Day 10 – The Tower of Babel

• Following Noah and his sons leaving the ark, the people of the world begin, once again, to multiply and multiply. This, of course, was part of God’s great plan! If you cast your eyes back to Genesis 10:32, you’ll see that it talks of the nations spreading abroad, but chapter 11 starts with all the people quite close to each other, each speaking the same language. This simply means that the stories are not chronological, and that the events that we read today happened a little earlier.
• What did the people camped at Shinar (11:2) plan to do? What was their logic and reasons? Who was very specifically left out of their plans for self-sufficiency?
• In verse 5, the narrator talks of God “coming down” to see what the humans are building. There is irony in phrase – it highlights the limitations of the actions of the puffed-up people! They could never actually get to God by building – God had to come to them.
• What does God do to frustrate their plans? Can you see the (tricky to spot!) connection between Genesis 11:3, 11:7 and 1:26? If not, don’t worry… there will be hints later.
• The city of Babel has a double meaning. It sounds like our English word “babble”, which of course means to speak without meaning. It also refers to Babylon, which is a city in the Old Testament we’ll read about later, which is closely linked to sin and idolatry.
• According to Psalm 19, what can every person understand no matter what language they speak?
• In November 2013, I went to the northern Lake District with Eureka for our weekend away. We left the lights of the town and went into the deep countryside. When we got there, after a long drive, we stepped out of the minibus and gasped. For about a minute, everyone was transfixed on the beauty of the stunning display of stars in the night sky, more than many of us had ever seen before. It was so dark that countless stars were visible. Have you experienced something like that? Next time you do, spend those minutes looking in the sky and think about whether they help you to understand the truth in Psalm 19:1-2.
• Acts 2 narrates something we now call Pentecost. It’s a specific event in the early church showing the coming of the Holy Spirit after Jesus ascended into Heaven. How does God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, overcome the language barrier He created in Genesis 11?
• Can you see all parts of the Trinity at work in today’s readings?

Quick as a flash, today’s readings bring us to the end of a period of the bible often referred to as “prehistory”, or the period before the Jewish nation. In other words, what we’re read so far, and finishing with today, can be distinguished from the stuff we’ll read about in Genesis 12 onward, where we are introduced to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

I wonder if you learned anything new today about the story of the tower at Babel. I did! I thought that the people built the tower because they wanted to find God by building a tower to Him (my initial understanding of verse 4). Now I see it differently. Instead, I see a people who think that they can be like God, as powerful as God, and ultimately, to have no need for God. By assuming that they could reach the heavens without God’s help, they were defiantly turning away from God rather than genuinely trying to seek Him. Just as God said “let us make man”, the humans say to each other “let us make bricks”. They are giving themselves the glory, rather than God.

There is an obvious warning to us about trying to reach God through our own efforts. We’ll never make it – not by a thousand miles. We need Jesus to do that – so how wonderful that God gave Him for us! As Jesus finished his work, the work of the Holy Spirit to start undoing the curse of Genesis 11 began. It will be complete – gloriously – when, in Revelation 19, all the people on the earth will be brought back together in one place and with one voice, all singing praises to our Creator and Father.