Let’s move back even further in the Old Testament Scriptures to see an event that occurred shortly after the flood. Beginning in Genesis 6:8, Noah and his family were chosen by God to build the ark, which would save Noah and his family as well as seven of each clean animal, two of each unclean animal. From there, through the end of chapter nine, flood waters rose above the tallest mountain, and the people of the earth died along with all the other animals as a punishment for the wicked. Beginning in Genesis, chapter 9, the account jumps ahead to give a complete summary of how the earth was resettled after the flood. “These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread” (Gen. 9:19). Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood and was nine hundred and fifty years old before his death (Gen. 9:28-29). So it is these children and grandchildren of Noah who gather together to build the tower up to heaven in Genesis 11:4.
Genesis 10:1—Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.
Genesis 10:32—These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.
Genesis 11:1-9—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 throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
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.
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.
These were families of the children of Noah, and nothing about the confusion of tongues was explicable to anyone involved. Yet by faith in God’s own testimony we believe He caused it to happen.
–Beth Johnson