RnLL and RZS point out that Rashi Bereishit 10:25, where he learns that the dispersion was davka at the end of Peleg's life and Ever was a navi who gave him a name based on an event that would happen 239 years later.<br>
<br>Note that Radak there says that the dispersion happened when he was born, so the name was based on current events rather than nevuah. But that doesn't take into account Rashi's argument that Peleg's younger brother's sons must have been born before the dispersion.
<br><br>In any case, it seems to me that there is room for different possible approaches within pshat, although I certainly take Rashi very seriously.<br><br>By the way, I'm not sure Rashi's pshat is so very problematic from a metziut point of view. We know that the division into different languages was a nes. And populations can move very quickly. Think about the kind of population shifts that happened in the 19th and 20th centuries, both among Jews and in general. Or the quick spread of European colonists in the Americas in the 17-19 centuries. Governments also can be formed and become well established within a brief time. Look at both the population and the government of Israel a few decades after independence. Not to mention other former British colonies, eastern Europe and the former USSR after the collapse of communism, etc. It doesn't take that long to draw radically new maps.
<br><br>- Ilana<br>