Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 1.djvu/115

Rh confound their language: this was not spoken to the angels, as if God needed either their advice, or their assistance, but God speaks it to himself, or the Father to the Son and Holy Ghost; they said, Go to, let us make brick; and Go to, let us build us a tower; animating one another to the attempt; and now God says, Go to, let us confound their languages; for if men stir up themselves to sin, God will stir up himself to take vengeance, Isa. 59. 17, 18. Now observe here, [1.] The mercy of God, in moderating the penalty, and not making that proportionable to the offence; for he deals not with us according to our sins: he does not say, "Let us go down now in thunder and lightning, and consume these rebels in a moment;" or, "Let the earth open, and swallow up them and their building, and let them go down quick into hell, who are climbing to heaven the wrong way;" no, only, "Let us go down, and scatter them:" they deserved death, but are only banished or transported; for the patience of God is very great towards a provoking world. Punishments are chiefly reserved for the future state; God's judgments on sinners in this life, compared with these, are little more than restraints. [2.] The wisdom of God, in pitching upon an effectual expedient to stay proceedings, which was the confounding of their language, that they might not understand one another's speech, nor could they well join hands when their tongues were divided; so that this would be a very proper method, both for taking them off from their building, (for if they could not understand one another, they could not help one another,) as also for disposing them to scatter; for when they could not understand one another, they could not employ one another. Note, God has various means, and effectual ones, to baffle and defeat the projects of proud men that set themselves against him, and particularly to divide them among themselves, either by dividing their spirits, (Judges 9. 23.) or by dividing their tongues, as David prays, Ps. 55. 9.

III. The execution of these counsels of God, to the blasting and defeating of the counsels of men, v. 8, 9. God made them know whose word should stand, his or their's, as the expression is, Jer. 44. 28. Notwithstanding their oneness and obstinacy, God was too hard for them, and wherein they dealt proudly, he was above them; for who ever hardened his heart against him and prospered? Three things were done;

1. Their language was confounded. God, who, when he made man, taught him to speak, and put words into his mouth fit to express the conceptions of his mind by, now made those builders to forget their former language, and to speak and understand a new one, which yet was the same to those of the same tribe or family, but not to others; those of one colony could converse together, but not with those of another. Now, (1.) This was a great miracle, and a proof of the power which God has upon the minds and tongues of men, which he turns as the rivers of water. (2.) This was a great judgment upon those builders; for being thus deprived of the knowledge of the ancient and holy tongue, they were become incapable of communicating with the true church, in which it was retained; and, probably, it contributed much to their loss of the knowledge of the true God. (3.) We all suffer by it, to this day: in all the inconveniences we sustain by the diversity of languages, and all the pains and trouble we are at to learn the languages we have occasion for, we smart for the rebellion of our ancestors at Babel. Nay, and those unhappy controversies, which are strifes of words, and arise from our misunderstanding of one another's language, for aught I know, are owing to this confusion of tongues. (4.) The project of some to frame an universal character, in order to an universal language, how desirable soever it may seem, is yet, I think, but a vain attempt; for it is to strive against a divine sentence, by which the languages of the nations will be divided while the world stands. (5.) We may here lament the loss of the universal use of the Hebrew tongue, which, from this time, was the vulgar language of the Hebrews only, and continued so till the captivity in Babylon, where, even among them, it was exchanged for the Syriac. (6.) As the confounding of tongues divided the children of men, and scattered them abroad, so the gift of tongues, bestowed upon the apostles, (Acts 2.) contributed greatly to the gathering together of the children of God, which were scattered abroad, and the uniting of them in Christ, that with one mind and mouth they might glorify God, Rom. 15. 6.

2. Their building was stopped; they left off to build the city. This was the effect of the confusion of their tongues; for it not only incapacitated them for helping one another, but, probably, struck such a damp upon their spirits, that they could not proceed, since they saw, in this, the hand of the Lord gone out against them. Note, [1.] It is wisdom to leave off that which we see God fights against. [2.] God is able to blast and bring to naught all the devices and designs of Babel-builders. He sits in heaven, and laughs at the counsels of the kings of the earth against Him and his Anointed; and will force them to confess that there is no wisdom nor counsel against the Lord, Prov. 21. 30. Isa. 8. 9, 10.

3. The builders were scattered abroad from thence upon the face of the whole earth, v. 8, 9. They departed in companies, after their families, and after their tongues, (ch. 10. 5, 20, 31.) to the several countries and places allotted to them in the division that had been made, which they knew before, but would not go to take the possession of till now that they were forced to it. Observe here, [1.] That the very thing which they feared, came upon them; they feared dispersion, they sought to evade it by an act of rebellion, and by that act they brought upon themselves the evil with all its horrors; for we are most likely to fall into that trouble which we seek to evade by indirect and sinful methods. [2.] That it was God's work; The Lord scattered them. God's hand is to be acknowledged in all scattering providences; if the family be scattered, relations scattered, churches scattered, it is the Lord's doing. [3.] That though they were as firmly in league with one another as could be, yet the Lord scattered them: for no man can keep together what God will put asunder. [4.] That thus God justly took vengeance on them for their oneness in that presumptuous attempt to build their tower; shameful dispersions are the just punishment of sinful unions; Simeon and Levi, who had been brethren in iniquity, were divided in Jacob, ch. 49. 5, 7. Ps. 83. 3...13. [5.] That they left behind them a perpetual memorandum of their reproach, in the name given to the place; it was called Babel, confusion. They that aim at a great name, commonly come off with a bad name. [6.] The children of men were now finally scattered, and never did, nor ever will, come all together again, till the great day, when the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of his glory, and all nations shall be gathered before him, Matth. 25. 31, 32.

10. These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad, two years after the flood: 11. And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad, five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. 12. And Arphaxad lived five