ספורנו — וירד ה' לראות את העיר ואת המגדל

Q — What is "וירד ה' לראות" doing in the Migdal Bavel narrative? Hashem doesn't descend to see — what work is "ירידה" doing as a verb here?

A — For Sforno, "ירידה לראות" is a technical idiom: it applies when the action *at the present moment* isn't strictly punishable, but Hashem foresees the קלקול it will lead to. The paradigm case is בן סורר ומורה, of whom Chazal say "ירדה תורה לסוף דעתו" — he isn't condemned for what he's done but for where he's heading. Same with Sodom ("ארדה נא ואראה" — their cruelty to the poor wasn't yet worse than other nations' but was generating ultimate corruption), and same with Israel's exile in Ha'azinu ("אסתירה פני מהם אראה מה אחריתם" — Sforno reads it as: I will hide my face *because* I see where they are heading). At Bavel, the building of city and tower wasn't itself punishable; the endgame Nimrod was constructing — centralized idolatry as the seat of his universal kingship, "ולא יפנה אחד מהם לדעת את הבורא יתברך" — was. That's what Hashem "came down to see," and the project was halted בעודה באבה.