Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. From there, the LORD scattered them abroad on the surface of all the earth.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 9. Babel, that is, confusion. This is one of the greatest miracles recorded in the Old Testament; men forgot, in a moment, the language which they had hitherto spoken, and found themselves enabled to speak another, known only to a few of the same family ( Calmet.); for we must not suppose that there were as many new languages as there were men at Babel. Menochius.—The precise number of languages which were then heard, cannot be determined. The learned commonly acknowledge the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Teutonic, Sclavonian, Tartarian, and Chinese languages, to be original. The rest are only dialects from these. English is chiefly taken from the Teutonic, ( Calmet.) with many words borrowed from the Greek and other languages. Bible.