"WE do not speak the same language," has become a current phrase in explanation of incompatibility. This "same language" does not refer to a common knowledge of English, French, German, Chinese, or Choctaw, but to the same point of view or basis of understanding.
Prefacing the story of the tower of Babel in the eleventh chapter of Genesis is found the statement, "And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech." The "whole earth" here apparently refers to the generations of Noah. In a preceding chapter it is recorded that upon coming out of the ark Noah built an altar unto the Lord. A little later his descendants are found saying, "Let us make us a name," and to this end they proposed building a city and a tower in the plains of Shinar.
Even as Adam is represented as made from dust, in the record of the counterfeit creation given in the second chapter of Genesis, in contradistinction to man in the image of God, portrayed in the account of the spiritual creation found in the first chapter of that book, so are his progeny here represented as using brick for stone and slime for mortar, significant of the unsubstantial character of their building and forecasting its fall from the beginning. When they built no longer unto the Lord but to make a name for themselves, inevitably there arose differing standards, a personal sense of good, self-interest and cross-purposes, resulting in misunderstanding and a confusion of tongues. And then the thing they feared came upon them,—they were scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. Passing in review the centuries of their history, we find the people seeking after strange gods, becoming more and more at variance with one another and more and more scattered, with a constantly increasing number of tongues and races. Through the darkness of these ages their prophets sought to keep before them as a torch the oneness of God: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord."
