Scripture: Genesis 11:1-9
Date: August 7, 2011
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Last week we considered that God created men and women in His image. For all the things this includes, it includes no less than that men are made for relationship (be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth) and responsibility (fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over every living thing) (Genesis 1:26-28). This tells us who man is, his value, his capabilities, and his purpose. There is nothing like a man. What is man? He is the imago Dei, the image and likeness and reflection of God.
Jumping to chapter 11 jumps us over a few important things. Adam and Eve disobeyed God in chapter three, bringing sin and death to all their offspring, sin that destroys relationships and makes our responsibilities more difficult. Cain killed Abel in chapter four and, as sinful men multiplied, it got so bad by chapter six that God flooded the planet save Noah, his family, and enough animals to replenish the planet. Chapter 10 provides a post-fall genealogy of Noah’s three sons, and chapter 11 goes back in time to explain how all the descendants were dispersed.
The story shows the danger when men forget that they are image-bearers. We’re going to let Moses tell us the story of Confusion Tower and learn some of the clear lessons about God and about those made in His image.
There are two significant divisions in this section. Verses 1-4 are the proud plans of man, verses 5-9 show the merciful punishment of the LORD.
The scene is set.
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
The whole earth meant all the inhabitants of the earth. If the events in Babel occurred around the time of Peleg (10:25), then about 100 years had passed since the flood. Supposing each family from Noah’s sons had 8 children, there may have up to 30,000 inhabitants (half the size of Marysville, since there were 60,020 in the 2010 census).
Why wouldn’t they have one language and the same words? Noah was still alive, Noah’s family was the only family, it was natural that Noah’s language was the only language. The phrase translated one language could be translated “one lip,” indicating the same genetic structure and the same formations of the mouth. The same words meant that they shared the same vocabulary.
The people migrated from the east and found a plain in the land of Shinar. Everything’s good so far. They moved away from the mountainous region of Ararat and settled in the fertile land of Mesopotamia. The LORD commissioned Noah’s sons to replenish the earth, but there wasn’t anything wrong with settling down, yet.
Things must have been going well for them. The first things to take care of when you come to a new place are making sure there is enough food and water, along with adequate shelter. Only once those needs are established can you move on to other things. And they did.
And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.
There is a rallying cry among the people, Come, let us…. There’s enthusiasm for the project, which in this case was making bricks. There were likely not many rocks or stone quarries in the fertile plain. The research and development team determined that since building stones weren’t convenient, and wood was not as durable, they could mix clay with water—both of which were readily available—and then bake them into bricks for building. Again, so far so good. This is being creative with what you’ve got, a fine thing for an image-bearer to do.
Then we find out the motivation for their innovation, and it was not to reflect God’s image.
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”
The people rally one another again, the voice of the people speaks again, Come, let us…. While Babel was described as being part of Nimrod’s kingdom (10:10), he apparently was not the only one who wanted this so he is not the only one punished. Their united voice unmasks their hearts and condemns them. (Quick lesson #1: What we say really says something even if it’s an unguarded moment on Facebook).
The people want a city and a tower, and from that glory and security. The bricks were intended to build great structures; the great structures were intended to make themselves look great. It was idolatry.
Cities are okay, in their place, but these people wanted a city not as a hub or outpost for filling the earth. They wanted to avoid being dispersed over the face of the whole earth. This was in direct defiance of God.
The tower with its top in the heavens would make a name for themselves. The only thing higher than the skyscraper they had in mind is height of hubris/arrogance.
The pride was virtually written on the city council letterhead. It was the tagline for tourist commercials: “Come enjoy the sights from our heights. We’re the best humans on the planet.”
The sarcasm is thick.
And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.
For however high the tower was, the LORD had to come down just to get a glimpse. The reason He had to come down was not because He was previously engaged, not paying attention, and now He has to do something before it’s too late. There is a patience as He lets them continue the work. He’s waiting for the maximal teaching moment.
God, for a little while, seemed to take no notice of them, in order that…he might give the more decisive evidence of his judgment. For he frequently bears with the wicked, to such an extent, that he not only suffers them to contrive many nefarious (criminal) things, as if he were unconcerned, or were taking repose; but even furthers their impious and perverse designs with animating success, in order that he may at length cast them down to a lower depth. (Calvin, Genesis, 329).
(Quick lesson #2: It is good to be on God’s side.)
Not only did He “come down,” but the remark is made that the children of man were at work. I love it, again. The Hebrew is “sons of man,” and the ESV may or may not provide the best nuance, but the irony is beautiful. (The NAS totally blows it by merely mentioning “men”). In other words, the LORD descends to see what the boys have been up to.
Verse six is crucial for our understanding of God.
And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
Does this mean that the LORD feels threatened? Is He afraid that men are going to take over? I don’t think so. But let’s see how He responds first and then come back to they why.
Parallel to the voice of the people, God speaks.
Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
The (hint at the) Trinity is back; let us go down. Previously we saw the Godhead speaking before creating man and woman (1:26), and even more significantly, in discussing the sin and punishment of Adam and Eve (3:22).
It’s a simple plan. He will not flood the earth to destroy them. He could have taken any number of approaches to punishment. What He does, however, strikes at the core of their failure to recognize themselves as image bearers. The LORD disrupts their relationships making their responsibilities impossible.
He confuse[s] their language. The story doesn’t say exactly how it happened, but men started speaking differently. Imagine the confusion and then the frustration. They wouldn’t have had any idea what was happening. They hadn’t seen, or more appropriately, heard, anything like this before. It was incoherent nonsense that led to full-fledged chaos.
So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
The language confusion led to frustration which led to separation, families moving away from Babel. I guess I always thought that two things happened simultaneously here, that God picked men up (by the scruff of their neck, or blew them like Aslan blew Jill and Scrubb in The Silver Chair) and dropped them in new locations around the world with new languages. But that’s not what happened.
Well, both things did happen, but in stages. It seems the dispersal transpired as families, who could understand each other no longer, moved away from each other. Confused language was the engine that drove them apart. They got exactly the opposite of what they wanted. They settled so as to avoid being scattered.
That they left off building the city would be less significant if the majority of the population in Babel vanished immediately—a rapture-like phenomena as I assumed before. They stopped building because they couldn’t understand each other anymore. Instead, the frustration separated them and created distance.
Note that the city was called Babel, not the tower (“they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel”). It’s like the Seattle Space Needle. The tower project was a never-completed project, and never forgotten.