For a long time, the increasing offspring of Noah lived
together in one land, not far from the Ararat mountains, and spoke one common
language.
When the human race became numerous, evil deeds
and conflicts between people began to multiply, and they saw that they would
soon have to scatter across the entire earth. Before they separated, however,
the offspring of Ham, together with others whom they attracted, decided to
build a city and in the city a tower in the form of a pillar,
reaching to Heaven, in order to be glorified, and not be in subjugation to the
offspring of Shem and Japheth, as Noah had prophesied. They made bricks and set
to work.
This proud project of the people was not pleasing
to God. So that evil would not completely destroy them, since evil could be
quickly spread due to a common language, the Lord changed the language of the
builders so that they began to speak in different languages and could no longer
understand one another. Then men were forced to abandon the work they had
undertaken and scatter across the earth into various lands. The offspring of
Japheth went to the west and settled in Europe. The offspring
of Shem remained in Asia. The offspring of Ham went to Africa, but a
part of them also remained in Asia.
The unfinished city was called Babylon, which means confusion. This whole land where this city
was located was later to be called Babylonia, and also Chaldea.
Scattering across the earth, people began to
forget their ancestry and began to make up separate, independent peoples and
nations with their own customs and language.
The Lord saw that people learned more evil from
one another than good, and for this reason He brought about the confusion of
the languages and divided people into separate nations and gave each nation a
separate goal and purpose in life.
Note: See
Genesis, chap. 11.
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