Genesis 11:5 - Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible

The Lord came down, etc.] The words are meant to teach that God is concerned in men's doings. But 'it is not to be thought from such modes of expression that human characteristics are intended to be ascribed to the Creator. In any age it is necessary to describe the unknown by the help of the known; and as the mysterious personality of God must ever be incomprehensible to men, there is no means in which we can represent His relations to us, except by using words borrowed from our own faculties, emotions, and modes of action '(Geikie). 6, 7. God is here represented as dreading lest men make themselves so powerful as to become His opponents. The v. is a good example of the anthropomorphism characteristic of the Primitive document.