The Tower of Babel

After the flood subsided, Genesis tells us that Noah and his children left the ark and made a sacrifice to God on the top of the mountain. There God made a covenant with Noah. This covenant is important because it parallels very closely the original covenant made with Adam. In both covenants God tells humanity to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Gen. 9:1; cf. Gen. 1:28). This tells us that the command to control the earth and subdue it (cf. Gen. 1:28) is still in force after the fall. It also sets us an interesting context for the next significant event in human history, the Tower of Babel.
Before we get to the Tower of Babel though, we should notice the tenth chapter of Genesis. It is traditionally called the Table of Nations. In this portion of Scripture, God gives us a catalog of all the major Mediterranean nations descended from Noah and his sons. It is a fascinating study to see that the Greeks, the Arabs, and others are all carefully cataloged in the Bible for us.
The general location of Babel is pretty easy to deduce. Genesis tells us that after a while the descendants of Noah traveled east and dwelt in the land of Shinar. Shinar is the biblical term for Mesopotamia (lit. the land between the rivers). This means that Noah’s descendants came to live between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. It was here that they decided to dwell and to raise the mighty tower to heaven.
Most archaeologists, whether they accept the biblical narrative or not, identify the structure of the Tower of Babel with the Sumerian ziggurat. The ziggurat was a structure utilized often throughout Sumeria. We have several archaeological examples of these structures. It is not necessary for us to settle on this explanation at this time. The far more important issue, historically, surrounds the reasons why the tower was built and what the effects were rather than what it looked like. It is enough to understand the general geography of the Tower of Babel.
When God made His covenant with Noah, which was a renewal of the original covenant with Adam, He instructed Noah again to “be fruitful and multiply, populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it” (Gen. 9:7 NASB). Part of the command here is to move and spread out. However, we can see an unwillingness to obey the command of God in the Tower of Babel event because the people had not moved around. They had stayed exactly where their forefathers had dwelt. There was an inherent disobedience in the descendants of Noah here. The building of the tower was just the physical manifestation of the internal sin of this disobedience. The people even state this. “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a  name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:4).
The tower is constructed to reach heaven. Historians tell us that many primitive religions see high places as the dwelling place of divinity. We will find this to be generally true whether we are discussing Sumeria or Greece. Why is this? Scripture is consistent in maintaining that God is “high and lifted up” (Is. 6:1). Since we are all made in the image of God and have the knowledge of God imprinted on our hearts, it is by constant suppression that we pretend we do not know God. This is the substance of Paul’s argument in Romans 1:18-32. His conclusion to this argument is that all humanity is “without excuse” (Rom. 1:21) and are subject to the judgment of God because they ignored their responsibilities before Him. Since all men know God it is reasonable to expect them to counterfeit true worship. True worship of God is according to His commands. Counterfeit worship flows from the heart of man and is directed at what he wants God to be like, whether this be an impersonal force or a buddy. Also at the heart of the tower is the desire from the garden to “be like God” (Gen. 3:5).
The tower represents a combination of sinful attitudes and actions on the part of humanity. It is our refusal to obey God in His commands. It is our attempt at counterfeit worship rather than authentic worship. It is also our attempt to be God. Thus the judgment of the Tower of Babel is instructive.
God communicates clearly why He acts. Do not miss how important it is that God communicates His will and reasons to us in the Bible. Many religions have gods that supposedly act in human history. However, few, if any, will give their rationale for acting in issues such as divine judgment. Here and in the Flood, we are not left to our own devices to determine why God chose to do what He did. He tells us, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one anothers speech” (Gen. 11:6-7).
Much about history can be learned is episodes such as the Tower of Babel. Of course, the obvious piece of information is that we get all of the different languages from this event. Why do Egyptians speak differently from Greeks or Native Americans? Simply because God confused their language. The variety of languages in the world is not the result of random and cultural forces alone, it is a direct result of the God of heaven and earth acting judiciously on His creation.
The distribution of peoples can also be traced to this event. Many of the languages cataloged have families, (i.e.) they are similar. We can surmise that some of the languages created in the Tower of Babel judgment were similar and allowed the people to live in close proximity to each other. Others, however, were very different and thus people moved far away. From this, languages continued to develop and an entire history of language exists to consider the relationships they have to each other. Language is a fascinating thing and its history is incredible.