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Genesis 11:1–9 (ESV)
We are continuing this morning in our study through Genesis, “Right from the Start.” This is the last section of the global beginnings of the book before we zoom in on the life of Abraham.
Next week, a summary of the Sanctity of Human life from Genesis 1-11.
Then, we move on to the life of Abraham, with God’s plan to bless all the nations of the earth through him.
Today’s story reminds me bit of the Dr. Seuss story and movie, Horton Hears a Who. The creatures called Whos live in a community called Whoville which resides on a planet that exists on a speck of dirt, which the elephant Horton places on a red clover to protect it. The entire village of Whoville is unaware how tiny their world actually is. In the story, Horton goes to great lengths to protect these creatures. Horton proclaims, “A person's a person, no matter how small.”
The absurd size and distance between Horton and the Whos pales in comparison to the distance between Yahweh the creator and the persons of Babylon (or of Apex, NC).
We will find that God’s involvement and intervention into this small cosmos makes all the difference.
Our points this morning are:
I pulled this phrase from a book by Old Testament scholar, Allen Ross.
When the human race settled together to preserve their unity and develop their fame by building a grandiose city-tower, the Lord interrupted their collective apostasy and scattered them across the face of the earth by confusing the language that united them.
Allen P. Ross, Creation and Blessing, 237.
Perhaps when you think of this narrative, you only think about the multiplication of languages. It is called the Tower of “Babel” after all. But, there is much more going on here than going from one language to many.
It may not even be clearly obvious to us at first glance what the great sin is that the people committed.
Before we look at the specifics of this situation, we should remind ourselves where we are in the narrative of Genesis and in the history of the world. In two weeks, when we begin the life of Abraham, the whole pace of the book (and our series) will change.
Remember the structural markers in Genesis. These are worth underlining or marking in your bibles. Our chapter markings are helpful for navigating the text, but these thematic markers were put there by Moses himself. We are looking for the phrase, “These are the generations.”
This could also be translated as “This is the family history of…” Here are the ones we’ve come across so far:
Let’s also think back to the major action scenes we’ve seen so far.
If we go by the ages and years in the genealogies in Genesis 5, we realize that the flood likely took place sometime around 1656 years after creation. This is significant for several reasons. First, we have just a few scenes in our bibles from those many years. We are curious what all happened during that period. But, the stories we do have are overall not encouraging. Enoch (who walked with God and was no) and Noah were exceptions to the rule.
Second, if we overlay the generations on a timeline (and there are no significant gaps), we realize that Noah’s father, Lamech, would have been around 50 years old when Adam died. It is possible that people near the time of the flood could have known Adam or known someone else who did.
I know some of you have been reading ahead and had some questions about the relationship between Chapter 11, the Tower of Babel, and Chapter 10, which is sometimes called the “Table of Nations.”
We are used to reading things and assuming the author is telling the story in Chronological order. We find several mentions in Chapter 10 of different languages, and it definitely feels like the peoples are scattering.
The most helpful clue for how to relate these two chapters is found in Genesis 10:25.
Genesis 10:25 (ESV) — To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother’s name was Joktan.
Therefore, these two chapters should not be understood to be written in chronological order. Rather, Genesis 10:25 refers to the happenings of 11:1-9.
Also remember that it’s not necessary to think that the dispersion from Babel happened immediately. It would have taken time.
Peleg was born 101 years after the flood. He lived 239 years.
The Babel narrative is sandwiched in between two genealogies. It is the last narrative of primeval history before the focus narrows to the blessings of God coming through the covenant with Abraham.
These nine verses are filled with many kinds of literary devices. First, they are written as a chiasm. Brad talked about the chiastic structure of the flood narrative a few weeks ago.
This passage also has other literary devices to give it structure and focus. Things like using similar words; the reordering of the Hebrew letters; using words that sound like other words.
We see an example of this in vs. 9.
The words for “Babel” and “confuse” sound very similar in Hebrew. While we are on the subject of the city’s name of “Babel” we should note that this is the same as “Babylon.” It’s curious why many translators have chosen to translate it as “babel.” Out of the 261 occurrences of the word in the Hebrew Bible, it’s only translated as “Babel” in these two places (Genesis 10:10 and 11:9). In 251 of the 261 occurrences it is translated as “Babylon.”
It is interesting to realize how early “Babylon” comes into the story of the Bible. Nimrod, the son of Cush built the city of Babel/Babylon (Gen 10:8-10). This is the same city we see in Mesopotamia during the Jewish captivity in the book of Daniel.
We should get back to the emphasis of this point, the “dangers of collective apostasy.” This is a story of man’s rebellion and sinfulness. What was their rebellion and sin?
For this point, we’ll consider the main problem. In point two, we’ll deal with a few more aspects of their disobedience.
Let’s look back at vv. 1-2.
Genesis 11:1–2 (ESV)
Anything sound “off” to you? It didn’t to me at first glance. However, upon a closer look, we’ll find that this is perhaps the main problem. We know this because of the results of God’s corrective actions in vv. 9.
Genesis 11:9 (ESV)
The first act of rebellion was to settle into the plain in the land of Shinar (Babylon). What is the problem with this? Do you remember God’s command to Noah and his sons after the flood?
Genesis 9:1 (ESV) — And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
And again in verse 7.
Genesis 9:7 (ESV) — And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”
We also see the positive statement of what was supposed to happen at the end of Chapter 10.
Genesis 10:32 (ESV) — These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.
Remember, though that this didn’t happen before chapter 11; It is the result of God’s intervention in Chapter 11.
God’s intention was proclaimed to Adam and Eve, and then to Noah and his sons to multiply and fill the earth. Instead, these descendants of Noah congregated in a city.
Due to extraordinarily long life spans at the time, just 150 years after the flood the population could have easily climbed to fifty thousand. But instead of spreading across the globe, this postflood population gathered together in Babel.
- Tony Reinke, God, Technology and the Christian Life
We see at the end of vs. 4 that they were actively resisting being dispersed over the face of the whole earth. Perhaps it felt safer to congregate in the city. Perhaps they were growing weary of their nomadic existence.
We have the advantage of having received more revelation of God’s purposes for the nations, which we’ll get to in a few minutes. For now, we’ll just say that God has a reason to want and command the filling of the whole earth with Noah’s descendants.
To rebel against this was to rebel against the command of God. And they were collectively rebelling. They were collectively apostatizing against God’s plan. They were using their common language, their common culture, and their common lineage to collectively go their own way against God’s plans.
Now, let’s turn to two specific ways they sinned in the process.
One of the dangers of collective apostasy that they faced was the danger of secular technology—of human creativity and ingenuity untethered to God’s glory.
I’m guessing that you didn’t see a point about the dangers of technology coming this morning. I happened to pick up a book about God, Technology, and the Christian Life by Tony Reinke over the Christmas holidays. Lo and behold, in Chapter Two there was a fairly robust discussion of the Tower of Babel.
Let’s look back at our text and see if you can spot the technology in use here.
Genesis 11:3 (ESV)
One of these technologies we have seen before with the Noah’s Ark.
God told Noah to cover the wood of the ark with pitch. This pitch would seal the wood against the water. It was a new technique to make the boat more buoyant.
Now, a similar substance of bitumen (or tar / asphalt) was used by the citizens in Babel to serve as mortar for their bricks. We might wonder if they were using this tar to provide protection against water if God changed his mind and decided to send another flood.
There was another use of new technology in our story as well. They learned to make bricks and bake them. In Canaan it was more typical to build with uncut stones. But in Mesopotamia they learned the art of making bricks in some kind of kiln to make them more stable. We also know from other sources outside the Bible that this method was used in Mesopotamia in the building of the ziggurats (of which the Tower of Babel could have been an early prototype).
These innovations would ordinarily be commendable and praiseworthy as an extension of fulfilling the creation mandate to have dominion over the creation. It’s what they do with their newly-developed technology that is the problem.
Genesis 11:4 (ESV)
We have already mentioned that they were working against God’s purposes by avoiding being dispersed over the face of the earth. But, there are two more issues with their plan.
First, they want to use this new technology to build a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. Don’t imagine that they were simply trying to create a skyscraper. The implication is that this was a religious enterprise in some way. “We’re going to reach up to the gods…” or something similar.
The two ideas of a tower reaching into the heavens and making a name for themselves paints a picture of religious autonomy and humanism. If they could reach the heavens by their ingenuity and technology, did they really need God? Can one pursue the glory of their own name and the glory of God at the same time?
Consider how much of our modern scientific and technological complex has as an aim to remove our need or awareness of God.
It doesn’t have to be this way. And this is no reason to avoid technological innovation. But it is a reason to stay grounded to the glory of God in our pursuit of innovation.
Second, they wanted to make a name for themselves.
Is it just that they wanted to be famous for their tower? WE get the sense in the passage that they wanted this name for themselves so that they didn’t have to disperse.
When God created the garden, he put humankind in it to reflect his image. At Babel, we find humans creating a city as their anti-garden and a tower as an image to themselves.
John Dyer, From the Garden to the City
Genesis 11:5, 7–9 (ESV)
I mentioned earlier that this whole passage is a chiasm. Perhaps you remember Brad explaining the chiastic structure of the Flood narrative where the central point was “God remembered Noah.” Here the center of the chiasm is verse five, “And The the LORD came down to see…”
This is rich with sarcasm. Why would the LORD need to come down? They had built a tower with its top in the heavens. At the pinnacle of the human technology and engineering of the day, God still had to come down in order to see this Tower that supposedly reached to the heavens.
Yet, we see God “coming down to see the city and the tower.”
We have seen God respond in various ways to the falls of mankind to this point.
God commanded them not to eat of the tree in the midst of the garden. They ate. Then what?
God intervened.
We think of the curses given to the man, woman, and serpent. We remember that they were sent out of the Garden. We shudder in wonder at the cherubim placed to guard the way to the Garden with a flaming sword.
We also remember God’s grace. He clothed them. He made a promise of a future redemption. But his grace is also perceived in what he did NOT allow them to do. He prevented them from eating of the Tree of Life, which would have allowed them to continue in this fallen, sinful state forever.
There was an opportunity to worship the LORD. When that didn’t go well for Cain, God gave an opportunity for repentance. Instead Cain responds with anger and murder.
God intervened.
God’s judgment is another curse on the ground, making Cain a wanderer and fugitive. But God still shows grace, putting a mark on Cain so that others would not take vengeance, to stop the bloodshed. God also shows grace to Adam and Eve by giving them another son to carry on a godly line, Seth.
Human wickedness increased to the extent that…
God intervened.
God judges the world by bringing the flood. All mankind was destroyed. But God showed grace in preserving Noah and his family.
In each of these situations, God responded. He intervened in human history. He changed the course of events. We do not worship a God who is distant, disinterested, or distracted. So much of the text of scripture is yelling at us that God cares about his creation and that he enters in—he “comes down.”
Did you notice what God did NOT do in Babel? He did not kick everyone out of the city. He did not kill everyone in the city. He did not destroy the city or the tower.
But he did “interrupt their collective apostasy.”
God rescued them from maximizing their evil.
Look back at verse 6.
Don’t misunderstand God’s concern here. He does not view their tower or anything else they might accomplish as a threat to his supremacy over all things.
God intervenes in history for two distinct purposes at Babel.
He acts to restrain evil. The human story to this point includes some exceptions, but we get the sense that mankind has been overall successful at getting better at…finding new ways to sin. God intervenes to retrain us. And we should be glad for this.
Paul speaks of God’s restraining of the man of lawlessness in 2 Thess 2:7.
2 Thessalonians 2:7 (ESV) — For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.
Here at Babel, God restrains their potential for evil deeds by confusing their languages and making it harder for them to unite in their rebellion against God.
However, as we have already said, the main issue at Babel was not their language, nor their tower, but their refusal to disperse over the face of the earth.
God is focused on a bigger story—the story of redemption.
With Adam and Eve and with the Flood narrative, we can easily spot the mercy of God. It’s not as obvious in the Babel rebellion. Perhaps the biggest clue is the place that this story has in Genesis. This is the final Act before we are introduced to Abraham. For the rest of the Old Testament, and for much of the New, the camera lens will zoom in closely to the story of redemption through one family—the family of Abraham.
We now know that the “serpent-crusher” is not Seth. It is not Noah or his sons. One gets the idea that he will “not be from around here.” God will have to come down.
But, God’s redemptive plan is not limited to rescuing this one nation with its one language from themselves. His glory is greater than that; His plan is more expansive than that.
This is where Abraham comes in. God is preparing a blessing for all the nations through Abraham.
Genesis 22:17–18 (ESV) — I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
That blessing to all the nations was not Abraham himself, but his offspring.
Fast-forward 2000 years and we learn that the offspring of Abraham through which all the blessings will come to the nations is Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. In him, God came down. In Him, God intervened in a completely new way—not just by redirecting human history, but by becoming a part of that history himself.
Throughout the remainder of Biblical history, Babylon will become representative of the enemies of God, a namesake for human pride, rebellion, and depravity.
But there is good news. The undoing of Babel has begun. The dispersion and confusion, the cultural and racial tensions, the language barriers, the wars between nations — all of this will come to an end.
The beginning of the end has come through Christ’s work and through the Holy Spirit of God at Pentecost where those from many nations were miraculously hearing the works of God told in their own languages.
The beginning of the end of Babylon came when the Lord Jesus sent his church to the nations.
Acts 1:8 (ESV) — But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
And though God was patient in the days of Babel and did not destroy them in their wickedness, God will ultimately and completely bring judgement to those who will not submit to his rule.
Babylon and all that she stands for will ultimately be destroyed.
Revelation 18:21–19:3 (ESV) — Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more; and the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will be heard in you no more, and a craftsman of any craft will be found in you no more, and the sound of the mill will be heard in you no more, and the light of a lamp will shine in you no more, and the voice of bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more, for your merchants were the great ones of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery. And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth.” After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” Once more they cried out, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”
But that is not the final end. Once Babylon is finally cast down, there will be a new city, and a better one.
Revelation 21:10–11 (ESV) — And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.
Revelation 21:22–26 (ESV) — And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.
Revelation 7:9–10 (ESV) — After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
The descendants of Noah after the flood refused to disperse across the world. They rather chose the security and comfort of Babel.
Even in the early church, the people of God were slow to disperse to the nations to share the good news of Christ, so the Lord brought persecution that forced the disciples to spread to other nations (Acts 11:19).
God is pursuing his glory through his gospel going to the nations.
Let us pray and work and proclaim to that end.
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