Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
Let us ... confound their language - Hebrew, lips; and the Hebrew verb "confound" means to mingle things together, so as to produce a new and composite substance (see the note on the use of the plural in a similar connection, Genesis 1:26). The obvious and natural meaning of these words is, that by an extraordinary act of divine providence the articulate speech by which mankind had hitherto carried on their social intercourse, as a universal medium of communication, underwent changes that rendered it unintelligible. The text does not admit of the explanation which some writers have given, that the effect described was the slow and gradual work of time. They suppose that, since many years were probably occupied in the erection of the city and the tower, jealousy, dissension, and strife had been created among the builders, through the influence of their different views, dispositions, and interests: they were divided into parties; and since the feuds became fiercer and more extended, until reconciliation and reunion were hopeless, the social mass was broken up and dispersed, some going in one way, others in another. The natural consequence was, that in the various settlements which they formed, many of these distant and isolated, time and the influence of climate, food, labour, and other circumstances, gave rise to new ideas and altered habits, and this, in the natural course of things, produced a diversity of tongues among men.
But this theory of interpretation is at variance with the tenor of the inspired record, which expressly states, that 'the confusion of languages' occurred instantaneously and miraculously, and, moreover, that it was the cause, not the effect of the dispersion of mankind. In what degree, or to what extent the language was confounded is a problem which it is impossible satisfactorily to solve. This much, however, may be safely affirmed, that it was not reduced into chaotic disorder; because that must have occasioned a complete dissolution of human society, and every individual, compelled to separate himself from the rest of the species, would have had to live apart, as the dumb animals.
The 'confusion,' as the original term indicates, was in the 'lip,' - i:e., the old language was broken into a variety of dialects, by changes on the form and termination of words, or by new modes of pronouncing them, such as rendered the maintenance of general conversation impossible. It is extremely probable that, if not every family, at least those groups of families that had been closely allied, and were destined to coalesce into one colony in the future dispersion, had a distinct dialect. Thus, the statement of the sacred historian would be verified in general, that the language of the Shinar builders was 'confounded, that they could not understand one another's speech.'
It is easy to judge what would be the result if workmen from all the different counties of Great Britain were congregated in one spot: the provincial dialect of one half of the assembly would be an unintelligible jargon to the other half. Somewhat similar was the scene enacted at Shinar; and this labial change, which was effected suddenly on a vast multitude, struck all as so unmistakable a display of the divine anger, that they forthwith abandoned the works in which they had been engaged, and dispersed themselves into different parts of the world, "after their families, and after their tongues."
Probably at first the 'confusion' did not appear greater than what has just been described. But in course of time it was found to extend much further-to consist not in a dialectical merely, but a structural difference-such a radical difference as tended to extinguish the idea that the people who spoke those various languages could have had any previous intercommunity.