Turn your Bibles with me, if you will, to Genesis chapter 11. We’re taking a little bit of a break today from our series on the doctrine of salvation. And instead, we’ll be continuing our studies from the Sunday school hour in the book of Genesis. We’ve been working our way through the early chapters of Genesis. And the Tower of Babel incident, it comes up now in chapter 11, verses 1 to 9. And it’s such a famous incident and such a major point in the Bible and the Bible story that I thought I would bring it to the entire congregation here. A program note: this evening, we’ll resume our studies in the Psalms. And so if you can be here for that.
Genesis chapter 11, I’ll begin reading with verse one:
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. They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built. 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 purpose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down there and confuse their language so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 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.
Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, this famous incident is part of your word to us. You intend for us to understand it and to understand its significance in the developing story of your purpose in history and in salvation. We pray that you’ll give that to us, help us to see in it the significance of human sin as well, the character of it, and help us to see what is right. We pray that you’ll use this, your word, to inform our minds and to shape our thinking in a way that we may serve you better. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
In the context, as we’ve been studying in this high school hour, at the end of chapter nine, we have a transition paragraph to the new section that begins in chapter 10. Chapter 10, verse 1: “these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” At the end of chapter 9, we have a transition paragraph to that, and that is these prophecies of Noah about his three sons and what would come of them and their families and their descendants. Then we get to chapter 10. As we saw in the last hour, we have an accounting of the development of the nations from the three sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, with a particular emphasis, of course, on Shem, because from him Abraham comes.
So in chapter 10, in verse 5, we have the sons of Japheth. These, the coastlands of the people, spread their lands, each with his own language, by their clans and their nations. Verse 20 of chapter 10: these are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. And then chapter 10, verse 31: these are the sons of Shem, by their clans, their languages, and their lands, and their nations. And then again, that is resumed for us in chapter 11, beginning with verse 10; we have a resumption of the Semitic line.
But in chapter 11 verses 1 to 9 now, we have the origins of those separations and the diversity of those nations and accounting to how it came about. And as I mentioned last hour just briefly, we have a hint of the time frame of that in chapter 10 verse 25. And that is, to Eber were born two sons, the name of the one was Peleg, for in his day the earth was divided. So that I think is a hint toward chapter 11 that is coming in the Tower of Babel incident and the division of the nations according to their various languages. And then, as I say, verse 10, then, in chapter 11, resumes the treatment of the line of Shem, taking us to Abraham, finally, which then becomes the point of chapters 12 and following. So this incident sets something of the framework and the background, the setting, for what comes in chapter 12, and then, really, for the rest of the story.
By way of overview of these verses, verses one to nine, we have the setting given for us in verse one. 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. So here we have the post-flood peoples, the descendants of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and they are unified, it tells us, in one language, and they’re in one location. They’re still staying together. And they have flocks, and they have herds. And as they have migrated to the west, they have found now flatland plains that are better for their flocks and herds, and so they decide to stay there.
And there’s this sustained emphasis, then, on their unity. Verse 1: the whole earth had one language and the same words. Verse 4: “Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.'” So they’re a united people, and they’re resolved to continue and remain that way. Now when we get to verse 5, we find that in God’s estimation, that’s not a good thing. So, verse 5: “the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built, 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 purpose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.'” So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.
Four Sections
So in verses 1 to 9, we have four sections then. Verses 1 and 2 give us the initial setting: the descendants of Noah still together, gathering together in a place, resolved to stay there. Verses 3 and 4: we have the people’s decision, their ambition to remain together. Verses 5 and 6: we have God’s response to that. And then verses 8 to 10: we have the final setting and what came as a result with the nations scattered.
I think it’s worth noticing also that the passage, verses 1 to 9, is framed with this idea and this emphasis on language. Verse 1: there’s a unified language. They all speak the same words. But then verse 9 concludes: now we have multiple languages, and there’s confusion, and they’re dispersed according to their language groups.
Now before we work through this, I think it’s worth giving some general historical reflections on this. It’s impossible to prove, but it is assumed widely that this tower that is being built here is the original what we call the ziggurats. Those are those—I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of it here and there—those massive stepped buildings with successive platforms, each of a lesser dimension as it works its way up and finally gets to the top. And on the top there’s a small temple to the deity that’s recognized in the various places where these buildings have been. The remains of some of those ziggurats remain for us in Babylon in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest of those date to the 23rd century BC, so that’s quite some time back. That’s long before Hammurabi, who was 18th century BC. And he founded, or actually rebuilt, the city of Babylon and made it great. And on top of these buildings was the temple for the deities that were there and they worshipped.
So these towers had something of a religious significance to the people. And it’s assumed now that this tower that we’re reading of here is the first of those, or at least one of those. Interestingly, the Babylonian creation epic—this is a famous account of creation that was uncovered by archaeologists accounting for the creation of the world in ancient Babylonian Mesopotamian mythology—it cites in that some details concerning the construction of a celestial city. The top of the tower was the abode of Marduk, the god Marduk. And in fact, the name Babel means “gate of the gods.” Other terminology that’s used in the Babylonian creation epic suggests that Babel was understood as an earthly entrance into heaven. And in fact, there’s a nearby inscription that was uncovered by archaeologists, and it reads like this: “The erection of this tower highly offended all the gods. In a night, they threw down what man had built and impeded their progress. They were scattered abroad, and their speech was strange.” I found that in a journal called The Bible and the Spade, a biblical archaeology magazine from 1936.
Interesting that that’s been uncovered for us. Actually, there’s some Sumerian—these are other Mesopotamian tablets that were uncovered—and they also read of originally all of the peoples speaking the same language together. The Akkadian Enuma Elish, another of the ancient mythologies that has been uncovered, reflects this episode also. In all of these, we find some later reflections on this event. They have their common root in it. They are corruptions of the account that we have here in Genesis chapter 11, and of course, infused with their polytheistic ideas and so on.
In terms of the language and the languages that came as a result, critical scholars love to say that this narrative is just fictional. They’ve assumed that all the languages of the earth simply can be explained in terms of gradual change and development from an original language that was spoken, and as the various groups broke out, they developed their own. If there were such an evolutionary origin of language, we would expect that all of the languages of the world would be related in some way. And that just is not the case. Of the 94 language families that we presently have record of, they ought to be reducible to some kind of common root. And that is just not the case. For example, Latin is just nowhere near Chinese, Mandarin. These are different language families altogether with separate origins. In fact, the evidence that we have points not to a common origin, but to a common small diversity of origins where a few language families then developed into the multiple languages that we have today. All right, so much for some historical notes. I think those are of interest. But now let’s see what the passage has to say itself.
What Is the Sin of Babel?
First of all, the question is, what is the sin of Babel? What was it? Well, it’s not stated explicitly, but it’s pretty clear. In verses 1 and 2, we have the setting stated and emphasized with the unity of the peoples, the descendants of Noah’s sons, and then verses 8 and 9 mention twice the punishment: that the Lord dispersed them over the face of the earth. So we start off with they’re together, they are one people, one language, determined, resolved to be together, and at the end, they’re not. God has made it otherwise. It seems pretty clear that the sin is that of refusal to disperse, and in fact a refusal not to disperse from the resolve to stay together.
There’s more evidence for that in verse 3. Notice here there’s several things I want to take our time and point out concerning their intentions and their ambitions. It informs for us what their sin was. Verse three: “and they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly,’ and they had brick for stone, bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.'”
So at the beginning, we have their intentions to live together. They’re not only a unified people; they’re resolved to stay that way. And the implication is they’ll do so permanently. It has religious connotations. They’re going to build a tower with its top to the heavens. And it’s all very long-term oriented concerning their intentions. There’s the idea of security—we’ll build a name for ourselves, we’ll be strong, we’ll be a great people—the notion of independence, and it’s all very determined. So we have various aspects of their sin in verse three that are emphasized.
Let’s go through it again. Number one: “let us build a city lest we be dispersed over the whole earth.” What’s so wrong with that? Well, if you’re thinking big picture, you’re thinking Genesis 1:26 to 28, right? Where God created man, let’s make man in our own image, let him have dominion, and let him rule over all the created order. And then verse 28, God says to them, “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
So here’s what we’ve seen. Sunday school studies the creation mandate. God creates man in his image as God’s image-bearer. Man is a vice-regent made to rule over God’s created order as God’s representative. And now with the commission, the creation mandate, he’s commanded to extend that rule the world over. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, extend God’s rule. So Eden is something of God’s kingdom. God is king. He has vice-regents ruling under him. They are responsible to extend that kingdom the world over. And in case you missed that point, when God wipes out humanity in the flood and starts all over again with Noah and his three sons, we find the same thing restated. Chapter 9 and verse 1: God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”
God’s purpose is to fill the earth with his image-bearers, extending his kingdom over the entire globe. And so what we have here in verse three—”let us build a city lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth”—is a refusal of God’s command and a determination to stay put. And notice, by the way, the passive voice. “Let us build a city lest we be dispersed.” Well, who do they think will disperse them? Future generations, maybe? Seems they have a direct defiance here with regard to God’s creation mandate. There’s a presumed—you’ve heard me talk about this a lot in the Sunday school hour—a presumed autonomy. We’re not accountable. We’re a rule unto ourselves. God’s rule does not apply if we don’t want it. That’s the atmosphere that we have here.
Now there’s another aspect of their sin we find in verse three as well. Let’s look at it again. “Let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens.” Build a tower with its top to the… what are they thinking? Are they actually thinking that they’ll transgress the boundaries of heaven and earth? Do they think that somehow by building a tower they’ll have access to the divine realm? What will they do when they get there? Is this a challenge to God? We’ll get there and you’ll be in charge? Something like that? Whatever it is, it reflects a very, very dim view of God like he’s nearly human, and it reflects a very, very over-inflated estimate of themselves and their abilities, as though they are not accountable, as though they are not subject to God’s commands, or responsible to live under him. This is just utter defiance, a presumed—and I’ll say it again—a presumed autonomy that we can live apart from God.
And so God says in verse six, this is just the beginning of what they’ll do. There’s nothing to be held back from. This must be judged. As they grow in their collective strength, they’ll only push further in their collective rebellion. This must be stopped. So we have complete, outright apostasy here, guised in religion. We’ll build a tower with its tops to the heavens, but it’s absolute defiance against God.
And then verse three again: “let us make a name for ourselves.” They’re concerned with the reputation that the tower will give them. It will be a show of their greatness, presumably for future generations, a show of their greatness to God, to the gods. What are they thinking here? That this tower has its top in the heavens suggests some kind of challenge with regard to God. At the very least, we have to say here, they are not seeking to exalt God. They’re seeking to exalt themselves. And what we have is a familiar strut of humanity seeking their significance and their greatness apart from God. Later on, God will say to Abraham, “I will make your name great.” God does this. But here their independence is what is sought and their greatness is more important than God’s command.
And so what we have here in verses one through four is the people of the world, post-flood now, in their collective rebellion against God and refusing his command. Thinking somehow that they’ll thwart God’s purpose; we’ll see differently. So not much has changed. We’ve seen, ever since chapter 3 of Genesis, mankind in rebellion against God. We saw that summarized in chapter 6 and verse 5. We saw it repeated again in chapter 8 and verse 21, that the corruption of man is… the sinfulness of man is great. Every thought of his heart is only evil continually. And none of that has changed. We saw it in chapter 3. We saw it in chapter 4 with the sin in the first family with Cain and Abel. We saw it in chapter 6 with the corruption of humanity becoming so great that finally God comes in judgment to destroy all of humanity. We saw it in the end of chapter 9 with sin in Noah’s family. Now here he has this opportunity to start over and sin marks the first family after the flood as well.
And now in chapter 11, verses 1 to 9, we have again the pride of humanity acting as though they are autonomous, unaccountable to God, settled in a collective rebellion against God. This is simply that, the rebellion of Eden all over again. And we have this summarized all through the scriptures at various points. One of the famous ones is Psalm 2: “Let’s break his bands asunder. Let’s cast his cords from us. We don’t want his rule.” And we find that again and again through the scriptures all the way through to the end when finally Babel here—which is just Babylon; I don’t know why or who got it started that we translate this Babel and everywhere else it’s translated Babylon, but same word, this is Babylon—and we get to the end of the Bible and Revelation 17 and 18 in particular, we have the world system and its collective rebellion against God referred to as Babylon. And this just sounds like our own society, that we don’t need God to rule over us.
This is what we find all through the history that’s recorded for us in the scriptures. And so we learn from this incident, number one, God’s name is more important than our name. And two, God’s command is more important than our desires. And that’s why we’re instructed to pray. Petition number one: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And only with that in place do we pray, “give us our daily bread.” We find the same in Matthew chapter 22. Jesus is asked, “what’s the greatest commandment?” The greatest commandment is this: “love the Lord your God with all of your heart and soul and mind and strength.” God’s name is more important than our name. God’s commands are more important than our desires.
And what we have here then in the Tower of Babel incident is just another venture in human autonomy, the pursuit of human greatness apart from God. Refusing to acknowledge God, refusing to submit to his command, asserting their own greatness, providing for their own security, and assuming, to their own fate, assuming that they can stand against God and have their own way. This, by the way, is the fundamental flaw of all human governments today. Whether it’s NATO or the United Nations or the United States for that matter, the whole underlying supposition is: we’ve got this. And we can do it our way. And if traditional values that reflect the will of God get in the way, trash them. We’re not accountable. We can do it our way. If only the people at Babel had Frank Sinatra. They would have sung, “I did it my way.” Well, that’s their sin.
The Divine Response
And so verses 6 to 9, we have the divine response. Now keep in mind, verses 3 and 4: “Let us build a city. Let us build a tower with its top to the heavens.” And now, verses 7 and following, God says, “Let us go down.” You can’t miss the irony of it. They’re building this great big skyscraper—in ancient times, it’s what it would have been—with its top to the heavens, and God now has to go down to see it. Now, of course, it’s figurative language; it’s rhetorical. God is not unaware. He doesn’t have to go down to get closer to examine. He’s fully aware of all that’s going on. It’s meant to be irony. Let us go up and let us build our city, and after all of their efforts and their big skyscraper, God says, “Let’s go down and see it.”
And in actuality, God goes down in judgment. Verse 7: let’s go down, confuse their language. And their judgment struck at the very heart of their enterprise. And their dream of a world order was shattered. And they were dispersed. And the effects of the judgment of the Tower of Babel continue today. The peoples of the world today still are grouped largely according to language, and that hinders unity. It presents obstacles to trade. It breeds hostilities and resentments.
Verse 6, God says, this judgment is necessary. This is only the beginning of what they’ll do, and nothing that they purpose to do will now be impossible for them. This sin, unpunished, will only breed boldness in further sin. It’ll give them a false sense of security, and they’ll just pursue sin all the further. And collectively, they’ll only become more defiant than they already have been. And for their part, what they did was they mistook God’s patience for unconcern. How long did it take them to build this tower? I don’t know. At some point it’s a big tower and God’s still patient. They mistook God’s patience for unconcern.
And what began as an expression of their pride resulted in their humiliation—a complete reversal. What began as a show of their strength and their independence ended up in their defeat and their failed plans. And what began—this is fascinating to me—what began as their refusal to obey God’s command and fill the earth resulted in just that: they dispersed and filled the earth. This is another one of those fascinating accounts of God, a sovereign God, overruling sin. Not just overruling, ruling over human sin to fulfill his own purpose. Aren’t you glad God can work through, by means of, human sin to accomplish his will? It’s a good thing he can. He’s got nothing else to work with down here. But it’s just like at the cross: human rebellion at its climax, and through it, God accomplishing his own purpose.
Verse 9 points out some more irony. There’s some satire here, a bit of a wordplay. “Therefore, the name was called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth.” Something of a wordplay here in the Hebrew: Babel, and then the word confusion is balal. Babel, balal. Kind of a wordplay going on, so this “gate of the gods,” Babel, becomes balal, confusion. And all of their purposes are reversed.
Babel in Larger Perspective
Now then, the sin and God’s response to it. Let’s look now at Babel in larger perspective. Let’s try to keep this in perspective, the Genesis story and the whole Bible story as we’ve been trying to do through this series. On one level, this is just another episode of human rebellion and divine judgment. We’ve seen it plenty of times now before, and we’ll see it many times again. And in fact, history is filled with illustrations of the same. Empires like this have come and gone, and they’ve come and gone, and they’ve come and gone, and God has brought them down, and they’ve risen, and God has taken them down. We’ve seen it with Egypt. We’ve seen it with Assyria. We’ve seen it with Babylon. We’ve seen it with Medo-Persia. We’ve seen it with Greece. We’ve seen it with Rome. I’ve seen it with Germany. Let’s throw in Britain; it had its empire, its day. And they’ve all come and gone. And we’re foolish—we’re just absolutely foolish if we think the United States won’t be the same.
And all of these empires have risen and then been taken down, and it is all prospective of a day of judgment that will come when God will bring the whole earth to account before Him. And this is another one of those episodes in the scriptures where we are brought to recognize that not just individually, but collectively, we are responsible to God, and He holds us accountable before Him. We find it in the prophets. The judgment of this city, the judgment of that nation, the judgment of this empire is all prospective of a day of judgment that will come in climax. As Paul puts it, we are just storing up wrath against the day of wrath. And each new rebellion and each new act of pride is just like putting a deposit in the bank. And in one day, God will close that account, and you’ll be held accountable for it. Again, mankind considered individually or collectively, we are not autonomous. We are creatures of God and we are accountable to him. Collectively, individually, we’re accountable to God and a day of accounting will come. And we must not presume and we must not mistake, like they did, God’s patience for unconcern.
More than that, in a big picture, this passage leaves us with really a bleak picture of humanity. United, they just pursue their rebellion against God on a collective scale. All we have here is a lot of individuals collectively together rebelling against God. Sinners in collective rebellion. And divided now, at the end of the passage, there’s no hope of reunion. They’re dispersed, and all of their purposes have been thwarted and God’s purpose has been fulfilled. And so Babel or Babylon in the Bible becomes a symbol. It becomes a kind of mark, a symbol for the world and its opposition to God and its rebellion. We certainly have that in the prophets. You find it in 2 Kings where Babylon comes as the chief arch-enemy of the people of Judah and sacks them and carries them away. We find it in the book of Daniel; they’re carried off into exile there. We get to the end of the Bible, the book of Revelation, and Babylon is this world system in collective rebellion against God, which God finally will destroy through the coming of Jesus Christ. Babel, in other words—and we are meant to see this when we look at the big picture beginning to end and come back in that light to see chapter 11 verses 1 to 9—Babel is simply the world. The world system in its collective rebellion. We won’t have God. We’ll do it our way. It’s just the world itself.
And yet, and again we want to see this in the big picture, and yet we will come to chapter 12. And from one of these scattered nations, God will choose one man, and from him he will make another nation through whom all the nations will be blessed: Abraham. And so we have this new nation coming from Abraham, a turning point. This is really the hinge of Genesis. This is the hinge of the Pentateuch. It’s really a major hinge in the whole story of redemption that God now, in the face of human rebellion, says, “I’ll make a man, and from him, I’m going to bless the families of the world.” They don’t deserve it. They’re uncollected. But through this man, I’m going to bless all the world, and all the families will partake in the blessing that I give to this man.
And so it points ahead, and it takes the long view now. It points us ahead to the rest of the Bible, to where that’s finally fulfilled in Abraham’s seed, the Lord Jesus, through whom all the families of the world are blessed. And so there’s this forward look that comes from chapter 12, verses 1 to 3 onwards, this forward look of what God will do to reverse the judgment that he’s brought on humanity because of their rebellion. One of my favorite expressions of this in this context is in Zephaniah chapter 3 verses 9 and 10: “At that time, I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord.” I’m going to change their talking. I don’t think he’s saying there that they’re all going to speak the same language, but he is saying that there will not be… he’s not saying that there’ll be one language that they speak, but there will be one voice, as it were. Purified lips, purified hearts, and together singing the praise of God.
And so that points us forward to the rest of the story. We come to the Gospels and we find the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. He’s presented as the Savior that’s been expected and been promised that would come and reverse all of this judgment. We find Jesus himself saying, like in chapter 4 of the Gospel of John, He is the Savior of the world. He talks to the Samaritan woman, she goes back and they come back and they believe on Jesus and surely we know now that He is the Savior of the world. This is not just Israel’s Savior. Yet chapter 10 of the Gospel of John and Jesus says, “other sheep I have that are not of this fold, and them also I must bring.” And then we come to Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, and we have something of a faint echo of Babel in reverse. In Babel, the languages are confused, they can’t understand one another, and then suddenly we have Pentecost, and they speak in tongues, and the gospel is preached to all. There’s this momentary reversal of a sort.
But of course, the problem is not just language. The problem is one of the heart, one of deep sin and corruption. And so as the story unfolds in the Gospels, we find the Lord Jesus offers himself in sacrifice, paying the penalty of his sins, securing all of the new covenant blessings for his people, by which he’ll transform their hearts and make them a new kind of person. And then we have, of course, from that, the global mission project of this age: Go into all the nations and preach the Gospel. Make disciples of all the nations, and bring them into submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. Until finally, then, we come to the book of Revelation, chapter 7, verses 9 to 11. After this—this is a picture of the eternal state, Revelation chapter 7—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, before the Lamb, clothed in white robes and palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice: “Salvation to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” And at last, God’s purpose is fulfilled. The earth is filled with his image-bearers, all collectively bowing before the Lord Jesus Christ, and with one voice, singing his praise. Amen. Let’s pray.