The Tower of Babel

This week we’ll continue our walk through the highlights of the Old Testament!

Last week we looked at the Noahic Flood and its role in the descent of humanity into madness and violence after the Fall of creation into sin. It was a pretty bleak picture! But, of course, this judgement was also an occasion for renewal, as God “begins again” with Noah and his family. 

We pick up the story some time later, as humanity has multiplied and settled on “a plain in Shinar,” from which they build (or rather, attempt to build) the famous “Tower of Babel.” God intervenes, confuses their language, and scatters the people “over the face of the whole earth.” 

Unlike the other stories in the “prehistory” of Genesis 1-11, this text doesn’t give us a very robust theological interpretation of what’s going on. God doesn’t want the tower to be built because if they continue this way “nothing will be impossible for them.” Why this is a bad thing is not discussed.

The best and most common interpretation—especially when considered in light of Pentecost, the great “reversal” or redemption of Babel—is that this “success” would only contribute to the notion that humanity is unlimited in its potential and distract from the reality, which is inescapable, that creatures are contingent (we don’t make ourselves, and didn’t set up the rules of creation upon which we depend), and finite (we have our limits, even if we only consider the physical). 

Understood in this way, one can see (or hear) the parallels between the intent of the community at Shinar and the community of Adam and Eve in the garden: to erase the difference between humankind and God.

This is, surely, the consistent temptation of humanity, and its disastrous consequences have been on display again and again throughout history.

Viewed in this way, God’s confusion of languages and dispersal of the community is a grace to them, however painful. And it sets the stage for the beginning of God's redemptive gathering of peoples, starting in Genesis 12.

Scripture to consider:

• Gen. 11

  
  

Question for your kids

• I wonder: Do you know any languages other than English? Which ones?

• Have you ever traveled to a place where you didn’t understand the language? How did that make you feel?

  
  

Peace,

Danny+