Gen. xi. 4 — 8. 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. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 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 ivhich they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
THERE are many things observable in the world, of which neither reason nor history enables us to give any account. One would naturally suppose that Noah and his family speaking the same language, their children should speak the same; and that the same would be transmitted to their latest posterity. Small alterations might be expected to arise ; but they would only be different dialects of the same lan- guage. But instead of this, there are hundreds of different languages in the world. Even in this island there are no less than three. Learned men have in- deed endeavoured to trace various languages to one ; but though by their efforts they have displayed their own ingenuity, they have never been able to establish their hypothesis. The true origin of this diversity of languages is revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures. In the passage before us we are informed respecting the time and manner and occasion of their first in- troduction. The descendants of Noah were building a city and tower in order to prevent that dispersion of their families, which God had ordained for the re- plenishing of the earth: and God, in righteous dis- pleasure, confounded their languages, so that they could not understand each other : by this means they were necessitated to relinquish their project, and to fulfil the designs of his overruling Providence.