The GBOD offers a litany , Lead Us Out of Babel, based on Genesis 11:1-9.
The lectionary reading from Acts does fit much of what we celebrate on our Christian Pentecost Sunday. People from all over are enabled by the Spirit to understand what each other are saying. This reading from Genesis offers the story of why people were not already able to understand each other's language.
I think I had usually focused on verse 4 in interpreting this passage as meaning that we humans tend to think that we can accomplish anything we want by ourselves--by ourselves meaning without the actions of the Lord.
Or, sometimes, I would read the passage as being primarily the rationale for why different nations had different languages.
I still hold both those but now after reading Allen & Williamson, can add another: It was written by the Priestly sources as an indictment of the Babylonians. The tower then refers to the literal tower that Babylon had built. The survivors of exile were speaking against any other nation that would try to be more powerful than God.
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