11:6 one language. In God’s judgment, the main problem was the unity of the people; the one most effective way of thwarting unity would be to prevent communication.

11:6 nothing will be restrained. Nimrod, with direct access to demonic intelligence and Satanic power, would be invincible without divine intervention. No doubt there was a faithful remnant (e.g., Noah, Shem), but these were helpless without God’s action.

11:7 Go to. A council in heaven (perhaps mocking Nimrod’s councils–note Psalm 2:1-4) decrees the confusion of tongues. This act is clearly supernatural, involving the divine creative power which Satan could neither duplicate nor reverse.

11:7 confound their language. In some inexplicable manner, God altered the brain/nerve/speech apparati of the Babylonian rebels to give each family unit (possibly the seventy families of Genesis 10) its own distinctive vocabulary/phonology complex. With all this, however, they all remained truly human, unchanged in basic thought processes or moral character. Further, their distinctive languages were still sufficiently alike that they could, with time and much effort, learn to speak each other’s languages. For some time to come, however, they could no longer communicate and, therefore, they could no longer cooperate. They were thus forced to obey God’s earlier command to scatter abroad and to fill the earth with different nations and governmental units.