And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly, Genesis 11:3.
Did they burn the bricks thoroughly, or did they burn them throughly? If I told you that I had thoroughly burned some correspondence between us, would you feel betrayed to find out that the letters are still readable? Of course you would. If I tell you that something is thoroughly burned, I am telling you that the process of burning is complete with nothing left that could be burnt.
A house can be burned throughout and still be salvageable. By saying that it is burned throughout, we are saying that there is no room throughout the breadth of the house that has not been touched by the fire. If I say that the house is thoroughly burned, I am telling you that it is gone. Its destruction by fire was thorough.
When we stopped using the adverb "throughly", we lost a good word. Fortunately, our King James Bible has retained the word. The residents of Babel could instruct themselves to burn the bricks throughly. A brick maker would understand that. They don't want to heat the bricks so hot that they are consumed with fire. They want to heat them carefully so that the affect of the heat gets to the very core of the brick. The heat to transform the brick worked its way throughout.
As has been documented on this site, the orthography of the King James Bible was not settled until the mid 1700s. (Here) and (here). That means that the translators themselves as well as the printers and editors for the the first 150 years of the King James Bible used variant spellings. It means that words like thoroughly and throughly were sometimes spelled the same.
The history of the King James Bible does not stop in 1611. Because the King James Bible is the word of God, it was purified in a furnace of earth seven times. The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, Psalm, purified seven times, Psalms 12:6.
There are seven distinct purifications of the King James Bible. These were done in accordance with God's instructions on preserving the bible. Speaking of the duties of a king, the Lord instructed; And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel, Deuteronomy 17:18-20.
I often hear men speculate about who has the commission on this earth to keep and preserve the word of God. Your bible tells you that it was to be the king in conjunction with clergy. We have a King James Bible. By decrees made by Henry VIII and by Charles I the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford were to have the right to print the bible. The history of the King James Bible is a history of the kings' edicts being carried out from 1611 through WWI.
The King James Bible is perfect today because God used his scriptural formula for preserving and disseminating his word. There will always be petty tyrants in petty pulpits seeking to redo that great work or call foul on part of its process. One of the ways to distinguish them is to see if they think the bricks of Babel were burned thoroughly.