiply, and, while the descendants of Noah’s three sons did indeed multiply, they did not separate to fill the whole earth. Instead, they all migrated and settled in the land of Shinar (v.2). Furthermore, the people, filled with the sin of pride and under the direction of Nimrod, as referenced in chapter 10, decided to build “…a city and a tower…” (v.4) whose top would reach as high as heaven. “…Let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” (v.4) This is clearly the sin of pride. These people had no interest in serving or worshiping the one, true God. They cared only about making a name for themselves and serving only their own interests and imaginations of their sin nature.
 
        Verse 5: it’s not exactly clear what is meant by the phrase “the Lord came down to see the city and the tower”. Although it sounds as if God walked among the men and women in physical form, the more likely reading of this verse is that God simply looked down from heaven to observe mankind’s rebelliousness and wickedness.
 
        Verses 6-8: Once again, the pronoun “us” is used as God speaks here. (Genesis 1:26) God observed that mankind was exceedingly wicked, and that they were in danger of creating the same prideful and rebellious and sinful society that had existed in Noah’s lifetime before the Flood. Up to this point in human history, starting with Adam and Eve, mankind had spoken only one language. There was only one distinct culture. And, because of the long lifespan of men and women, both in the time before the Flood and for many generations after, the human race had rapidly multiplied to fill this whole region of the earth in just a few decades after Noah and his family disembarked from the ark. God could see where the sin of pride and rebellion was going to take them, and so He directly intervened here in a different form of judgment.
 
         Verse 9: the name “Babel” is the root word for “Babylon” whose name means “confusion”. Such a fitting name for all that Babylon has come to represent throughout human history. God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33). Satan is. Babylon will play a prominent role in the last days, primarily in the seven years Tribulation that will immediately follow the rapture of the NT church. Forcing mankind to scatter by confusing their spoken language is not an act of chaos or confusion. God is still a God of order and precision, but, from time to time throughout human history, He has purposefully intervened in the affairs of men to bring about His divine will, and sometimes that can appear as if He’s causing chaos or confusion.
         Babylon has always represented the sin of pride and rebellion against God, from which all the other sins of mankind spring forth. The Tower of Babel was just a foreshadow of what will come in the last days. Man’s heart has always been and always shall be full of wickedness and vile imaginations (Jeremiah 17:9, Matthew 15:19), and God’s judgment here by confounding the speech of Nimrod and his followers was an act of mercy. By scattering the descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth, and by giving them all dozens of different languages and dialects – which today has expanded to more than three thousand – God ensured that not only would there be many different distinctly spoken languages throughout the earth, but also just as many diverse and distinct cultures, each with their own separate histories, beliefs, traditions, etc.
        One of the goals of the Babylonian empire has always been to unite the world. Mankind throughout history, and especially in the last one hundred years or so, has always sought to come back together in a one-world utopia. Gene Rodenberry, the creator of Star Trek and an outspoken humanist, was famous for his vision of a future where the earth was a utopian paradise, where mankind had evolved beyond greed, jealousy, prejudice, and hatred to create a society that was totally free of war, disease, poverty and all other forms of evil and selfishness. This, of course, will never happen until after the rapture and the appearance of the antichrist on the world stage. But the "peace" of that one-world government will only be an illusion. Yet that is what all men have been seeking ever since God first split up the human race here at Babel.
          God has always been in control of human events. (Psalm 2:1-5) There is nothing that has happened or will happen that is not allowed or directly orchestrated by Him. This is a great comfort to us, His children and the redeemed, and a great source of fear and loathing by the stubbornly proud and rebellious that refuse to repent and be saved. Satan, the god of this world, knows his end, and so he will use the Babylonian empire in all its many forms and ideals to blind and deceive the hearts of the lost. This is especially true now in our present age than ever before, and is yet another sign that Christ’s second coming is close at hand!
 
         Verses 10-32: The remainder of this chapter is a continuation of the genealogy begun in chapter 10. Although the list starts once again with Shem, the focus narrows here to the descendants of the branch that starts with Peleg, in whose lifetime God split up everyone by confounding their spoken language at the Tower of Babel. The latter part of chapter 10 had focused on Peleg’s brother, Joktan, and his descendants. Now, the genealogy resumes here with the descendants of Peleg, ending with the introduction of Abram and his wife, Sarai. (v. 27, 29-30) Chapter 11 closes with Abram, Sarai, his nephew Lot, and Abram’s father, Terah, departing from Ur of the Chaldees, headed towards Canaan. (Genesis 15:7, Nehemiah 9:7, Acts 7:4) Abram was the oldest of Terah’s three sons, and Terah died along the way, in Haran, a region which was named for his youngest son who had died some decades earlier before they began their migration towards Canaan.
        Thus, at the close of chapter 11, Abram is the family patriarch, but has no male heir. He is a migrant in a foreign land, and God is getting ready to directly intervene in human history once more in order to bring about his ultimate plan of salvation for all mankind.
 
NOTE: if you would like to dive even deeper into these first 11 chapters of Genesis, I highly recommend the book titled “Creation to Babel: A Commentary for Families” by Ken Ham. You can purchase it here: https://answersingenesis.org/store/product/creation-babel/?sku=10-1-875