Introduction – After the flood the people began, once again, to look to man for leadership, instead of trusting God to take care of them

1 – The rise of Nimrod (Genesis 10)

One of the men the people began to look to for leadership was a man named Nimrod. Nimrod wasn’t a godly man (according to Josephus), but he was a skilful hunter, and could protect the people from the wild animals and hostile bands of marauders that wandered throughout the land. Nimrod organised the people into cities and surrounded them with high walls. These cities were then part of a united kingdom – Babel, Caleh, Erech & Accad are mentioned. The capital city was Babel. He placed himself in a position of great authority and ruled his subjects with an iron hand. Nimrod was a shrewd man. He knew that people would be more submissive if they felt they were working toward a common goal. Even though God had promised that never again would the earth be covered with a flood, Nimrod convinced the people that they should construct a building that would tower so high into the heavens that no waters could ever reach its top. He was also a “hunter for men’s souls” according to Jewish understanding of these verses. His desire was to conquer and achieve mastery of the world.

2 – Conditions Prior to Confusion – One Language in the World (Genesis 11:1)

• Working together for evil – If all the inhabitants of this post-flood world are descendants of Noah, they must have spoken a common language. Now there is nothing wrong with a common language. It is not in itself evil, nor is it the cause of evil. Communication was greatly enhanced by it. It facilitated community life and was the foundation for unity. Potentially, a common language could have drawn men and women together in the worship and work of God. (In the book of Acts a common Greek language helped the Gospel message) Practically, it was perverted to promote disobedience and unbelief. God’s gift of language, like other gifts of His grace, was misused. Sinful man cannot do anything but misuse God’s gifts of grace.
• Talking the same language today – The United Nations, NATO, European Union/Common Market, World Council of Churches, Evangelicals and Catholics Together, the Internet and Translator Software, etc. Now that the language barrier has been largely overcome the rate of progress over the past 50 years has been dramatically accelerated – Medicine, Engineering, Technology, Science, etc.

3 – The Unity of Unbelief (Genesis 11:2-4)

• The tower of Babel – This was most likely a circular stepped building known as a ziggurat – “hill of heaven”. A temple was normally constructed on top. A clay tablet unearthed with the following account of a ziggurat – “The erection of this tower highly offended all the gods. In a night they threw down what man had built … they were scattered abroad and their speech was strange”. The ziggurats have a different function and development than that of the pyramids of Egypt. These ziggurats are in essence mud-brick Mountains or platforms for the most important temples. They are a meeting place between the heavens and earth. The stairs of the ziggurat are to human scale and therefore are for climbing while the structure of the Egyptian pyramid is not.
• Trading in your tent for a townhouse (vs. 2). The offspring of Noah had migrated to the fertile plain in the land of Shinar (Fertile Crescent) and there settled down. The word “journeyed” in Genesis 11:2 literally meant ‘to pull up stakes.’ Urban life has not been presented in a favourable light thus far in Genesis. Cain built a city and named it after his son Enoch (Genesis 4:17). God had said that he should live as a vagrant and a wanderer (4:12). It is very likely that Nimrod was the leader in the movement to settle in Shinar and build this city with its tower. Settling in the valley of Shinar was an act of disobedience. God had commanded men to spread out and fill the land, not to congregate in cities: “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.… And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it'” (See Genesis 9:1, 7). Now their success in doing these things fired their ambition. This almost always happens. When they discovered that they could use other than natural materials for building, but could invent their own, they were fired with desire to put these to work. The appearance of the first city was back in the story of Cain and Abel, when Cain went out and built a city. It illustrated the hunger of humanity to huddle together for companionship, even though they were not really ready to do it. God’s final intention is to build a city for man. Abraham looked for “a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God,” {Hebrews 11:10 RSV}. Spiritually and materially this should be our attitude.
• The mid-life syndrome or monument building (vs. 2). The world is filled with people who desperately wish to be remembered. All of us are inclined to build monuments to ourselves in one way or another. Men must face what has come to be referred to as the ‘mid-life syndrome.’ We reach those middle years when we begin to realise that most of what we intended to do has not yet been accomplished. And we can no longer deny the fact that the better part of life has been lived. Often at this crisis point men feverishly begin to build monuments by which they will be remembered. It reveals one of the basic philosophies of humanism: “Glory to man in the highest, for man is the master of things.” That is the central thought of humanism, glory to mankind. Unquestionably there was a plaque somewhere attached to it that carried the pious words, “Erected in the year xxxx, to the greater glory of God.” But it was not really for the glory of God; it was a way of controlling God, a way of channelling God by using him for man’s glory. That is what man’s religion has always sought to do. It is a way of making God available to us.
• The wrong motivation (vs. 4) “… lest we be scattered over the face of the whole earth” (verse 4). While rebellion, pride, and unbelief are evident in the story, the underlying problem is one of FEAR. The hatred of anonymity drives men to heroic feats of valour or long hours of drudgery; or it urges them to spectacular acts of shame or of unscrupulous self-preferment. In the worse forms it attempts to give the honour and the glory to themselves which properly belong to the name of God. These men of old knew of God’s command and of His covenant. Otherwise why would they have feared being scattered? But all they had was a promise from God. They would rather place their faith in bricks and tar. How soon men forget the most tremendous judgments, and go back to their former crimes! Though the destruction of the flood was before their eyes, though they sprang from the stock of righteous Noah, yet even during his lifetime, wickedness increases exceedingly. Nothing but the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit can remove the sinful lusts of the human will, and the depravity of the human heart. God’s purpose was, that mankind should form many nations, and people all lands. In contempt of the Divine will, and against the counsel of Noah, the bulk of mankind united to build a city and a tower to prevent their separating. Idolatry was begun, and Babel became one of its chief seats. They made one another more daring and resolute. Let us learn to provoke one another to love and to good works, as sinners stir up and encourage one another to wicked works.

4 – God decides to restrain mankind (Genesis 11:5-7)

• Nothing is ever hidden from God’s investigation – These verses have been disturbing to many because they may seem to diminish the sovereignty of God. It might seem that God has let a situation get nearly out of control before He was even aware of it. One of the angels has informed God of the incident at Babel and God has hastily descended to investigate the matter. Any such conception has missed the point of the writer. These verses are a beautifully fashioned satire on the folly of man’s activities. Men had commenced to build a city with a high tower that they thought would make a name for them – a monument. Man’s thoughts and efforts, no matter how lofty, are insignificant to God. While the top of the tower may, from the vantage point of earth, seem to pierce the clouds, to the infinite, almighty God it was a barely visible dot on the earth! It was as though God would have to stoop to view it! If God should have to ‘descend’ to scrutinise this city, it was due to the insignificance of it all, not God’s inability to keep up with His creation. Is God threatened after all by this tower of mud and slime that these men have built? Does it mean that he is afraid that men will master all things and that he cannot any longer control them so that the very foundations of the universe will be threatened by this inventive man? No way!
• It is futile to rebel against God – You may be destroyed, but God will not be diverted from His purposes. Such was the conclusion to which Saul was forced: – And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads’ (Acts 26:14). You are just banging your head against a brick wall – “Is that brick wall getting any softer, or is your head just getting softer?” No man can thwart the will of God. A life lived in resistance to the revealed Lord of God must end in frustration and failure. No one can succeed at resisting God – look at the Devil who tried and failed.
• Unity is not the highest good, but purity and obedience to the Word of God. Ecumenism is the watchword of religion today, but it is a unity at the cost of truth. Some regard unity as a goal worthy of any sacrifice. God does not. In fact, the Israelites of old were soon to learn that the Canaanites, unlike the Egyptians (See Genesis 46:33-34), were eager to unite with the chosen people of God (See Genesis 34:8-10, Numbers 25:1ff.). Unity and peace must never be attained at the price of purity. God’s people are to be holy, even as He is holy (Leviticus 11:44f; I Peter 1:16). True unity can only occur in Christ (John 17:21; cf. Ephesians 2:4-22). This unity is to be diligently preserved (Ephesians 4:3). But oneness in Christ results in division from those who reject Christ (Matthew 10:34-36). We must separate ourselves from those who deny the truth (II John 7-11; Jude 3). There can be no true unity with those who deny our God.

5 – God divides mankind (Genesis 11:8-9)

What man had most feared had come to pass. “Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:9). The irony of this event is that what men most desired would have destroyed them, and what they most dreaded would prove to be a part of their deliverance. God says, “Let us go down and confuse their language.” Let us stop man, in his mad folly, from destroying himself off the face of the earth, because he is not God enough to handle it.” So God came down and suddenly, as the workers gathered for work one morning, they found they could not communicate with each other anymore. What a scene this must have been! The foreman would give orders, but the men would shake their heads; they didn’t understand. The foreman would yell, but they wouldn’t get it. They would try to explain but he couldn’t understand them. You can imagine what fist-shaking, table-pounding and yelling went on here. It was utter confusion. At one time in history the name Babel (Ba”b-ili) meant in Babylonian “the gate of God.” By means of a play on words God changed its name to “confusion” (Balal). Work on the tower that Nimrod had envisioned reaching into the sky came to a standstill and it became known as Babel, meaning confusion. The city of Babylon continued under Nimrod’s direction, but the tower was never completed.

The communication gap created in Genesis chapter 11 can only be bridged by Christ. The Old Testament prophets recognised the ongoing effect of Babel, and spoke of a day when it would be reversed: ‘For then I will give to the peoples purified lips, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord, to serve Him shoulder to shoulder. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia My worshipers, my dispersed ones, will bring my offerings. In that day you will feel no shame because of all your deeds by which you have rebelled against Me; for then I will remove from your midst your proud, exulting ones, and you will never again be haughty on my holy mountain’ (Zephaniah 3:9-11) The phenomenon of tongues in Acts chapter two indicates the ‘first fruits’ of the renewal, which is yet to be realised in full. Frankly, I am deeply troubled at the ignorance of Christians today regarding the communication gap we experience in our relationships.

The communication breakdown has its roots in Genesis chapter 11. Many wives silently agonise at the way their husbands fail to comprehend what they are trying to tell them, and at their failure to disclose their innermost feelings. While Christ is the answer to this dilemma, most of us fail to grasp the fact that it is a problem, which threatens our relationships.

Categories: Genesis