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Gen_11:5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
Ver. 5. And the Lord came down.] Non motu locali, sed actu iudiciali .
To see the city, & c.] That so his sentence, grounded not upon hearsay, or uncertain information, might be above all cavillation or exception. A fair precedent for judges. Caiaphas first sentenced our Saviour, and then asked the assessors what they thought of it. The chief captain first commanded Paul to be scourged, and then examined. {Act_22:24-25} This was preposterous. God, though he knew all before, is yet said to come down to see. Let his actions be our instructions. No man must be rashly pronounced a leper: and the judges must "make diligent inquisition," {Deu_19:18} as flints must carry fire but not easily express it. Potiphar was too hasty with Joseph, and David with Mephibosheth. Aeneas Sylvius {a} tells us of some places, where thieves taken but upon suspicion, are presently trussed up, and three days after they sit in judgment upon the party executed. If they find him guilty, they let him hang till he fall. And if not, they take down the body and bury it honourably at the public charge. This is not Godlike, nor a point of wisdom: for Nervus est sapientiae non temere credere .
Which the children of men builded.] Nimrod chiefly, with his fellow Hamites. But that some of Shem’s and Japheth’s posterity had a hand in it, is more than probable, by their common punishment, the confusion of tongues. Heber and his had nothing to do with them; and therefore retained the Hebrew tongue, called thenceforth "the Jews’ language," {Isa_36:11} until they were carried captive to Babylon, where grew a mixture among them of Hebrew and Chaldee, whence came up the Syriac tongue, common in our Saviour’s time, as appears by many Syriac words in the Gospels.
{a} Aene. Sylvius., Europ., cap. xx.