In Ether 1:33 it says that, "the Lord confounded the language of the people, and swore in his wrath that they should be scattered upon all the face of the earth." According to Verneil Simmons, Genesis 11:1 reads, "And the whole earth (eretz) was of one language, and of one speech." In Hebrew the word "eretz" can be read to mean either "earth" or "land," and only the writer knows which is meant. Thus the phrase "the whole earth was of one language" (Genesis 11:1) could have referred to the people of one land, whereas here in Ether 1:33 we find evidence, at least with the group led by Jared and his brother, that the scattering could have been to another part of the "earth." There is other evidence of this in the Book of Mormon where writers use the phrase "the whole earth" when a limited area is intended (for example Ether 13:17; 3 Nephi 8:18). In view of our present knowledge of early peoples with differing tongues, it would seem wiser to limit the "whole earth" of Genesis 11:1 to the land of Shinar, thereby implying that the people who came from the east and started to build a city and a tower were of one tongue, a homogeneous group. The Inspired Version of the Bible is helpful at this point. Genesis 11:5 states, "So I, the Lord, will scatter them abroad from thence, upon all the face of the land, and unto every quarter of the earth." [Verneil W. Simmons, Peoples, Places and Prophecies, pp. 25-26] [See the commentary on Ether 1:2]