There are three verses in the Torah refers to G-d in the plural, which obviously poses a conflict with the statement in D. 6 that “G-d is One.”
I have written on the first of these here, the second, here. And now we address the third verse.
The people of Babel have come together to form a truly unified society, of one language and the same words (G. 11:1) with a common and lofty goal: to ‘build us a city, and a tower, with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; so we won’t be scattered across the face of the earth.’ (G. 11:4)
How does G-d respond?
And the LORD said: ‘They are one people, and they have one language; and this is what they begin to do; and now nothing will be withheld from them, which they plan to do. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ (G. 11:6-7)
Part of what is going on here is easy to understand: it is clear in the Torah that G-d wants a relationship with mankind. He wants us to reach out to Him and to engage in productive and holy ways.
The problem with Babel is that the people have squelched their individuality, investing in the communal whole. And as a result, their mission statement holds no room for G-d, in the very same way that every totalitarian communist country (China, the USSR, etc.) contained their own religion in their ideology, and thus allowed no freedom to worship a divinity that is separate from the State.
If all the people have created a self-contained and unified society, then with whom is G-d supposed to relate? There is no place for G-d in Babel, China, or Soviet Russia!
So G-d has to talk to Himself, just as He did when He created man in the first place. Which leaves all the divine sparks that we could think of as angels, or souls that have not yet been invested into people. In this sense, G-d is a unified plurality, which seeks preferentially to engage with humans – when we are available. This is a similar explanation to the text during creation: Let Us create man; G-d is a unity of all spirit/energy, which includes angels and souls (both before, during, and after deployment into people).
It is noteworthy that after G-d confuses Babel, and its unified society crumbles, people become individuals again, each with our own soul and our own ability to connect with the divine. All the chaos and differences and diversity across humanity are, in this understanding, very much what G-d desires. The more conversations there are between souls and G-d, then the more humanity can add to G-d’s glory.
And so Babel is the last time in the Torah that the text refers to G-d in the plural – because from this point on, G-d interacts with people and G-d is, in every way that relates to us, One.