Part 2

GENESIS - 11:5-9

The Prologue (11:1) Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.

 Scene I: (11:2) As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

 Scene II (11:3-4) They said to each other, Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly. They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.

Scene III (11:5) But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.

The puny tower which man built was so far from reaching heaven that God must come down to look at it. This is a common human expression describing God’s investigation of, and response to, man’s prideful yet pitiful effort of building this tower.

We are not to think that God had to come to earth to see what was going on for He is omnipresent and there is nothing man can do that escapes His notice. By using human actions to express God’s assessment of the situation (an anthropomorphism), the text vividly portrays how insignificant are the things of which men boast.

Job 4:18-19 If God places no trust in His servants, if He charges His angels with sin, how much more those who live in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed more readily than a moth!

Psalm 2:1-4 The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure.

Isaiah 40:22 To the one who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers’.

Daniel 4:35  All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: What have you done?

Luke 16:15 That which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.

Scene IV (11:6-7) The Lord said, If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.

God did not topple their tower; had He, they would not have dispersed as God had commanded but in rebellion they would have united together and built another. Rather, God confused their languages and disrupted their communication forcing them to migrate throughout the earth. If you can’t communicate you can’t build.

This united scheme of man, where God was not only left out but directly opposed, was taken seriously by God. A human enterprise that runs counter to the will of God is inherently perverse and doomed for judgment.

God’s deliberations with Himself “let us” reflects His triune nature. As men deliberated together on earth to build a tower so the Triune God deliberated together in heaven to prevent the accomplishment of their plans by confusing their language.

The key to what man was doing in disobedience to God’s command was their ability to cooperate and organize together, and this depended on their ability to formulate and implement complex plans. Basic to everything was their ability to communicate with each other.

Just as people cannot rebel against God without suffering the consequences of their sin, so God will not allow human beings unlimited freedom to do their own thing.

There are occasions in which man by his rebellion and disobedience seeks to thwart the purposes of God and divine intervention is required. The truth is that no purpose of God can ever be thwarted by anyone or anything.

Job 42:2 Lord, I know You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.

Isaiah 14:24, 27 The LORD Almighty has sworn, surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand…  For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?

Isaiah 43:13 Yes, and from ancient days I am he. No one can deliver out of my hand. When I act, who can reverse it?

Scene V (11:8) So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

In Scene I we saw people on the move, coming to live in one place. Now men were forced to move as a result of God’s intervention. The plans of man were frustrated and what they feared most happened. The Lord scattered them over all the earth.

Without the ability to communicate through common language, it was impossible for them to continue working together as a unified people. Empires can only be built where there is a common language.

The process of migration and cultural development did not require long ages, as evolutionists imagine. Rather, the entire world was inhabited within a few generations as has been affirmed by modern archaeologists and anthropologists.

As each family and tribal unit migrated away from Babel, not only did they each develop a distinctive culture, but they also developed distinctive physical and biological characteristics.

After the flood and the removal of the upper canopy, mutation-producing radiation, in time, began to make in-breeding dangerous to the point that God eventually declared incestuous marriages unlawful (Leviticus 18:6-14).

Conclusion (11:9) That is why it was called Babel — because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

This verse summarizes the results of God’s judgment. The inhabitants of the earth, whose ideas of unity, security and well-being ran counter to God’s command, were brought to confusion and forced to scatter over the face of the whole earth.

That which was meant as a showpiece of human enterprise and technology, and as a meeting-point between heaven and earth, became a reminder of divine judgment on human pride and self-sufficiency.

The united action of rebellious man was curbed so that God’s plan to overcome the Evil One and redeem a people to Himself through the promised Seed would in time be fulfilled.

There is coming a day in the new earth when all the redeemed will follow God’s will in obedience to His Word. All who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ will be of one language, living in perfect harmony in that city whose builder and maker is God.

Zephaniah 3:9 There is coming a day when I will give to the people a clear and pure speech from pure lips that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one unanimous consent and one united shoulder [bearing the yoke of the Lord]