So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence, ... Thus easily was their purpose defeated by God. Their crime was a premature attempt at centralization, rather, perhaps, than any vast scheme of conspiracy; and the 'confusion' producing as its natural consequence a disunion of their councils, they were compelled to the dispersion they had combined to prevent, as in all popular movements the multitude would be actuated by a variety of motives. Some might have joined in the enterprise from the simple motive of enjoying the benefits of a settled society; while the responsibility and the guilt would rest chiefly on the leaders, who from motives of political ambition or Zabian idolatry, planned and conducted the rebellion. To the former the 'confusion' was a mild correction of the error which they had innocently committed, while the latter saw their punishment in the judicial infliction which frustrated their favourite projects. Thus, their design of 'making to themselves a name,' and adhering together in defiance of the Almighty, was entirely frustrated; and they were driven by a divine judgment, which doubtless struck them with awe, to separate genealogically into various tribes and regions.
But looking beyond the immediate actors, it was a wise and merciful interposition in regard to the general interests of the human race; and the miraculous deed that was done in Shinar is a beautiful instance of the vigilant care with which the Mediator maintained the order and progress of the world he had undertaken to govern.
And they left off to build the city. This statement (cf. Genesis 10:10), refutes the old and prevalent opinion that Nimrod was the prime mover and instigator of the rebellion; and besides, the cuneiform inscriptions place the date of his appearance on the public stage at a period long posterior, when he did in all probability complete the unfinished city, and make it "the beginning," or metropolis of his kingdom. No notice is taken of the tower; and we do not know to what height it had risen, or whether it had advanced beyond the foundations. The imagination of profane historians and of oriental writers has abundantly supplied the deficiency by fabulous stories relative to its gigantic magnitude-which some say was four miles high, others more-and to its sudden destruction, which, according to a Jewish tradition preserved by Bochart, was caused by fire from heaven, but according to Alexander Polyhistor and others, was overthrown by a furious tempest. These and similar legends which have reached our time, represent the erection of the tower to have been in a state of considerable forwardness.
But the sacred historian does not furnish information upon any of these points; neither how far the builders had proceeded with the tower, nor whether the portion that had been erected had sustained any damage at the time of the violent dispersion. The only warranted conclusion is, that its further progress was arrested, with that of the city, by the sudden 'confusion.'
An approximate idea may be obtained of the form and character of this remarkable tower from the architectural remains of antiquity which modern research has brought to light; because, since it is allowed by competent judges that a uniform style of building was adopted in the East for sacred purposes, the Birs Nimrud may be taken as a general type of Chaldean temples. The edifice of which this extraordinary ruin is the relic was built of kiln-burnt bricks, and 'the building rose in seven receding stages, and conformity with the Chaldean planetary system. Upon a platform of crude brick, raised a few feet above the level of the alluvial plain, was built of burnt brick the first or basement stage, an exact square, 272 feet each way, and 26 feet in perpendicular height. Upon this stage was erected a second, 230 feet each way, and likewise 26 feet high; which, however, was not placed exactly in the middle of the first, but considerably nearer to the southwestern end, which constituted the back of the building. The other stages were arranged similarly, the third being 188 feet, and again 26 feet high; the fourth 146 feet square, and 15 feet high; the fifth 104 feet square, and the same height as the fourth; the sixth 62 feet square, and again the same height; and the seventh 20 feet square, and once more the same height. On the seventh stage there was probably placed the ark or tabernacle, which seems to have been itself 15 feet high, and must have nearly, if not entirely, covered the top of the seventh storey. The entire original height, allowing 3 feet for the platform, would thus have been 156 feet, or without the platform 153 feet. The whole formed a sort of oblique pyramid, the gentler slope facing the northeast, and the steeper incline the southwest. On the northeast side was the grand entrance; and here stood the vestibule, a separate building, the debris from which having joined those from the temple itself, fill up the intermediate space, and very remarkably prolong the mound in this direction. It remains to be noticed that the different stages were coloured after the hue of the planets to which they were respectively dedicated. Thus the lower stage, belonging to Saturn, was black; the second, to Jupiter, was orange; the third, or that of Mars, was red; the fourth, of the Sun, golden; the fifth, of Venus, white; the sixth, of Mercury, blue; and the seventh, of the Moon, a silvery green.
In several cases these colours were still clearly to be distinguished, the appropriate hue being obtained by the quality and burning of the bricks; and it was thus ascertained that the vitrified masses at the summit were the result of design, and not of accident-the sixth stage, sacred to Mercury, having been subjected to an intense and prolonged fire, in order to produce the blue slag colour, which was emblematical of that planet. It further appeared that we are indebted to this peculiarity of construction for the preservation of the monument, when so many of its sister temples had utterly perished, the blue slag cap at the summit of the pile resisting the action of the weather, and holding together the lower stage, that would otherwise have crumbled while it also afforded an immovable pedestal for the upper stages, and for the shrine which probably crowned the pile.
The only other point of interest which was ascertained from the cylinders was, that the temple in question did not belong to Babylon, but to the neighbouring city of Borsippa, the title of Birs, by which it is now known, being a mere abbreviation of the ancient name of the city' (Rawlinson 'Herod.' 2:, Essay 4:, combined with Sir H. Rawlinson's 'Report to the Royal Asiatic Society,' April 1855: see also Layard's 'Nineveh and Babylon,' pp. 497-9.) - It is a prevailing opinion that the remains of the Biblical tower are still in existence; and from the early period of the Jewish captivity down to the Christian travelers of our own times, there has been a strong disposition evinced to identify it with one of the remarkable mounds which are found in Babylonia.
Two of these, in particular, have had their zealous advocates, the MujelibŠ (the overturned), and the Birs Nimr-d (the great temple of Nebo at Borsippa). The great height of the Birs in particular, its prodigious extent, and its state of tolerable preservation, produced a very general disposition to identify it with the tower of Belus, so minutely described by Herodotus; and, from there being also large vitrified masses of brick work on the summit of the mound, which presented an appearance of having been subjected to the influence of intense heat, conjectures that the Birs might even represent the more ancient tower of Babel had been frequently hazarded and believed. Into the rival claims of Mujelibe and the Birs Nimrud, however, to represent the tower of Babel, it is needless to enter; for it is now agreed by the most trustworthy travelers who have visited those regions that the former contains the ruins of the fortress, while the distance of the latter from Babylon precludes the possibility of its being the relic. Besides, there is no good ground for identifying the Biblical tower with any existing monument at or near Babylon; for since the inscriptions on the bricks have been read, it has been ascertained that none of the ruins ascend to a period so early as the date of the Shinar dispersion.