1. Genesis 11:4 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

Why might the people not want to be dispersed?

Genesis 11:4 (ESV)

4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

This reluctance possibly reveals two things:

  1. It could be on account of having the flood in their memories.

  2. It could also be a sign of their ungodly resistance to the command of the Lord, who had said in the beginning after creating man in his own image, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). God repeated this command after the flood: “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1).