We’re thinking about the story of The Tower of Babel and the power of communications; WHY did God confuse the languages?

Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s language.” So Yahweh scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. (Genesis 11.7, 8, LSB)

Of course, the first reason is that God had commanded Noah and his descendants to “fill the earth.”

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” (Genesis 9.1, LSB)

God said “scatter,” and the goal of the tower was that they would NOT be scattered.

And they said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, lest we be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11.4, LSB)

But the second reason that God confounded the languages was to slow the spread of evil. Before the flood, evil was doing very well:

Then Yahweh saw that the evil of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6.5, LSB)

That’s a lot of evil! “every intent…was only evil continually.” We saw yesterday that with good communication anything can be accomplished. Unfortunately, “anything” can be any evil imaginable. Take the Internet, for example. The intent was that scientists could use it to collaborate effectively and efficiently and do great things. That is happening, of course. But among the largest uses of the Internet are pornography and gambling. Better communication and connectivity increase the spread of evil.

So at Babel, God confounds the languages, forcing the people to scatter, thereby slowing the spread of evil. Tomorrow, we’ll look at the next step.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way… (Isaiah 53.6, ESV)