Genesis 11:1-9

Genesis 11:1-9

Human potential is best realized living humbly for the glory of God. 

When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, the country was still reeling from the 1979 revolution, and he believed a few weeks of fighting would solidify his position as the leader of a unified pan-Arabist dream. It proved to be one of the greatest political errors of his career. 

By 1983 the war showed no sign of ending, and Iraqis did not understand why they were fighting in a conflict they never asked for. To fuel support for the battle, Saddam turned increasingly to grand nationalist building projects.

At the same time, the dictator became obsessed with the Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar, who is notorious for waging bloody wars to seize large swaths of current-day Iran and Israel. Saddam saw himself as a modern reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar, and to prove it, he spent millions building a massive reconstruction of Babylon.

His palace at Babylon is the clearest example of his hubris. It’s carved with Arabic calligraphy that at first glance resembles religious iconography, but upon closer appraisal reveals itself to be Saddam Hussein’s initials.

To this day, in the maze behind the Southern Palace, scores of bricks are stamped with a declaration: “In the reign of the victorious Saddam Hussein, the president of the Republic, may God keep him the guardian of the great Iraq and the renovator of its renaissance and the builder of its great civilization, the rebuilding of the great city of Babylon was done in 1987.”

The war would end in stalemate in 1988. Eventually his palace would become a base for American operations, left ruined and vacant today. And in 2007 Saddam would be executed by the government of Iraq for genocidal crimes against his own people.

This is but one story, among millions more, that follow the trajectory of pride, taken to scale, on the backs of others for the glory of man. 

It just so happens the story took place on the same soil and engaged the same sin as our story from Scripture today. The ongoing saga of humanity apart from God, disobedient and living for something other than their created purpose. But, the plan of God prevails, it may open our eyes to both sin to be savagely warred against and beauty to behold in the glory of Christ. 

Human potential is best realized living humbly for the glory of God. 

Where are we in Genesis? This account of the human story has covered 20 generations in just 11 chapters, while the next 38 chapters will describe just 4 generations. 

Creation, humanity as the pinnacle, the garden, sin, the promise of a seed, exile from the garden, murder, increasing violence, evil, flood, Noah and a covenant to withhold destruction. The call to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth. 

Chapter 10 has a table of nations, which feels like fulfillment of that call, but chapter 11 explodes before us and explains, seemingly, an event that happened before the nations spread in their lands with their own languages. 

Disobedience leading to sinful pursuit of glory that triggers correction, confusion and the instigating of greater glory to come. 

Collective pride; Cultural multiplicity. 

Collective Pride Brings Ruin

Here is humanity, with one language, “one mouth.” Having migrated to the plain of Shinar and settled. 

Genesis 11:3–4 “And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. [4] Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” (ESV)

“The renewed dominion mandate states clearly that human beings after the flood were to fruitfully teem on the whole earth and fill it (9:1, 7). Dominion over creation was implied when God delivered living creatures and plant life into human hands (vv. 2–3), which requires responsible cultivation and husbandry as well as development of technology and tools to accomplish this. Certain places such as the plains of Shinar in the southern part of Mesopotamia (11:2; see 10:10; 14:1; Dan. 1:1–2), for example, housed predatory animals such as lions, panthers, and hyenas that made building walls and cities necessary for protection.” S.M. Baugh 

But they went further than building for protection. 

First the aim to build a city, second they plan to build a tower in that city that reaches to the heavens; third they aim to make a name for themselves; and fourth, they aim not to be dispersed over the whole earth. 

Their first two aims correspond to the second two, building a city is the way to avoid being dispersed, and building a tower is the way one makes a name for oneself. 

So the city and tower are outward expressions of inward sins, hunger for glory, and faux security which is disobedience to God. 

I used to think the primary sin was trying to be bigger than God. But here they are doing the direct opposite of what God has purposed for them to do. 

Humanity, existing with inborn sin, can’t help but disobey. 

Genesis 9:1 “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” (ESV)

Spread out, be many, fill the earth. 

He doesn’t need to tell them why, and we will talk about the why in our second point, but we have another clear directive from God that is disobeyed. They are supposed to be scattered and they are clustered instead. 

And in their collective reality, pride takes root and wants acclaim. 

Now, I know reformed folk are not usually known for thinking highly of humanity. We make shirts that say “You are not enough!” We remind you of your depravity, the evil intentions of all your thoughts, and go on constantly about the need for saving. 

Evenso, humanity is tremendously capable. 

As image-bearers, we were made to be creative, innovative. The things we do are amazing. The things we have built; the Pyramids, the Great Wall, the Mall of America. 

The technology we have developed; the wheel, the phone, electricity, the x-ray, manned flight, computers, sliced bread. 

Advancements in medicine, cures for disease, vaccines. Empires, governments, democracy if you can keep it! 

Pizza! That humans came up with pizza! What brilliance! Our potential knows no bounds.

We are amazing, imaginative, clever, ingenious… and, awful. 

Far too often our innovation has resulted in oppression or harm of others, whole races of people. Disregard, destruction of creation. War. 

Making a name for yourself is one heck of a drug that doesn’t care for who it has to run over to get to the goal. 

And when communities, nations, whole people groups are convinced, it can be devastating. While we may focus on one character in our history books, the Hilters and Pol Pots come to power riding the tide of collective pride. 

And this is all after the dispersal of Genesis 11. 

The human condition is just like it was with Adam, thinking we get to decide what is best for us, that we can rise up and claim the place of God. 

This is the story of mankind from the garden to our moment apart from the grace of Christ. 

In their collective pride they make bricks and begin to build. 

Foreshadowing the world system that will be highlighted as evil and in opposition to the ways of Yahweh. The place will be named Babel, confusion. Go on to be Babylon. 

Babylon becomes symbolic of human opposition to God and the antithesis of the city that God desires to have constructed for his glory on the earth.

World system to be swept away at judgment. 

Isaiah 14:20–23 “You will not be joined with them in burial,

because you have destroyed your land,

you have slain your people.

“May the offspring of evildoers

nevermore be named!

[21] Prepare slaughter for his sons

because of the guilt of their fathers,

lest they rise and possess the earth,

and fill the face of the world with cities.”

[22] “I will rise up against them,” declares the LORD of hosts, “and will cut off from Babylon name and remnant, descendants and posterity,” declares the LORD. [23] “And I will make it a possession of the hedgehog, and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” declares the LORD of hosts.” (ESV)

Revelation 14:8 “Another angel, a second, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality.” (ESV)

“Her sins are heaped high as heaven. . . . As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, “I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.” . . . Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.” (Revelation 18:5, 7, 10)

Even the tower itself is a sign of arrogance.

Of course individual pride is a sin that must be slayed, but when it is paired with others it's devastating. 

This drive to make a name for ourselves can drive us to recreate ourselves. And the effect can be so tragic that neither we nor anyone else knows who we are. 

Alan Richardson says it well: “The hatred of anonymity drives men to heroic feats of valour or long hours of drudgery; or it urges them to spectacular acts of shame or of unscrupulous self-preferment. In its worst forms it tempts men to give the honour and glory to themselves which properly belong to the name of God.”

Ironically, rather than the tower reaching the heavens, Yahweh came down to see the city and tower which the “children of man (Adam)” had built. And he confuses them not because he is truly worried of what humanity will do, but to put them back on his purpose.

“God was not threatened by humankind’s corporate potential — “Oh no, if they band together, what shall I do?” Instead, he was troubled by what would happen to humanity if the human family was left unchecked. They would build up a delusion of self-sufficiency through their false religion, corporate security, and political uniformity. They would throw off God and attempt to rule the universe. And in their delusion they would never turn to God. Their Babylonian hearts would become impenetrable and irredeemable.” Kent Hughes

Identity, name, is to be found in God’s purpose. 

A reputation guaranteeing that one would be honored after death. This account intentionally contrasts with Abram and the “name” God promises him (12:1–3) by calling him out from the same urban environment and into a “backwater” land with little promise for security and worldly success. 

Continues the redemptive story’s invitation to align our lives with the purposes of God, not our own desires and pride. It is not a rejection of personality, or vocation, or even place, but a call to submit all of those things under the Lordship of Jesus. That he would reign above them, not adjacent to them or below them. 

“Then, and today, the message is the same: We must leave Babel with its proud dreams and God-defying ways if there is to be any hope. We must abandon our Babylonian hearts’ search for security in the city of man with its collective delusions. Man’s Babylonian heart may meld political philosophy and economic theory and technology and psychology and religion into a mighty, self-elevating ziggurat — but it will never effect the autonomy or security we long for. We will never scale heaven. We must leave off chasing after a name and find our identity in Christ.” Kent Hughes 

The city and the tower were a continuation of disobedience and the decree of God had a better story to tell. 

So the heavenly council confuses their language. 

Genesis 11:8 “So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. (ESV)

“Human plans are confounded that the divine order may proceed from them. Such is the course of the world’s history.” John Peter Lange et al., A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Genesis 

It is good, and it is for his glory. 

Cultural Multiplicity is a Restraining Grace

I learned something new this week. Some see diversity of language and cultures as a product of sin. And I suppose I fell into that camp viewing Pentecost merely as an event to “reverse” what happened at Babel. Interestingly, Pentecost didn’t reinstate “One mouth,” one language. 

But here the command of God called for multiplying, filling the earth. So it is Yahweh's intervention that brings about cultures and nations. Before Babel humans were united in “settling.” God’s interference not only confuses, to keep them from building, but to force them to spread apart, to meet the mandate. 

It follows Yahweh’s pattern of punishment for protection. Taking Adam and Eve out of the garden to protect them from making the mistake of trying to eat of the tree of life. 

“Although God was judging the pride of the people in Babel, the results of different nations, languages, ethnicities, and cultures were not a byproduct of sin. Instead, the Babel narrative was the beginning steps of God’s plan to create a diversity of cultures and nations. 

On the surface, God preventing the building of this tower might seem like a punishment, but in the larger picture of God’s purposes, it was a way to make sure that humanity would receive the blessing given in the Noahic Covenant (Genesis 9). The same “irony” occurs in the New Testament. Jesus told his disciples to spread out from Jerusalem to make disciples of all the nations (Acts 1:8). However, we see that they don’t leave Jerusalem immediately. Thus, God allowed persecution to enter Jerusalem, which forced them to go to Judea, Samaria, and other regions, just as Jesus wanted them to do before he ascended back to heaven (Acts 8:1).” Andrew Kim 

Multiplicity on purpose. 

Humanity is meant to have a beauty about us that looks different, sees things differently, experientially. All of it to show something of the magnificence of our Creator and his glory. 

This dispersal though, and the resulting multiplicity is also a restraining grace against the potential for collective human achievement opposed to God. 

“His response to the presumption and arrogance of man was to make it harder for man to communicate and thus to unite in God-belittling global plans. God has built into the world a system by which the pride of different groups of people restrains the pride of other groups of people. God knows the immense potential of human beings created in his own image. And he has given them amazing liberty to exalt themselves and design their own security systems without trusting him. But there are limits. Thousands of languages around the world and thousands of different peoples limit the global aspirations of arrogant mankind.” John Piper 

It serves to magnify the glory of Christ. Does so in four ways. 

Christians are guarded. “God’s division of the world into different languages hinders the rise of a global, monolithic anti-Christian state that would have the power to simply wipe out all Christians.” Christianity always gets in the way of human pride, collective or otherwise. Diversity of language and cultures does not hamper the spread of the gospel. The gospel of the glory of Christ spreads better and flourishes more because of 6,500 languages, not just in spite of it.

Every “ethne” is claimed. Babel and God’s judgement leads to the glory of Christ because the authority and power of Jesus is magnified as he lays claim on every language group and every people.

Matthew 28:18–19 “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19] Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (ESV)

“His power is all the more glorious because it breaks into so many different languages and peoples and brings salvation.”

The gospel is glorified. “A great part of the glory of the gospel is that it is not provincial. It is not a tribal religion. It breaks into every language and every people. If there were no multiplicity of languages, if the spectacular sin of Babel had not happened with its judgment, the global glory of the gospel of Christ would not shine as beautifully as it does.” 

Jesus is praised. Because of Babel, where we are headed is absolutely glorious. 

Revelation 5:9–10 “And they sang a new song, saying,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll

and to open its seals,

for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God

from every tribe and language and people and nation,

[10] and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,

and they shall reign on the earth.” (ESV)

Revelation 7:9–10 “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, [10] and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (ESV)

From a spectacular sin on the plain of Shinar, to a spectacular unified people praising the Lamb, made one not by attempts to make a name for themselves but by the One whose name is above every name. 

Crying out with a loud voice to the Lord. Just as he planned. For his glory. 

Zephaniah 3:9 “For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples

to a pure speech,

that all of them may call upon the name of the LORD

and serve him with one accord. (ESV)

Until then, we live humbly obedient to his way, for his glory, in opposition to pride, cherishing the multiplicity of his kingdom, living up to the potential he has given us. 

Human potential is best realized living humbly for the glory of God. 

Check Whose Name is being made much of - This serves as a cautionary reflection for us to assess whether our collaborations and communal efforts today are aligned with God's will or if they serve human pride.

In all your endeavors, with all humility, whether you eat or drink, whether you join a club, a crowd, a nation, a church, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. What does it profit someone should they gain the whole world but lose their soul? Jesus gave his life to give you new life, that you could find yours giving it to him. Go about it. 

Celebrate the tapestry of the Kingdom to the glory of Christ - Multiplicity helps us see Jesus more clearly, from different experiences and angles. Seek it, cherish it. Build it. 

And may what we build bring glory to Christ along. 

There will be other dictators, regimes, collective pride that ravages and then passess like a vapor in the scheme of eternity. 

Babylon still stands. She still lures the crowd to be great, to make a name. Resolve to lift one name high even if it leaves us scattered and in obscurity. Glorifying God is exactly where we are meant to be. 

May it be so in us.