Matthew Poole and continuators on Genesis 11:4

4. And they said, Go to, let us build us a City, and a Tower whose top may reach unto Heaven, and let us make us a Name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole Earth.

(i. e.) A very high Tower. An usual Hyperbole both in Scripture, as Deut. 1. 28. and 9. 1. and in other Authours. This Tower and its vast height is noted by Herodotus, Diodorus, and others.

(i. e.) A great Name, as the phrase is elsewhere used. Compare also 2 Sam. 7. 9. with 1 Chron. 17. 8. See also Isa. 63. 12, 14. Dan. 9 15. They take no care for Gods Name, and the defence and propagation of the true Religion, as duty bound them, but meerly out of Pride and Vain-glory labour to erect an everlasting Monument of their Wit and Wealth, and Magnificence to all Posterity.

Their design was not to secure themselves against a Flood, which they well knew Brick-buildings were no sence against, nor would they then have built this Tower in a plain, but upon some high Mountain; but rather to prevent a total and irrecoverable dispersion. They sought therefore to bind themselves together in one glorious Empire, and to make this glorious City the Capital Seat of it, and the place of refuge and resort upon any considerable occasion.