Skyscraper

“Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 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; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’ But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 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.’ So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.” Genesis 11: 1-8 

The tower of Babel story is an interesting one to me. I had first heard it was an explanation of why we have so many different languages, and also that God punished the descendants of Noah because they had gotten too proud and were trying to reach God. Secular interpretations are that God was “competing” with mankind and was afraid that man could do anything. Of course this is not true. God is omnipotent, all mighty and sovereign. Mankind is no match for Him, and He isn’t afraid that mankind would be able to do “anything.” He knows exactly what mankind can and cannot do, He created mankind.

What the real issue is, though is this: in Genesis 9:1, God blesses Noah and his sons and tells them to “be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.” He wanted mankind to fill His earth—to increase in number and go to all parts of His earth. By stopping and attempting to create a tower that was so great that it could reach the sky, the descendants of Noah were disobeying. They had gotten complacent with their homogenous group and did not want the challenge to disperse and fill the earth. 

I have found the tower of Babel just an excellent demonstration of God’s creativity and ingenuity—He wanted us to go forth to all His earth, with all its different geological terrain and climates and from that, build diverse cultures and communities. He wanted us to be unique not just individually, but communally. What a truly remarkable God He is.

It is funny to think that they could even fathom that they could build something that would reach the skies though. Even without all the technology that we have, just looking upwards, you can see that it is really really really far up there!

Last year at this time, we went to NYC, one of my favorite cities on earth, and saw the Empire State Building at night! This was fabulous!