"They are all one people with language one."
Oh, and "There's no limit if they purpose do."
(Did the Lord say this "behold" to his son?)
"What they will will be if begin they sue."
Gets me. And, "Let us go down and confound."
What mischief wrought that we'd not comprehend.
Lord, Lords, thou hast scattered us all around.
(Almighties err, thus up- their children end.)
Because of city and tower or Shem?
And giving this place a name? You surmised
we'd be gods, was that the Babylon sin?
You judge us 'fore our acts we realize.
And change the rules to turn a metaphor,
that belov'd Babel now's mere dust and lore.
---
* The source for this meditation is Genesis Chapter 11 (http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0111.htm#1).
1 And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another: 'Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
4 And they said: 'Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 And the LORD said: 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do; and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do.
7 Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.'
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore was the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
10 These are the generations of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old, and begot Arpachshad two years after the flood.
