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6 And the Lord said, “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. 7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. ~ Genesis 11:6-9
Today, we continue our study of Genesis 11. In our last study we considered the first five verses of this chapter wherein we discovered the building of the Tower of Babel and the reason behind its build. The Tower of Babel is a case of a self-fulfilled prophecy. As you know, Babel means confusion. And, of course that is what the people who thought they were making a name for themselves ended up, in a serious state of confusion.
In v.6 of today's passage we read, "And the Lord said, '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.'"
God’s response to man’s arrogance and presumption was to make it harder for them to communicate and thus harder to unite in their rebellion against God. Since God knew the immense potential in the people whom He had created in his image, He had to step in and do something. What God did in confusing and disrupting the goals of man at the Tower of Babel was tantamount to what He did in the Garden of Eden when He placed the angels with the sword at the Tree of Life. So, God multiplied their languages in order to limit their ability to exalt themselves and find security apart from Him.
This is the road that Lucifer has always led mankind down, away from God. But, the key to overcoming the activity and influence of evil in our lives and in our world is to recognize it and then expose it. We best expose evil for what it truly is by exposing it to the light of God's Word. And, when we expose evil to the light of Christ, evil loses its power in our lives and in the lives around us. Since the Bible is no mere human writing, but is authored by God Himself, it has a unique power to transform the human heart, to "make us wise unto salvation." God's Word enlightens our minds, unveils His plan of salvation through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ, teaches us His ways, and shows us how to live as His people on this earth. In order to meet with confidence and wisdom the many challenges of our time, we must be renewed in our zeal to meet the Lord daily through the study of His Word. This is how we fend off the onslaughts of the evil one.
In v.7 of today's passage we read, "Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech."
Here again, God refers to Himself in the plural. He said, "let us go down." Even though the word "Trinity" is not used in the Bible, the concept is all throughout. All three Persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, comprise the one, perfectly unified God. They share the same nature and essence, and they are all the same God, but each individual Person of the Trinity is distinct and unique.
It was at this point in time that God confused the language of the people by their lip, their speech, not by their words. And this explains why all the way back in v.1 of the chapter the idea of the language of man was divided into two parts. As the people were working, their speech became confusing to one another to the point where one person would ask for a brick and the other person would bring a stick. In no time at all, fights broke out, people killed each other, and decided to pick up their families and bail out of the God-sized task they had set out on.
In v.8-9 of today's passage we read, "8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth."
As the people moved out into the world with their increasingly distinct languages, they developed written languages to assist them in their lives and to keep their cultures tied together. Here then is a miracle of God which disperses the people of the world and which caused devolution from one culture and monotheism to a cacophony of cultures and a world rife with religious beliefs which encompass the earth even to this day. But by another miracle of God, the world’s people are reunited in the family of God and all speak in one voice, not as individuals, but through God’s manifestation of Himself in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the true Universal Translator for everyone who has been reunited into God’s family through His shed blood.
The credit for the dispersion of the people is given solely to the Lord. It is He who directs the winds which blow across the nations and through time and it is He who fashions the changes in everything, from the transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly, to the number and size of the nations on the earth. He is in complete control of everything that happens around us.
The city the people left behind was called Babel, which means confusion in the Hebrew language. Spiritual Babylon is the city of confusion even to this day. In the place where religion is developed by man, there is confusion. In the place where people attempt to please God through their works, there is confusion. And in the place where God’s word is disregarded or distorted, there is confusion.
This is why God has given us His word because His word reveals His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ who reveals to us the unseen Father. There is nothing confusing in that scenario. Apart from this revelation, there is only confusion and disorder, but when we open our eyes and our hearts to the truth of God’s word, confusion is replaced with right thinking. Anger is replaced with peace. And discontentment is replaced with the hope of a better life at the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The tower of Babel teaches us one major lesson: we were never meant to center our lives on who we are and what we can do, but on God who created us. The tower of Babel illustrates for us the fatal delusion of all man-made religion that says that through superior effort man can reach God. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is infinitely more beautiful than any other religion because it says that, although man is sinful and God is holy, man can be forgiven and gain access to the presence of God if he’ll only repent of his sins and look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for his salvation.
