The Tower of Babel
1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
K.J.V. Bible Text
As the book of Genesis grows more complicated, I am looking back and forth between a modern translation of the bible and the King James Version. In the first verse of Chapter 11, I discovered a discrepancy. Both versions state that the whole world shared one common language. However, the modern translation says the people moved eastward to a plain in Shinar while the King James Version says they traveled from the east and found the plain. Do I think this is an important discrepancy? Perhaps, to scholars of the bible, but I am content to know they reached the plain of Shinar where they made bricks to build a city and a tower so high it reached to the heavens.
The Lord saw that the people could communicate so well that nothing they wanted to do was impossible, so He confused their language and scattered them all over the earth.
Of course they stopped building the city. Not being able to understand one another, they spread out into small groups all over the world, each one having its own language. Thus the Lord prevented the people from thinking they were like Him.
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