“The Founding of Babylon”
Genesis 11:1-9
We are reading through the book of Genesis. At this point in the story everyone is traveling East to the Plains of Shinar. If you have your “Table of Nations” map from last week, we are going to the region around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
You may recall that Noah’s hangover poem in chapter 9 provides us with a narrative of the cast of characters we will be meeting in the rest of this biblical drama. Each character from now on, fits into one of the three lineages of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham or Japheth. Then in Genesis 10 we read about each lineage and we discover a repeated theme located at the end of each of the three lineage descriptions: “these were all separated into their lands, everyone by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations.”
Were we to think “narrative time” we would conclude that Noah and his family had just gotten off the boat, but actually, chapter 10 is transporting us way forward in time, multiple generations down the road. Genealogies, especially in Genesis, often carry the story forward and then as you continue to read, you are taken back and given more information. For example in verse 8, we read about Nimrod and what he did and we are told there were all these languages. Which brings us to chapter 11, verse 1,
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.
Flashback, or what is known as chronological dislocation. It’s like chapter 10 took us way down the line from when Noah and his family walked off the boat. Now, in chapter 11 the story gets backed up. We are not told exactly how far back, but to a point when not only did everyone have one language, they were also unified in how they thought and in verse two we read that they found a valley or a plain in Shinar and decided to settle there.
Back in chapter 10 we read who led this group of settlers, verses 8-10
Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.” The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.
When they get there they decide to “brick, bricks” The verb and the noun are the same, and it is usually translated, “make bricks.” These bricks were far easier to put together than finding stones and quicker than lugging stones to the site and having to chisel them to fit, etc. They actually became innovative and created their own building blocks that were identical in shape and could be mass produced. Wow! Technology. They saved time and energy.
Instead of making mortar, they came up with a natural glue, tar, that bubbled out of the ground. Now they were able to keep the blocks in place.
Technologically smart!
Remember, they were made in God’s image.
But it doesn’t take long for this technology to go awry.
Verse 4,
“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.”
They decided to build a city and in this city there would be a tower whose head would be in the heavens.
Why?
In order to make a name for themselves and
In order to keep from being scattered upon all the face of the land.
Oh! Oh!
We were told two times what the people had to say.
Now we’re going to hear the two things that Yahweh has to say.
Yahweh actually came down to see what was going on, verse 5,
“But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.”
I can’t help but think of a time when Emily and Lydia were younger and I would hear something going on that shouldn’t be going on and I would say something like, “I don’t know what’s going on, but hopefully I don’t have to come see what you are doing?”
The first thing Yahweh says, Chapter 11, verse 6,
“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.”
Then He says, verse 7,
“Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
Yahweh also scatters them from there, all over the earth. Which stopped them from building the city.
Yahweh “babbled” their language and that is the name that was given to that place, “Babel.”
Let’s take a closer look at this narrative. It opens with what humans do and closes with what Yahweh does in relationship to all the Land. Inside of that are two speeches of those in Babylon, then Yahweh comes down, and we have two speeches of Yahweh.
Yahweh actually leaves heaven and descends down to earth to check out humans building a city.
It’s not like this is the first city. How many cities have been built so far?
The first city was – Cain City.
Cain gets banished and Yahweh provides a sign of protection, but Cain rejects this and chooses to go East and build a city to protect himself.
Then, here we have Nimrod who begins building cities in Babylon. From there he will go to Assyria and build more cities. In today’s Scripture we have the generations of Noah building a city and along with it a tower to the heavens.
These men were builders but our first builder was Yahweh. Back in the beginning He splits Adam and takes one side of Adam and makes an ‘ezer. The word “to make” used here is actually the word “to build.” It’s an architectural building term. God actually builds a woman. The word ‘ezer means helper, and the only other person called an ‘ezer is Yahweh. Of the dozen times He is called an ‘ezer it’s in situations where people were being defeated by their enemies and Yahweh came to be their ‘ezer to deliver them.
Here’s where the ancient Hebrew language gets intriguing. The Hebrew word for city is “iyr” and with just the tiniest little stroke of a little line above this word, it gets changed to ‘ezer. This is what Jesus calls a jot or a tittle. So Yahweh builds the first ‘ezer and then what humans continue to try and build for themselves is their “iyr” or their own ‘ezer, their own form of rescue.
Cain didn’t trust the protective sign Yahweh had given him, he had to build his own ‘ezer/ iyr.
The people of Babylon set out to build their own iyr, trying to provide their own deliverance.
It continues to get more intriguing…. What gender are cities always assigned in the Hebrew Bible? Female.
This connection continues in the New Testament with the image of the bride, where Jerusalem is the bride and the body of the Messiah is the bride and all that Paul does in Ephesians.
Yahweh is the first builder and all human buildings are usually efforts to provide their own security, their own Eden. Where they can be in control.
In fact, we can trace this theme right back to Adam and Eve in Eden. Remember this from Genesis chapter 3? Adam and Eve were hiding and God came to meet with them, verse 22 &23,
“And the Lord God said, “Humanity has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden…”
Next was Cain, then Lamech, to Noah, to Ham, to Nimrod.
Noah was a righteous man and because he was found walking faithfully with God he and his family were saved.
But faithfulness is not a hereditary trait. All three of Noah’s sons survived the flood. But one of them was power hungry and those in his clan were also power hungry and came up with their own way to get back to Eden. They decided to unite by building a city and then by building a tower that connected them with the gods.
Take a look at our world today. Post resurrection and still power hungry people exist. Our Christian tradition tends to focus on one main view of what’s wrong with humans. We’ve tried to condense our problem down to one issue, we go back to the Eden story and blame it on Adam and Eve and original sin. When actually, the Eden story just sets a chain reaction that culminates right here in chapter 11. “The Fall” isn’t just what happened in the Garden of Eden It is the entire narrative we have just read, chapters 3-11. The whole thing is the fall narrative. It’s about a man and a woman, a marriage that falls apart and a family that falls apart. Then we have Lamech, where a whole city falls apart. Then we are back to a man and his stupid decision to drink too much, who has a son, who’s the sex hungry dominant alpha male. Which leads us to Nimrod, the violent and now this. It’s like we get a vision of the human condition from a variety of angles. Every story provides a different portrait. You need all of them to really get what the Bible is trying to tell us about what’s wrong with me and us. There isn’t just one story that is more important, it’s all of them. All of these narratives of rebellion are linked together and make not only a theological claim, but also an anthropological claim and a sociological claim of what’s wrong with all of us.
The narrative continues. We are still rebelling. We still don’t trust in God’s providence. We are still trying to build our own cities of protection. Just in case.
If only we would remember…
Jesus came to free us from this mindset.
He is able.
He has proven by His death on the cross and
resurrection from the grave that He’s got our backs.
We are not in control, He is.
And we come today to the Lord’s Supper to remind us of His love for us which not only covers a multitude of sins, but carries us through them to the other side.
Lord’s Supper.
