A name, and not to be scattered

The builders’ speech in 11:4 is, in the BSB, “let us build for ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of all the earth.” The Hebrew has “a city and a tower, and its top in the heavens,” “let us make for ourselves a name,” and “lest we be scattered.” The name they seek is their own; the scattering they fear is the spread already blessed in 9:1 and begun in 9:19. The project therefore resists that spread. The Lord later promises Abram a name (12:2), which is pointed to and is not treated here: God opposes a self-made name and a refusal to be scattered. The purpose of the city and tower has also been read as a temple-tower, as a rallying-point to hold mankind together, or as mixed. Keil takes the motive as “the desire for renown” joined to a central point that would maintain their unity, and treats both as ungodly. Calvin finds “mad ambition, and proud contempt of God,” and rejects a flood-refuge reading as without warrant in the text. Josephus has Nimrod urge a tower too high for the waters to reach. Each view is set out on its grounds; the lean taken here is only that 11:4 resists the spread of 9:1, and that God opposes the self-made name and the refusal to be scattered.