(from World Prospects, 1934)

 The sons of Noah, their sons and offspring kept together for some time.  They had one language.  This is verified by comparative philology.  They journeyed from the East.  The East is in Scripture the Sunrise, as it is in nature.  They turned their backs to the sunrise in another sense.  They turned away from God.  God is not mentioned in the beginning of the chapter in which man’s failure and rebellion is recorded (Gen. 11). 

  They said one to another,”Go to, let us make brick” — “Go to, let us build us a city and a tower” — “Let us make us a name.”  Nimrod, the mighty hunter, though his name is not mentioned, must have been the leader, for in Shinar he began his kingdom of Babel.  His ambition was the creation of a world empire in defiance of God.  God had given a definite command to be fruitful and replenish the earth (Gen. 9: 1).  The building of the city and the tower was an attempt to frustrate God’s purpose.  They did not want to be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth (Gen. 11: 4).  Self-exaltation, defiance of God and rebellion against God, are the essentials of this first great apostasy after the deluge.

  But the God-defying and man-deifying confederacy brought another judgment from above.  The Godhead spoke, answering their “Let us make us a name” with “Go, let us go down, and their confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”  The confusion of tongues followed.  They were scattered abroad.  What they tried to escape came upon them.  Babel became confusion.

  Here again is an event in early history which is prophetic.  Bablyon later comes into prominence, and when we turn to the prophetic history given in the last book of the Bible we find another Babylon, another great leader, as Nimrod was, another confederacy–God-defying and man-deifying.  That final confederacy of rebellion against God and against His Christ is described in the beginning of the second Psalm.

  And as it was over thousands of years ago, so it will again be, “Let us go down.”  The descent of the Lord Jesus Christ will come to deal in judgment with an apostate and rebellious world.