Let us descend...

The question was raised in Torah study of other occurances in the Bible when God "descends".
Here is a partial listing:

Exodus 3:8 "I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey..."
Exodus 19:11 "Let them be ready for the third day; for on the third day the Lord will come down, in the sight of all the people, on Mount Sinai."
Numbers 11:17 "I will come down and speak with you there..."
II Samuel 22:10 "He bent the sky and came down, thick cloud beneath His feet."
Isaiah 31:4 "...So the Lord of Hosts will descend to make war agains the mount and the hill of Zion."

Tower of Babel - A Literary Approach

Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9)

Structure:

• Exposition (11:1-2) - Introduce characters
• Balance (11:3-4) - Introduce situation
• Problem (11:5-6)
• Solution (11:7-8)
• Conclusion (11:9)

Other Literary Devices:

• Leading words (build, language, face)
• Parallelism (havah..., building up/going down)
• Dramatic irony (lest we be scattered)
• Working within a confined language (similar sounding words)

From Genesis by Robert Alter:

"As many commentators have noted, the story exhibits an intricate antithetical symmetry that embodies the idea of "man proposes, God disposes." The builders say, "Come, let us bake bricks, " God says, "Come let us go down"; they are concerned "lest we be scattered," and God responds by scattering them. The story is an extreme example of the stylistic predisposition of biblical narrative to exploit interechoing words and to work with a deliberately restricted vocabulary. The word "language" occurs five times in this brief text as does the phrase "all the earth." The prose turns language itself into a game of mirrors." (page 47)

From New Studies in Genesis by Nechama Leibowitz:

"Benno Jacob in his commentary to Genesis points out that the Torah demonstrates to us in this verse (Gen. 11:2-3) how technical advances freed man from the fetters of his natural environment, enabled him to overcome natural difficulties...This technical mastery gives rise to overweening pride and self-confidence. Does it say there, "Let us build for ourselves a house as a refuge from the rain"? Or "Let us build for ourselves cities for our little ones and folds for our flock"? On the contrary, the achievements of human skill are transformed from being a means, to an end in themselves." (page 102)

Resources:
The Art of Biblical Narrative, by Robert Alter