פרשת נח תשכ"ז - דור הפלגה

ונעשה לנו שם , “so that we can make a name for ourselves.” According to the plain meaning of the text, all these people wanted was to settle in one single location on earth in order to stay together. However, they did not find a location other than the valley of Shinor in which to do this. This is why they wanted to build a city and a tower which could accommodate all of them. The purpose of the tower was to serve as a beacon so that people all over the earth would be able to see it and to orient themselves by means of it. They themselves would all live in a single city. This is the reason the Torah quoted them as saying פן נפוץ, “lest we will scatter.” This is why G’d punished them by scattering them to teach them that they had contravened His commandment to fill the earth with their presence (9,1). Isaiah 45,18 pointed out that G’d had made the earth in order for it to be settled by mankind.

In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;

And He blotted out every living substance which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and creeping thing, and fowl of the heaven; and they were blotted out from the earth; and Noah only was left, and they that were with him in the ark.