Genesis 11:5

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower,.... Not locally or visibly, being immense, omnipresent, and invisible; nor in order to see and take notice of what he otherwise could not see

And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. The Lord came down to see the city and the tower.

Not by local descent, for he is every where; but by the manifestation of his presence and the effects of his power in that place. To see the city and the tower, i.e. to know the truth of the fact, thereby setting a pattern for judges to examine causes before they pass sentence; otherwise God saw this in heaven; but in these expressions he condescends to the capacity of men. The children of men, so called emphatically, 1. For distinction of them from the sons of God, or the race of Shem, who were not guilty of the sin, and therefore did not partake in the curse, the confusion of their language, but retained their ancient tongue uncorrupted for a good while. 2. To note their rashness and folly, who being but weak and silly men, durst oppose themselves to the infinitely wise and powerful God, who did (as they might easily gather both from his words and works) intend to disperse and separate them, that so by degrees they might possess the whole earth, which God had made for that purpose.

Genesis 11:5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.Ver. 5. And the Lord came down.] Non motu locali, sed actu iudiciali . To see the city, & c.] That so his sentence, grounded not upon hearsay, or uncertain information, might be above all cavillation or exception. A fair precedent for judges. Caiaphas first sentenced our Saviour, and then asked the assessors what they thought of it. The chief captain first commanded Paul to be scourged, and then examined. This was preposterous. God, though he knew all before, is yet said to come down to see. Let his actions be our instructions. No man must be rashly pronounced a leper: and the judges must "make diligent inquisition," as flints must carry fire but not easily express it. Potiphar was too hasty with Joseph, and David with Mephibosheth. Aeneas Sylvius tells us of some places, where thieves taken but upon suspicion, are presently trussed up, and three days after they sit in judgment upon the party executed. If they find him guilty, they let him hang till he fall. And if not, they take down the body and bury it honourably at the public charge. This is not Godlike, nor a point of wisdom: for Nervus est sapientiae non temere credere . Which the children of men builded.] Nimrod chiefly, with his fellow Hamites. But that some of Shem’ s and Japheth’ s posterity had a hand in it, is more than probable, by their common punishment, the confusion of tongues. Heber and his had nothing to do with them; and therefore retained the Hebrew tongue, called thenceforth "the Jews’ language," until they were carried captive to Babylon, where grew a mixture among them of Hebrew and Chaldee, whence came up the Syriac tongue, common in our Saviour’ s time, as appears by many Syriac words in the Gospels. Aene. Sylvius., Europ., cap. xx.

(5-7) The Lord came down.—The narrative is given in that simple anthropological manner usual in the Book of Genesis, which so clearly sets before us God’s loving care of man, and here and in Genesis 18:21 the equity of Divine justice. For Jehovah is described as a mighty king, who, hearing in His upper and heavenly dwelling of man’s ambitious purpose, determines to go and inspect the work in person, that having seen, he may deal with the offenders justly. He views, therefore, “the city and the tower;” for the city was as important a portion of their purpose as the tower, or even more so. The tower, which, no doubt, was to be the citadel and protection of the city, was for the latter’s sake to give the people a sense of strength and security. Having, then, inspected the tower and the city nestling round it, the Deity affirms that this centralisation is injurious to man’s best interests, and must be counteracted by an opposite principle, namely, the tendency of mankind to make constant changes in language, and thereby to break up into different communities, kept permanently apart by the use of different tongues. At present “it is one people, and there is one lip to all of them, and this is what they begin to do,” &c. Already there are thoughts among them of universal empire, and if thus the spread of mankind be hindered, and its division into numerous nations, each contributing its share to the progress and welfare of the world, be stopped, man will remain a poor debased creature, and will fail utterly in accomplishing the purpose for which he was placed upon earth. “Go to,” therefore, He says, in irony of their twice repeated phrase, “we will go down, and make their speech unintelligible to one another.” Now, though there is no assertion of a miracle here, yet we may well believe that there was an extraordinary quickening of a natural law which existed from the first. This, however, is but a secondary question, and the main fact is the statement that the Divine means for counteracting man’s ambitious and ever-recurring dream of universal sovereignty is the law of diversity of speech. In ancient times there was little to counteract this tendency, and each city and petty district had its own dialect, and looked with animosity upon its neighbours who differed from it in pronunciation, if not in vocabulary. In the present day there are counteracting influences; and great communities, by the use of the same Bible and the possession of the same classical literature, may long continue to speak the same language. In days also when communication is so easy, not only do men travel much, but newspapers and serials published at the centre are dispersed to the most distant portions of the world. In old time it was not so, and probably Isaiah would not have been easily understood thirty miles from Jerusalem, nor Demosthenes a few leagues; from Athens.

Verse 5. And the Lord came down] A lesson, says an ancient Jewish commentator, to magistrates to examine every evidence before they decree judgment and execute justice.

5. And the lord came down to see] Not a figurative, poetical expression, as in Isaiah 64:1, but a strong and naïve anthropomorphism. The early religious traditions of Israel represent the Almighty in terms which to our minds appear almost profane, but which in the infancy of religious thought presented ideas of the Deity in the simplest and most vivid manner. Here, as in Genesis 18:21, God is described as descending to the earth, in order to see what was not wholly visible to Him in the heavens.

5. The Lord came down — God had familiarly dwelt with man before his fall, but he is here represented as living above and afar, visiting the earth only on occasions of special judgment and mercy.