Favours of the Gracious God — Page 16
16 ر�یم آحد�یم ج و د� ت ہ آح� ض � ث ُل ہارص � ض وہی � And the whole earth was of one lip and of speech uniform. Clearly the whole earth cannot mean only the land of Babylon, which is known as Sin‘ a r, because this verse is prior to that narrative and is related to the narratives that have passed in chapter ten. Thus, the quoted verse means that all those nations who lived on earth had only one language up till the time that a group of people from them had not yet reached Babylon. Then after reaching Babylon, God Almighty caused them to speak different languages. Such change in languages was brought by the inhabitants of Babylon being dispatched to other countries, just as verse eight of the same chapter narrates: ی کل ھارص ض � ج ّم عَل � ث م م� ت ص �یھوہ ا�ٓ ض و �ی� From there, God scattered them upon the whole earth 1 It is clear that after being scattered out of Babylon, those people went to every country. Thus, the same expression the whole earth which is used in the earlier verse to convey that the entire world had a single language, is used in verse eight to convey that the inhabitants of 1 See Genesis 11:8. [Publisher]