1 This chapter opens with the assertion that the entire world had one language and one
speech. How are we to square this information with Gen. 10, which tells us,
not once but three times, that mankind already possessed multiple languages
(vv. 5, 20, 31, “their languages”)? We have suggested an answer to this
question in our discussion of ch. 10—we are dealing here with a case of
deliberate dischronologization.
One can make sense of the
biblical material in another way, however. Students of ancient and modern
languages are well acquainted with the phenomenon of a lingua franca, a medium
of communication among representatives of different speech groups. At various
times in antiquity, Sumerian, Babylonian, Aramaic, and Greek each served in
this capacity. In our own day the English language is taking on more and more
the flavor of an international language. Thus Gen. 10 and 11 would make
linguistic sense in their current sequence. In addition to the local languages
(lešōnôṯ) of each nation
(ch. 10), there existed “one language” (śāp̄á
ʾeḥāṯ, ch. 11) which made communication possible throughout the world (ch.
10).
The phrase one speech is not just a repetition of one language. The two phrases are related but not interchangeable.
This age possessed a common language (“one language”) with a conventional
vocabulary (“one speech”). The Tower narrative has a symmetry: it begins and
ends with a reference to a universal language (śāp̄á), once flourishing but now destroyed (vv. 1, 9). (Victor
P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis,
Chapters 1–17 [The New International Commentary on the Old Testament; Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990], 350-51)
