Why did God confuse the people's language at Babel?

[tonychanyt]

After the Flood, Genesis 9:

1 God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.

But instead, people did the opposite. Gen 11:

4 Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens,

a hyperbole for a tower of great height ( Deuteronomy 1:28, Deuteronomy 9:1)

so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.

The tower was to be a landmark and the center of all humanity, but God didn't want them to do that.

6a The LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language.

Why did God confuse their language?

7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.

They could no longer work together to continue building the tower as a single cooperation. They formed different language groups and spread to different parts of the earth.

9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

What was God's motivation for mixing up languages and keeping people from becoming too powerful?

That wasn't God's motivation.

Why did God confuse the people's language at Babel?

God wanted them to fill the earth and not just concentrate on one region.

 

[Diamond72]

They could no longer work together to continue building the tower as a single cooperation. They formed different language groups and spread to different parts of the earth.

As populations settled in different regions, their languages began to change and adapt independently, leading to the formation of diverse language families.