of communication was common. Everybody used one language. In the sixth
verse occurs this remarkable language: "And the Lord said, Behold, the
people is _one_, and they have all _one_ language." Attention is
called to this verse, because we have here the testimony of the Lord
that "the people is _one_," and that the language of the people is
one. This verse establishes two very important facts; i.e., there was
but one nationality, and hence but one language. The fact that they
had but one language furnishes reasonable proof that they were of one
blood; and the historian has covered the whole question very
carefully by recording the great truth that they were _one people_,
and had but _one language_. The seventh, eighth, and ninth verses of
the eleventh chapter are not irrelevant: "Go to, let us go down, and
there confound their language, that they may not understand one
another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon
the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city.
Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there
confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the Lord
scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."

It was the wickedness of the people that caused the Lord to disperse
them, to confound their speech, and bring to nought their haughty
work. Evidently this was the beginning of different families of
men,--different nationalities, and hence different languages. In the
ninth verse it reads, that "from thence did the Lord scatter them
abroad upon the face of all the earth." There is no ambiguity about
this language. He did not only "confound their language," but
"scattered them from thence," from Babel, "upon the face of all the
earth." Here, then, are two very important facts: their _language_ was
_confused_, and they _were_ "_scattered_." They were not only
"scattered," they were "scattered _abroad upon the face of all_ the