Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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scorning to creep on the earth, resolved to climb to heaven, not by the door or ladder, but some other way.
(2.) They hoped hereby to make themselves a name; they would do something to be talked of now, and to give posterity to know that there had been such men as they in the world. Rather than die and leave no memorandum behind them, they would leave this monument of their pride, and ambition, and folly. Note,
[1.] Affectation of honour and a name among men commonly inspires with a strange ardour for great and difficult undertakings, and often betrays to that which is evil and offensive to God.
[2.] It is just with God to bury those names in the dust which are raised by sin. These Babel-builders put themselves to a great deal of foolish expense to make themselves a name; but they could not gain even this point, for we do not find in any history the name of so much as one of these Babel-builders. Philo Judæus says, They engraved everyone his name upon a brick, in perpetuam rei memoriam--as a perpetual memorial; yet neither did this serve their purpose.
(3.) They did it to prevent their dispersion: Lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. "It was done" (says Josephus) "in disobedience to that command (Ge 9:1), Replenish the earth." God orders them to disperse. "No," say they, "we will not, we will live and die together." In order hereunto, they engage themselves and one another in this vast undertaking. That they might unite in one glorious empire, they resolve to build this city and tower, to be the metropolis of their kingdom and the centre of their unity. It is probable that the band of ambitious Nimrod was in all this. He could not content himself with the command of a particular colony, but aimed at universal monarchy, in order to which, under pretence of uniting for their common safety, he contrives to keep them in one body, that, having them all under his eye, he might not fail to have them under his power. See the daring presumption of these sinners. Here is,