Imagine living in Utopia – a world in which we are all united, there are no wars and disagreements and we all speak the same language. A truly global village. At the dawn of civilization all human beings were united. Why did God break up this idyllic existence and scatter mankind to the four corners of the globe?
Unity has the potential to be wonderful, but if a group is led by a dictator who forces everyone to think alike and be committed to the same ideals then it becomes destructive. The people wanted to build a "tower with its top in the heavens" (11:4). We can imagine that they were planning to have a dais at the top of the tower for Nimrod the King to sit and look down on his flock. They would adoringly look up to him and he would return his gaze as they pass before him like a "flock of sheep" . The phenomenon of king as a divine being has repeated itself throughout history. There were kings who ruled over the entire world and tried to engrave their name permanently in the annals of history (for example the mausoleums in Moscow memorializing Lenin and Stalin). The people who built the tower were united, but they were not one nation. Rather, as in Stalinist Russia, they were the nation of one person. They did not share one language, they spoke the language of one person. They did not share one plan for the building, they followed the blueprint set out by one person – Nimrod the hunter king. This is not true unity in which people share a common goal. Instead, this tyranny was a cruel, one-man dictatorship led by a person who thought and planned for all. This despot forced unity of thought upon his subjects by means of fear. Dissidents were thrown into a fiery furnace for daring to think or act differently from the king. In such a case, disunity is better than unity.