April 6, 2024
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Genesis? Here’s today’s reading:
Genesis 11 (NIV)
The Tower of Babel
1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.……Continue Reading
The creation and distinction of languages that happens in this chapter is another example of God’s awesome power! I read this about language…
“Modern linguists know man did not invent language, any more than man invented his own circulatory or nervous system. Most modern linguists believe language is so unique that the only way they can explain it apart from God is to say that it was part of a unique evolutionary process.”
Like creation, God’s unique stamp is on what happened at Babel and while people will try to explain away the miraculous way languages happened we know it is God.
He gave them a job to spread out and they immediately tried to rebel against this plan and worry about another flood and build a tower to stay ahead of God but He already knew that would happened and once again had made the correction we needed to follow His plan, so cool!
Good stuff, Kelly…I like that quote!
Genesis 11
Come let “us” go down and confuse their language. Is that God and angels? The Lord did not want them to be with same language and ideas.
When the Lord scattered them all over the the face of the earth. In what manner was that done? Picking up and placing or with the wind! Just wondering. Can you imagine waking up and looking at familiar faces but no longer understanding what each were saying. Beyond confusion!
It could be a reference to angels but also to other members of the trinity…and that more likely since that is what it says in Genesis 1 around the creation of man and woman. It was not the angels in that case…And I imagine the scattering went progressively..as food, water and shelter/protection was made available…
Genesis 11
There is a lot of detail in Genesis 11. But, I see that our God is the God of Language. What God divided at Babel to thwart the designs of the children of Adam, God consolidated in Acts 2, that Adam can be saved. -gy
Great observation, Gordon!
Kelly, that is very interesting what you found out about language. It is one of those parts of creation that one doesn’t think much about. God spoke and things came into being. Language is another part of being in God’s likeness. I have thought, when Adam named the creatures, what language were their names in?
At the Tower of Babel God confused their languages. At Pentecost they could understand one another.
I see God’s act of confusing the language of man as a graceful, merciful act. God has already destroyed all life save Noah and the ark once. He doesn’t really want to have to do it again. Yet, man has shown what a sinful, fallen creation we are…left to our own devices, we will install ourselves on the throne, make ourselves our god, and set about worship of self which ultimately leads to death. Proverbs 14:12
By confusing the efforts of man, God actually gives grace, and shows that he does not “wish that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9.
It is right to think that God is the One who provided man with the capacity and knowledge of language, also man’s industry, intelligence and drive, all marks of God’s image on us. Now when all the capacity of man is directed against the will of God (be fruitful and multiply (they have done that) and fill the earth (that is the rub here)), that is where the problem is. We do have so much ability in our brains and our bodies to do good or do evil, God always has and always will do what He can to thwart the evil and promote good. So disrupting language here makes sense and defines for us why we are, in the place we are in a primary thing that we observe, different people speaking different languages and yet the same heart….the same goals…the same desires. And Christ is the great Savior of all and the great uniter as well.
And yet amongst all these separated peoples, one people is chosen here which will define the rest of scripture as to what accounts will be shared. It is interesting that Terah heads toward Canaan and stops. Had he received a call from God and didn’t complete it and so Abram was called….or was God at least heading Abram’s family in that direction so His call on him wouldn’t be so hard?