Ver. 2. "And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there."
By these words, we gather, that the first rest of Noah, and so the inhabiting of his posterity, was still eastward from Babylon, towards the sun rising.
But to gospelise: They journeyed from the east: and so consequently they turned their backs upon the rising of the sun. So did also the primitive church, in the day when she began to decline from her first and purest state. Indeed, so long as she kept close to the doctrine and discipline of the gospel, according to the word and commandment of the Lord Jesus, then she kept her face still towards the sun rising: According to the type in Ezekiel, who saith of the second and mystical temple, Her fore front, or face, did stand towards the east (47:1). Also he saith, when he saw the glory of God, how it came unto this temple, it came from the way of the east (43:2). Their journeying therefore from the east, was, their turning their backs upon the sun. And to us, in gospel times, it holdeth forth such a mystery as this: That their journey was thus recorded, to show they were now apostatized; for assuredly they had turned their back upon the glorious Sun of Righteousness, as upon that which shineth in the firmament of heaven.
"They found a plain in the land of Shinar." Shinar is the land of Babylon (Dan 1:2; Zech 5:11), as those scriptures in the margin declare.
"They found a plain." Or, place of fatness and plenty, as usually the plains are; and are, upon that account, great content to our flesh: This made Lot separate from Abraham, and choose to dwell with the sinners of Sodom; why, the country was a plain, and therefore fat and plentiful, even like the garden of the Lord, and the land of Egypt. Here therefore they made a stop; here they dwelt and continued together. A right resemblance of the degenerators' course in the days of general apostacy from the true apostolical doctrine, to the church of our Romish Babel. So long as the church endured hardship, and affliction, she was greatly preserved from revolts and backslidings; but after she had turned her face from the sun, and had found the plain of Shinar; that is, the fleshly contents that the pleasures, and profits, and honours of this world afford; she forgetting the word and order of God, was content, with Lot, to pitch towards Sodom; or, with the travellers in the text, to dwell in the land of Babel.
Ver. 3. "And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly [and burn them to a burning]. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar."
Now they being filled with ease and plenty, they begin to lift up the horn, and to consult one with another what they were best to do: Whereupon, after some time of debate, they came to this conclusion, That they would go build a Babel.
"And they said one to another, Go to." This manner of phrase is often used in scripture; and is some times, as also here, used to show, That the thing intended, must come to pass, what opinion or contradiction to the contrary soever there be. It argueth that a judgment is made in the case, and proceedings shall be accordingly. Thus it is also to be taken in Judges 7:3; Ecclesiastes 2:1; Isaiah 5:5; James 5:1, &c. Wherefore it shows, that these men had cast off the fear of God, and, like Israel in the days of the prophet Jeremiah, they resolved to follow their own imagination, let God or his judgments speak never so loud to the contrary. And so indeed he says of them at verse the sixth: "And this they begin to do: [saith God] and now nothing will be restrained from them."
This is all Mr. Bunyan hath writ of this EXPOSITION, as we perceive by the blank paper following the manuscript.[49]