Babel
by John Whitcomb
God’s judgment of the Tower of Babel was one of the greatest catastrophes
in the history of the world. In one moment, a massive, highly complex building project,
involving the entire human race, came to an end. Thousands of workers suddenly found
themselves incapable of communicating with anyone outside their extended family
group. Overwhelmed by fear and frustration, each family group moved away from the
others. Mankind has never recovered.
But what really happened, and why? For centuries, Bible students have wondered about
the following three statements:
- ‘Come, let us build for ourselves … a tower
whose top will reach into heaven’ (Genesis
11:4 ). God’s amazing response to this:
- ‘Behold, they are all one
people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do,
and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them’
(Genesis
11:6). And the earlier words:
- ‘In [Peleg’s] days the earth was divided’
(Genesis
10:25).
The Towers
Let us now consider these three statements in order. First, were these Mesopotamians
who descended from Noah’s family actually attempting to build ‘a tower whose top [would] reach into heaven’
(Genesis
11:4)? The clear answer is ‘No!’ The NASB puts the words ‘will
reach’ in italics, which means that they are not in the original Hebrew text,
but were added in an effort to make sense out of the wording. (The KJV italicizes
‘may reach’.)
But what happens when the Hebrew wording is translated literally? We then have ‘a tower whose top [is] into heaven.’ (cf. NKJV).
And this is exactly what ancient Mesopotamian ziggurat temple-towers were
for! The top compartment represented heaven. The inner walls, in all probability,
were decorated with blue glazed tile, with the sun, the moon, and the five known
planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) lined up along the plane of the
zodiac. In the centre of the room would be their ‘god’ seated upon a
throne! Nebuchadnezzar later rebuilt such a tower in Babylon, which the Sumerians
had called E-TEMEN-AN-KI (‘the building of the foundation-platform of heaven
and earth’).1 The pyramids of
Egypt and, much later, the great Mayan temples of Central America, reflected the
design of the original Tower of Babel.
This was not an innocent, scientifically naive, primitive effort to reach the highest
heavens! It was, instead, a brilliant but blasphemous effort to dismiss forever
the God who had commanded Noah and his three sons after the Flood to ‘be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth’
(Genesis
9:1). Instead of honouring His name (i.e. His character and attributes),
they said, ‘Let us build for ourselves a city
… and let us make for ourselves a name; lest we be scattered abroad
over the face of the whole earth’ (11:4).
The entire enterprise simply reeked with human pride and arrogance. Satan almost
succeeded in completely dominating mankind again, as he had done at the fall of
Adam and Eve, and as he had done before the Flood (with the exception of one family
[Genesis
6:5;
Heb. 11:7]).
The Response of God
The second statement is the astounding response of God to the Babel project: ‘Nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them’
(Genesis
11:6). The triune, sovereign God of the universe, anthropomorphically viewed
as coming down from the third heaven, through the immeasurable distances of ‘outer
space’, views this tower emerging from the tiny speck called Earth with a
sadness that only He can know, and pronounces judgment: ‘Let
us … confuse their language … So the LORD scattered them abroad from
there over the face of the whole earth’ (vs.
7–8).
But how did their linguistic unity provide the possibility and potential for immense
iniquity? Perhaps we can find the answer by looking at the vast English-speaking
world today. Almost instantly, demonic perversions and poisons can penetrate and
permeate the minds of millions through the Internet, as well as via avalanches of
morally hideous films, videos, books and magazines.
Now, what would happen to this Satanic sewage if the more than 300 million people
who speak English suddenly discovered that their linguistic unity was shattered?
The blow to Satan and sinful men would be staggering. God’s intervention at
Babel, dividing and separating people from each other, had a holy and loving purpose.
The Earth was divided
This brings us to the third significant statement: a descendant of Shem named Peleg
was a living witness of this great judgment of God, for ‘in
his days the earth was divided’ (Genesis
10:25). Some have speculated that this division was the breakup and
separation of continents after the Flood. However, these gigantic earth movements
occurred in association with the Flood itself, whereas Peleg lived long after the
Flood.
The entire context of Genesis 10 makes it clear that the division which occurred
in the days of Peleg was linguistic, not geological. Note this threefold
emphasis: ‘the coastlands of the nations were separated
into their lands, every one according to his language … (v.
5); according to their languages … (v.
20); according to their languages … (v.
31).’ Thus, the linguistic division of mankind
described in Genesis 10 anticipates the more detailed explanation in Genesis 11,
just as the brief statement of mankind’s creation in
Genesis 1:26–28 anticipates the greater details of Genesis 2. Genesis
10 leaves the reader pondering these major questions: how and why did Noah’s
monolinguistic family become ‘separated’ from each other (10:5,
31), speaking different languages (10:5,
20,
31)? Genesis 11 provides God’s amazing
answers.
Peleg , which means ‘division’,
was the name which this particular descendant of Noah and Shem acquired by virtue
of his presence at the scene of God’s judgment of the Tower of Babel (Genesis
10:25).
Consider briefly the positive and the negative aspects of the Babel judgment with
respect to God’s love for the world (John
3:16). Positively, as we have seen, Babel has been God’s
enormous roadblock to Satan.
Negatively, however, linguistic pluralism has proven to be for the church,
weakened by centuries of theological and spiritual corruption, a great hindrance
to the spread of the Gospel and the written Word of God, apart from occasional special
divine enablement. The widespread use of Greek in the Roman Empire when the church
was born on the Day of Pentecost was God’s provision for the Gospel message
to reach millions of people in a relatively short period of time (Col.
1:23). But our Lord never intended the Gospel to be confined to Greek! He
commanded us: ‘Make disciples of all
the nations …’ (Matthew
28:19).
Just ten days after His ascension, a great linguistic miracle occurred: ‘There were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men, from every nation
under heaven. And … they were each one hearing [the Apostles] speak in their
own language’ (Acts
2:5–6). Not just Greek, but over a dozen other languages are listed
(vs.
9–11)! Here was Babel in reverse in one sense: in the
days of Peleg the Earth was divided; but in the days of the Apostles
thousands of people from many lands were united for many months,
‘continuing with one mind … and continually
devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching’ (Acts
2:42–46).
The church, however, has only partly succeeded in fulfilling the Great Commission.
Several thousand languages, after two millennia, still have no part of the written
Word of God. How tragic! How many of us will ‘suffer loss’
at the Judgment Seat of Christ (1
Cor. 3:15) because of disobedience to our Lord’s commands?
Nevertheless, at the end of this age, there will be ‘a
great multitude … from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues
… and they will cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our
God who sits on the throne, and to the Lambâ€?’ (Rev.
7:9–10). The curse of Babel, the division (peleg)
of peoples, the separation of nations, and the confusion of tongues will
end forever; and the wisdom and love of our great God, even in His judgments, will
be understood in a new way by those who have put their trust in Him.
Related articles
Reference
- See J.D. Douglas (Ed.), The Illustrated Bible Dictionary,
Part 1, Tyndale House Publishers, Illinois, USA, p. 155, 1980. Return
to text.
Adapted from a two-part article originally appearing in the Faith Pulpit,
a publication of Faith Baptist Theological Seminary, Ankeny, Iowa, USA, October.
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