When God restored the human race through the three sons of No'ah He clearly revealed the intention of distributing the race all over the world, a process that would form many different nationalities. Before the flood all the people had lived in a small section of the world where the Ti'gris and Eu-phra'tes rivers flowed. No one had crossed the mountains on the east or the great desert on the west.
After the Flood the families which sprang from Shem, Ham, and Ja'pheth began to move into other lands, some crossing the mountains to the east and to the north, some going further south in the great plains along the two rivers, and others going down into what is now called Africa. In this way the populations of the world began to settle in other parts of Asia, in various parts of eastern Europe, and in northern Africa.
Presently the families which had drifted into the plains of the two great rivers desired to rule all the rest of the world. Having learned to make brick from the soil of the land, the people began to build houses and cities of this material. In their ambition to rule all the people around them they sought to build a great city, and planned the erection of a tower that would reach far up into the Heavens.
By building this great tower the people hoped to make a name for themselves, to raise up a monument to their own glory. It was the expression of human ambition in evil form. Their own greatness and fame were the principal objectives in this gigantic enterprise, and it was promoted without regard to the will and honor of God. It was the outward expression of their thirst for universal dominion, a desire which has been the curse of many subsequent nations. It sought the unity of the race upon the false basis of centralized autocracy, whereas the plan of God was to promote this unity by means of variety in human governments, with human rights being shared by all.
In their unrestrained ambition they designed a tower whose top should reach to Heaven; in their pride they presumed to take the place of God, casting off His rule. The desire to pierce the Heavens above was a symbol of their determination to acknowledge no power above themselves.
Nim'rod, the mighty hunter and ruler of men, conceived the ambitious plan and gathered about him a few like-minded men. They began to build the tower with bricks, erecting story upon story, and ascending higher and higher into the Heavens. Great throngs of laborers were employed in a work that prospered until God intervened in a strange manner. God brought upon the people a confusion of tongues, so that the various groups of workmen spoke in different tongues. When the instructions of the overseers could not be understood by the laborers, who in turn could not work together intelligently, disorder and chaos reigned. The leaders were obliged to give up in despair, and the great tower was never completed. The city in which the tower was undertaken was known as Ba'bel, which means "confusion"; later it was called Bab'y-lon, one of the world's greatest cities.
As a result of the confusion of speech many of the people moved to other parts of the world, families and groups speaking the same tongue going together and forming great nations. Some traveled north and built the city of Nin'e-veh, which later became the capitol of the As-syr'ians. Another company went to the west and settled by the river Nile, where the great empire of Egypt was developed. Others moved northwest to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, where the cities of Tyre and Si'don were founded. Here there was gradually established the great maritime nation of Phoe-ni'ci-a from which settlers crossed the seas to Europe.
What became of this tower nobody knows, although tradition relates that it was demolished by lightning, with terrible tempests. One Jewish writer says that fire came down from Heaven and split the tower through to its foundations.
In the course of the world's history many "towers of Ba'bel" have been erected in mythical and philosophical systems of religion, and all these , like the first tower of Ba'bel, produce confusion, and shall be brought to nought. Jesus Christ and His system of truth provide the only God-appointed way of access to God.
"O, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains piled on mountains, to the skies!
Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise."
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