Genesis 11:4 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

A tower, whose top may reach unto heaven. — The Hebrew is far less hyperbolical: namely, whose head (or top) is in the heavens, or skies, like the walls of the Canaanite cities (Deuteronomy 1:28). The object of the builders was twofold: first, they wished to have some central beacon which might guide them in their return from their wanderings; and secondly, they had a distinctly ambitious object, for by remaining as one nation they would be able to reduce to obedience all the tribes now perpetually wandering away from them, and so would “make them a name.” We may, indeed, dismiss the silly stories of Josephus about their defiance of God and Nimrod’s impiety, and the purpose of escaping a second deluge, for all which there is not the least vestige of authority in the sacred record; but we undoubtedly find a political purpose of preventing that dispersion of mankind which God had commanded (Genesis 1:28), and of using the consequent aggregation of population for the attaining to empire. There was probably some one able and ambitious mind at the bottom of this purpose, and doubtless it had very many advantages: for it is what is now called centralisation, by which the individual sacrifices his rights to the nation, the provinces to the capital, and small nations are bound together in one empire, that the force of the whole body may be brought to bear more rapidly and effectually in carrying out the will of the nation or of the ruler, as the case may be. Nimrod’s efforts at a later date were successful (Genesis 10:10-12); and when we remember the blood-stained course of some of his cities, we may well doubt whether, with all its present advantages, this centralisation really promotes human happiness.