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Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
on the Whole Bible
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Matthew Henry |
G E N E S I S
CHAP. XI.
The old distinction between the sons of God and the sons of men
(professors and profane) survived the flood, and now appeared
again, when men began to multiply: according to this distinction
we have, in this chapter,
I. The dispersion of the sons of
men at Babel
(ver. 1-9),
where we have,
1. Their presumptuous
provoking design, which was to build a city and a tower,
2. The righteous judgment of God upon them in disappointing
their design, by confounding their language, and so
scattering them,
II. The pedigree of the sons of
God down to Abraham
(ver. 10-26),
with a general account of
his family, and removal out of his native country,
&c.
| The Confusion of Tongues. | B. C. 2247. |
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1 And the whole earth was of one
language, and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they
journeyed from the east, that they
found a plain in the land of Shinar;
and they dwelt there.
3 And they
said one to another, Go to, let us
make brick, and burn them thoroughly.
And they had brick for stone, and
slime had they for mortar.
4 And
they said, Go to, let us build us a city
and a tower, whose top may reach
unto heaven; and let us make us a
name, lest we be scattered abroad
upon the face of the whole earth.
The close of the foregoing chapter tells
us that by the sons of Noah, or among
the sons of Noah, the nations were divided
in the earth after the flood, that is, were
distinguished into several tribes or colonies;
and, the places having grown too strait for them,
it was either appointed by Noah, or agreed
upon among his sons, which way each several
tribe or colony should steer its course,
beginning with the countries that were next
them, and designing to proceed further and
further, and to remove to a greater distance
from each other, as the increase of their several
companies should require. Thus was
the matter well settled, one hundred years
after the flood, about the time of Peleg’s
birth; but the sons of men, it should seem,
were loth to disperse into distant places; they
thought the more the merrier and the safer,
and therefore they contrived to keep together,
and were slack to go to possess the land
which the Lord God of their fathers had given
them
thinking themselves wiser
than either God or Noah. Now here we have,
I. The advantages which befriended their
design of keeping together,
1. They were
all of one language,
v. 1.
If there were any
different languages before the flood, yet
Noah’s only, which it is likely was the same
with Adam’s, was preserved through the flood,
and continued after it. Now, while they all
understood one another, they would be the
more likely to love one another, and the more
capable of helping one another, and the less
inclinable to separate one from another.
2. They found a very convenient commodious
place to settle in
(v. 2),
a plain in the land of
Shinar, a spacious plain, able to contain them
all, and a fruitful plain, able, according as
their present numbers were, to support them
all, though perhaps they had not considered
what room there would be for them when
their numbers should be increased. Note,
Inviting accommodations, for the present,
often prove too strong temptations to the
neglect of both duty and interest, as it respects
futurity.
II. The method they took to bind themselves
to one another, and to settle together
in one body. Instead of coveting to enlarge
their borders by a peaceful departure under
the divine protection, they contrived to fortify
them, and, as those that were resolved to
wage war with Heaven, they put themselves
into a posture of defence. Their unanimous
resolution is, Let us build ourselves a city
and a tower. It is observable that the first
builders of cities, both in the old world
(ch. iv. 17),
and in the new world here, were not
men of the best character and reputation:
tents served God’s subjects to dwell in;
cities were first built by those that were
rebels against him and revolters from him.
Observe here,
1. How they excited and encouraged one
another to set about this work. They said,
Go to, let us make brick
(v. 3),
and again,
(v. 4),
Go to, let us build ourselves a city; by
mutual excitements they made one another
more daring and resolute. Note, Great things
may be brought to pass when the undertakers
are numerous and unanimous, and stir up
one another. Let us learn to provoke one
another to love and to good works, as sinners
stir up and encourage one another to wicked
works. See
Ps. cxxii. 1; Isa. ii. 3, 5; Jer. l. 5.
2. What materials they used in their building.
The country, being plain, yielded neither
stone nor mortar, yet this did not discourage
them from their undertaking, but they made
brick to serve instead of stone, and slime or
pitch instead of mortar. See here,
(1.) What
shift those will make that are resolute in
their purposes: were we but zealously
affected in a good thing, we should not stop
our work so often as we do, under pretence
that we want conveniences for carrying it on.
(2.) What a difference there is between men’s
building and God’s; when men build their
Babel, brick and slime are their best materials;
but, when God builds his Jerusalem, he lays
even the foundations of it with sapphires, and
all its borders with pleasant stones,
Isa. liv. 11, 12; Rev. xxi. 19.
3. For what ends they built. Some think
they intended hereby to secure themselves
against the waters of another flood. God
had told them indeed that he would not again
drown the world; but they would trust to
a tower of their own making, rather than to
a promise of God’s making or an ark of his
appointing. If, however, they had had this
in their eye, they would have chosen to build
their tower upon a mountain rather than
upon a plain, but three things, it seems, they
aimed at in building this tower:–
(1.) It seems designed for an affront to
God himself; for they would build a tower
whose top might reach to heaven, which bespeaks
a defiance of God, or at least a rivalship
with him. They would be like the Most
High, or would come as near him as they could,
not in holiness but in height. They forgot
their place, and, 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 every one 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
(ch. ix. 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,
[1.] A bold opposition to God: “You shall be
scattered,” says God. “But we will not,”
say they. Woe unto him that thus strives
with his Maker.
[2.] A bold competition
with God. It is God’s prerogative to be universal
monarch, Lord of all, and King of
kings; the man that aims at it offers to step
into the throne of God, who will not give his
glory to another.
5 And the LORD came down to
see the city and the tower, which the
children of men builded.
6 And the
LORD said, Behold, the people is one,
and they have all one language; and
this they begin to do: and now nothing
will be restrained from them,
which they have imagined to do.
7 Go to, let us go down, and there
confound their language, that they
may not understand one another’s
speech.
8 So the LORD scattered
them abroad from thence upon the
face of all the earth: and they left
off to build the city.
9 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.
We have here the quashing of the project
of the Babel-builders, and the turning of the
counsel of those froward men headlong, that
God’s counsel might stand in spite of them.
Here is,
I. The cognizance God took of the design
that was on foot: The Lord came down to see the
city,
v. 5.
It is an expression after the manner
of men; he knew it as clearly and fully as men
know that which they come to the place to
view. Observe,
1. Before he gave judgment
upon their cause, he enquired into it; for
God is incontestably just and fair in all his
proceedings against sin and sinners, and condemns none
unheard.
2. It is spoken of as
an act of condescension in God to take notice
even of this building, which the undertakers
were so proud of; for he humbles himself
to behold the transactions, even the
most considerable ones, of this lower world,
3. It is said to be the tower
which the children of men built, which intimates,
(1.) Their weakness and frailty as
men. It was a very foolish thing for the
children of men, worms of the earth, to defy
Heaven, and to provoke the Lord to jealousy.
Are they stronger than he?
(2.) Their sinfulness
and obnoxiousness. They were the sons
of Adam, so it is in the Hebrew; nay, of that
Adam, that sinful disobedient Adam, whose
children are by nature children of disobedience,
children that are corrupters.
(3.) Their
distinction from the children of God, the professors
of religion, from whom these daring
builders had separated themselves, and built
this tower to support and perpetuate the separation.
Pious Eber is not found among
this ungodly crew; for he and his are called
the children of God, and therefore their souls
come not into the secret, nor unite themselves
to the assembly, of these children of men.
II. The counsels and resolves of the Eternal
God concerning this matter; he did not
come down merely as a spectator, but as a
judge, as a prince, to look upon these proud
men, and abase them,
Job xl. 11-14.
Observe,
1. He suffered them to proceed a good
way in their enterprise before he put a
stop to it, that they might have space to
repent, and, if they had so much consideration
left, might be ashamed of it and weary
of it themselves; and if not that their disappointment
might be the more shameful, and
every one that passed by might laugh at
them, saying, These men began to build, and
were not able to finish, that so the works of
their hands, from which they promised themselves
immortal honour, might turn to their
perpetual reproach. Note, God has wise and
holy ends in permitting the enemies of his glory
to carry on their impious projects a great way,
and to prosper long in their enterprises.
2. When they had, with much care and
toil, made some considerable progress in their
building, then God determined to break their
measures and disperse them. Observe,
(1.) The righteousness of God, which
appears in the considerations upon which
he proceeded in this resolution,
v. 6.
Two things he considered:–
[1.] Their oneness,
as a reason why they must be scattered:
“Behold, the people are one, and they have all
one language. If they continue one, much of
the earth will be left uninhabited; the power
of their prince will soon be exorbitant; wickedness
and profaneness will be insufferably
rampant, for they will strengthen one another’s
hands in it; and, which is worst of
all, there will be an overbalance to the church,
and these children of men, if thus incorporated,
will swallow up the little remnant of
God’s children.” Therefore it is decreed that
they must not be one. Note, Unity is a policy,
but it is not the infallible mark of a true
church; yet, while the builders of Babel,
though of different families, dispositions, and
interests, were thus unanimous in opposing
God, what a pity is it, and what a shame, that
the builders of Sion, though united in one
common head and Spirit, should be divided,
as they are, in serving God! But marvel not
at the matter. Christ came not to send peace.
[2.] Their obstinacy: Now nothing will be
restrained from them; and this is a reason
why they must be crossed and thwarted in
their design. God had tried, by his commands
and admonitions, to bring them off
from this project, but in vain; therefore he
must take another course with them. See
here, First, The sinfulness of sin, and the
wilfulness of sinners; ever since Adam would
not be restrained from the forbidden tree, his
unsanctified seed have been impatient of restraint
and ready to rebel against it. Secondly,
See the necessity of God’s judgments
upon earth, to keep the world in some order
and to tie the hands of those that will not be
checked by law.
(2.) The wisdom and mercy of God in the
methods that were taken for the defeating of
this enterprise
(v. 7):
Go to, let us go down,
and there confound their language. This was
not spoken to the angels, as if God needed
either their advice or their assistance, but
God speaks it to himself, or the Father to the
Son and Holy Ghost. They said, Go to, let
us make brick, and Go to, let us build a tower,
animating one another to the attempt; and
now God says, Go to, let us confound their
language; for, if men stir up themselves to
sin, God will stir up himself to take vengeance,
Now observe here,
[1.] The mercy of God, in moderating the
penalty, and not making it proportionable to
the offence; for he deals not with us according
to our sins. He does not say, “Let us go
down now in thunder and lightning, and consume
those rebels in a moment;” or, “Let
the earth open, and swallow up them and
their building, and let those go down quickly
into hell who are climbing to heaven the
wrong way.” No; only, “Let us go down,
and scatter them.” They deserved death,
but are only banished or transported; for the
patience of God is very great towards a provoking
world. Punishments are chiefly reserved
for the future state. God’s judgments
on sinners in this life, compared with those
which are reserved, are little more than restraints.
[2.] The wisdom of God, in pitching
upon an effectual expedient to stay
proceedings, which was the confounding of
their language, that they might not understand
one another’s speech, nor could they
well join hands when their tongues were
divided; so that this would be a very proper
method both for taking them off from their
building (for, if they could not understand
one another, they could not help one another)
and also for disposing them to scatter; for,
when they could not understand one another,
they could not take pleasure in one another.
Note, God has various means, and effectual
ones, to baffle and defeat the projects of
proud men that set themselves against him,
and particularly to divide them among themselves,
either by dividing their spirits
(Judg. ix. 23),
or by dividing their tongues, as David
prays,
III. The execution of these counsels of
God, to the blasting and defeating of the
counsels of men,
God made them
know whose word should stand, his or theirs,
as the expression is,
Notwithstanding
their oneness and obstinacy, God
was too hard for them, and wherein they dealt
proudly he was above them; for who ever
hardened his heart against him and prospered?
Three things were done:–
1. Their language was confounded. God,
who, when he made man, taught him to
speak, and put words into his mouth fit to
express the conceptions of his mind by, now
caused these builders to forget their former
language, and to speak and understand a new
one, which yet was common to those of the
same tribe or family, but not to others: those
of one colony could converse together, but
not with those of another. Now,
(1.) This
was a great miracle, and a proof of the power
which God has upon the minds and tongues
of men, which he turns as the rivers of water.
(2.) This was a great judgment upon these
builders; for, being thus deprived of the
knowledge of the ancient and holy tongue,
they had become incapable of communicating
with the true church, in which it was retained,
and probably it contributed much to their
loss of the knowledge of the true God.
(3.) We
all suffer by it, to this day. In all the inconveniences
we sustain by the diversity of languages,
and all the pains and trouble we are
at to learn the languages we have occasion
for, we smart for the rebellion of our ancestors
at Babel. Nay, and those unhappy
controversies which are strifes of words, and
arise from our misunderstanding one another’s
language, for aught I know are owing
to this confusion of tongues.
(4.) The project
of some to frame a universal character,
in order to a universal language, how desirable
soever it may seem, is yet, I think, but
a vain thing to attempt; for it is to strive
against a divine sentence, by which the languages
of the nations will be divided while
the world stands.
(5.) We may here lament
the loss of the universal use of the Hebrew
tongue, which from this time was the vulgar
language of the Hebrews only, and continued
so till the captivity in Babylon, where, even
among them, it was exchanged for the Syriac.
(6.) As the confounding of tongues divided
the children of men and scattered them
abroad, so the gift of tongues, bestowed upon
the apostles
(Acts ii.),
contributed greatly to
the gathering together of the children of God,
who were scattered abroad, and the uniting of
them in Christ, that with one mind and one
mouth they might glorify God,
2. Their building was stopped: They left
off to build the city. This was the effect of
the confusion of their tongues; for it not
only incapacitated them for helping one another,
but probably struck such a damp upon
their spirits that they could not proceed,
since they saw, in this, the hand of the Lord
gone out against them. Note,
(1.) It is wisdom
to leave off that which we see God fights
against.
(2.) God is ale to blast and bring
to nought all the devices and designs of
Babel-builders. He sits in heaven, and
laughs at the counsels of the kings of the
earth against him and his anointed; and will
force them to confess that there is no wisdom
nor counsel against the Lord,
Prov. xxi. 30; Isa. viii. 9, 10.
3. The builders were scattered abroad upon
the face of the whole earth,
They
departed in companies, after their families,
and after their tongues
to the several countries and places allotted to
them in the division that had been made,
which they knew before, but would not go to
take possession of till now that they were
forced to it. Observe here,
(1.) The very
thing which they feared came upon them.
That dispersion which sought to evade by
an act of rebellion they by this act brought
upon themselves; for we are most likely to fall
into that trouble which we seek to evade by
indirect and sinful methods.
(2.) It was
God’s work: The Lord scattered them. God’s
hand is to be acknowledged in all scattering
providences; if the family be scattered, relations
scattered, churches scattered, it is the
Lord’s doing.
(3.) Though they were as
firmly in league with one another as could
be, yet the Lord scattered them; for no man
can keep together what God will put asunder.
(4.) Thus God justly took vengeance on them
for their oneness in that presumptuous attempt
to build their tower. Shameful dispersions
are the just punishment of sinful
unions. Simeon and Levi, who had been
brethren in iniquity, were divided in Jacob,
ch. xlix. 5, 7; Ps. lxxxiii. 3-13.
(5.) They left behind them a perpetual memorandum
of their reproach, in the name given to the
place. It was called Babel, confusion. Those
that aim at a great name commonly come off
with a bad name.
(6.) The children of men
were now finally scattered, and never did, nor
ever will, come all together again, till the
great day, when the Son of man shall sit
upon the throne of his glory, and all nations
shall be gathered before him,
10 These are the generations of
Shem: Shem was a hundred years old,
and begat Arphaxad two years after the
flood:
11 And Shem lived after he
begat Arphaxad five hundred years,
and begat sons and daughters.
12 And Arphaxad lived five and thirty
years, and begat Salah:
13 And Arphaxad
lived after he begat Salah
four hundred and three years, and
begat sons and daughters.
14 And
Salah lived thirty years, and begat
Eber:
15 And Salah lived after he
begat Eber four hundred and three
years, and begat sons and daughters.
16 And Eber lived four and thirty
years, and begat Peleg:
17 And
Eber lived after he begat Peleg four
hundred and thirty years, and begat
sons and daughters.
18 And Peleg
lived thirty years, and begat Reu:
19 And Peleg lived after he begat
Reu two hundred and nine years, and
begat sons and daughters.
20 And
Reu lived two and thirty years, and
begat Serug:
21 And Reu lived
after he begat Serug two hundred
and seven years, and begat sons and
daughters.
22 And Serug lived thirty
years, and begat Nahor:
23 And
Serug lived after he begat Nahor two
hundred years, and begat sons and
daughters.
24 And Nahor lived nine
and twenty years, and begat Terah:
25 And Nahor lived after he begat
Terah a hundred and nineteen years,
and begat sons and daughters.
26 And Terah lived seventy years, and
begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
We have here a genealogy, not an endless
genealogy, for here it ends in Abram, the
friend of God, and leads further to Christ,
the promised seed, who was the son of Abram,
and from Abram the genealogy of Christ is
reckoned
&c.);
so that put
together, and you have
such an entire genealogy of Jesus Christ as
cannot be produced, for aught I know, concerning
any person in the world, out of his line,
and at such a distance from the fountain-head.
And, laying these three genealogies
together, we shall find that twice ten,
and thrice fourteen, generations or descents,
passed between the first and second Adam,
making it clear concerning Christ that he was
not only the Son of Abraham, but the Son of
man, and the seed of woman. Observe here,
1. Nothing is left upon record concerning
those of this line but their names and
ages, the Holy Ghost seeming to hasten
through them to the story of Abram. How
little do we know of those that have gone before
us in this world, even those that lived in
the same places where we live, as we likewise
know little of those that are our contemporaries
in distant places! we have enough
to do to mind the work of our own day, and
let God alone to require that which is past,
Eccl. iii. 15.
2. There was an observable
gradual decrease in the years of their lives.
Shem reached to 600 years, which yet fell
short of the age of the patriarchs before the
flood; the next three came short of 500; the
next three did not reach to 300; after them
we read not of any that attained to 200, except
Terah; and, not many ages after this, Moses
reckoned seventy, or eighty, to be the utmost
men ordinarily arrive at. When the earth
began to be replenished, men’s lives began to
shorten; so that the decrease is to be imputed
to the wise disposal of Providence,
rather than to any decay of nature. For the
elect’s sake, men’s days are shortened; and,
being evil, it is well they are few, and attain
not to the years of the lives of our fathers,
ch. xlvii. 9.
3. Eber, from whom the Hebrews
were denominated, was the longest-lived
of any that was born after the flood,
which perhaps was the reward of his singular
piety and strict adherence to the ways of God.
| The Generations of Terah. | B. C. 1921. |
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27 Now these are the generations
of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor,
and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
28 And Haran died before his father
Terah in the land of his nativity, in
Ur of the Chaldees.
29 And Abram
and Nahor took them wives: the
name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and
the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah,
the daughter of Haran, the father of
Milcah, and the father of Iscah.
30 But Sarai was barren; she had no
child.
31 And Terah took Abram
his son, and Lot the son of Haran
his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter
in law, his son Abram’s wife; and
they went forth with them from Ur,
of the Chaldees, to go into the land
of Canaan; and they came unto Haran,
and dwelt there.
32 And the
days of Terah were two hundred and
five years: and Terah died in Haran.
Here begins the story of Abram, whose
name is famous, henceforward, in both Testaments.
We have here,
I. His country: Ur of the Chaldees. This
was the land of his nativity, an idolatrous
country, where even the children of Eber
themselves had degenerated. Note, Those
who are, through grace, heirs of the land of
promise, ought to remember what was the
land of their nativity, what was their corrupt
and sinful state by nature, the rock out of
which they were hewn.
II. His relations, mentioned for his sake,
and because of their interest in the following
story.
1. His father was Terah, of whom it
is said
that he served other
gods, on the other side of the flood, so early
did idolatry gain footing in the world, and
so hard is it even for those that have some
good principles to swim against the stream.
Though it is said
(v. 26)
that when Terah
was seventy years old he begat Abram,
Nahor, and Haran (which seems to tell us
that Abram was the eldest son of Terah, and
was born in his seventieth year), yet, by
comparing
which makes Terah to die
in his 205th year, with
(where it
is said that he was but seventy-five
years old when he removed from Haran), it
appears that he was born in the 130th year
of Terah, and probably was his youngest
son; for, in God’s choices, the last are often
first and the first last. We have,
2. Some
account of his brethren.
(1.) Nahor, out of
whose family both Isaac and Jacob had
their wives.
(2.) Haran, the father of Lot, of
whom it is here said
(v. 28)
that he died before his father Terah. Note, Children
cannot be sure that they shall survive their
parents; for death does not go by seniority,
taking the eldest first. The shadow of death
is without any order,
Job x. 22.
It is likewise
said that he died in Ur of the Chaldees, before
the happy removal of the family out of that
idolatrous country. Note, It concerns us
to hasten out of our natural state, lest death
surprise us in it.
3. His wife was Sarai,
who some think, was the same with Iscah,
the daughter of Haran. Abram himself says
of her that she was the daughter of his father,
but not the daughter of his mother,
She was ten years younger than Abram.
III. His departure out of Ur of the Chaldees,
with his father Terah, his nephew Lot,
and the rest of his family, in obedience to
the call of God, of which we shall read more,
&c. This chapter leaves them in
Haran, or Charran, a place about mid-way
between Ur and Canaan, where they dwelt
till Terah’s head was laid, probably because
the old man was unable, through the infirmities
of age, to proceed in his journey.
Many reach to Charran, and yet fall short of
Canaan; they are not far from the kingdom
of God, and yet never come thither.
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