11:1-4
“Now the whole world had one language ...” . At first glance this might seem to contradict Gen 10:5. However, chapter 10 is telling us what happened, this section is telling how and why it happened. Under Hebrew understanding everything is down to God, though it is important that this does not absolve men of their responsibility!
Men working together, united in a common purpose, is usually presented as a good thing, but here we see that that is not always the case. They were working together for their own ends, to build up their pride. They wanted to make a name for themselves. They were resisting being scattered over the earth.
11:5-9
The Lord was watching what they were doing. “Nothing will be impossible for them”. If we take this at a purely literal level it is clearly not true. However, what it means is that there will be no limit to the evil that they can get up to. We might think this is a little harsh, but if we look at the world and history, we might see that it is actually quite realistic. Therefore, God decides to scatter the people and to give them different languages, in order to make it more difficult for them to work together. As a result they stopped building the city, and they were scattered over the face of the earth.
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