The main emphasis in this section is not the building of the tower of Babel but the dispersion of the peoples. We can see this in the literary structure of the passage.361
AAll the earth had one language (v. 1)
Bthere (v. 2)
C one to another (v. 3)
DCome, let's make bricks (v. 3)
ELet's make for ourselves (v. 4)
Fa city and a tower
GAnd the Lord came down to see (v. 5; cf. 8:1)
F'the city and the tower (v. 5)
E'that the humans built (v. 5)
D'Come, let's confuse (v. 7)
C'everyone the language of his neighbor (v. 7)
B'from there (v. 8)
A'(confused) the language of the whole earth (v. 9)
When people attempted to preserve their unity and make a name for themselves by building a tower, Yahweh frustrated the plan and scattered everyone by confusing the language that bound them together.
"The tower of Babel story is the last great judgment that befell mankind in primeval times. Its place and function in Gen 1-11 may be compared to the fall in Gen 3 and the sons of God episode in Gen 6:1-4, both of which triggered divine judgments of great and enduring consequence."362
This story explains to God's people how God scattered the nations and why. Chronologically the Babel incident preceded the dispersal that Moses described with genealogies in chapter 10.
"By placing the Tower of Babel incident just prior to the patriarchal stories, the biblical writer is suggesting, in the first place, that post-Flood humanity is as iniquitous as pre-Flood humanity. Rather than sending something as devastating as a flood to annihilate mankind, however, God now places his hope in a covenant with Abraham as a powerful solution to humanity's sinfulness. Thus problem (ch. 11) and solution (ch. 12) are brought into immediate juxtaposition, and the forcefulness of this structural move would have been lost had ch. 10 intervened between the two."363
"As it is presently situated in the text, the account of the founding of Babylon falls at the end of the list of fourteen names from the line of Joktan (10:26-29). At the end of the list of the ten names of Peleg's line, however, is the account of the call of Abraham (11:27-12:10). So two great lines of the descendants of Shem divide in the two sons of Eber (10:25). One ends in Babylon, the other in the Promised Land."364
11:1-2 Some of the Hamites migrated "east"(specifically southeast) to the plain of Shinar (cf. 10:10). This was in the Mesopotamian basin (modern Iraq).
"In light of such intentional uses of the notion of eastward' within the Genesis narratives, we can see that here too the author intentionally draws the story of the founding of Babylon into the larger scheme at work throughout the book. It is a scheme that contrasts God's way of blessing (e.g., Eden and the Promised Land) with man's own attempt to find the good.' In the Genesis narratives, when man goes east,' he leaves the land of blessing (Eden and the Promised Land) and goes to a land where the greatest of his hopes will turn to ruin (Babylon and Sodom).365
"Following the Ararat departure, the people migrated southeast to the lower Euphrates valley. Genesis 1-11 then has come full circle from Eden' to Babel,' both remembered for the expulsion of their residents."366
11:3-4 The motivation for building a city was to make the builders a name (cf. Ps. 14:1).367The object of this endeavor was to establish a center by which they might maintain their unity. God desired unity for humankind, but one that He created, not one founded on a social state.368They wanted to "empower"themselves. Both motive and object were ungodly. God had instructed man to fill the earth (1:28), to spread over the whole planet.
The builders of the "tower"seem to have intended that it serve as a memorial or landmark among other things. It was probably a ziggurat used for religious purposes.
"Mesopotamian religion claimed that their cities were of divine parentage. A symbol of this obsession with divinity among the Mesopotamians was the ziggurat (Akk. ziqqurratu) that was erected as early as the third millennium B.C. The ziggurat was a step-ladder edifice, made up of mud bricks, whose bottom was square or rectangular. The precise meaning of the structure is unknown, though it is widely agreed that it formed a stairway between the gods and earth (cf. Gen 28:12). At the foot of the ziggurat as well as the pinnacle was a temple area serving as a habitation for the god. Ziggurats may have been considered an earthly imitation of the heavenly residence of the gods."369
11:5-6 Had God allowed this project to continue the results would have been even worse and more serious than they were at this time.
11:7 God's soliloquy in this verse mimics the language of the tower builders in verses 3 and 4. The confusion of language probably involved more than just the introduction of new words.
"If language is the audible expression of emotions, conceptions, and thoughts of the mind, the cause of the confusion or division of the one human language into different national dialects might be sought in an effect produced upon the human mind, by which the original unity of emotion, conception, thought, and will was broken up. This inward unity had no doubt been already disturbed by sin, but the disturbance had not yet amounted to a perfect breach."370
Some scholars believe that this judgment also involved the implantation of ethnic and racial distinctions in humankind. The Table of Nations in chapter 10 may imply this.371
11:8 The resultant confusion led to a scattering of the people over the "whole earth"(cf. v. 9). God did not allow human rebellion to reach the level that it did before the Flood. God forced people to do what they refused to do voluntarily, namely, scatter over the face of the earth.
Some interpreters take the confusion of languages to have been a local phenomenon only.372Most, however, regard it as the source of the major language groups in the world today.
11:9 "Babel"means "confusion"in Hebrew, and "the gate of gods"in Babylonian.
". . . Gen 11:1-9, the tower of Babel story, is a satire on the claims of Babylon to be the center of civilization and its temple tower the gate of heaven (E[numa]E[lish] 6:50-80): Babel does not mean gate of God, but confusion' and folly.' Far from its temple's top reaching up to heaven, it is so low that God has to descend from heaven just to see it! (11:4-9)."373
This was the original Babylon that forever after was the city most consistently rebellious against God's government in human history. It stands as a symbol of organized rebellion against God elsewhere in Scripture (e.g., Rev. 17 and 18).374
"Man certainly did not expect his project to take such a turn. He did not anticipate that the name he wanted to make for himself would refer to a place of noncommunication."375
The story of Babel is important for several reasons.
1. It explains the beginning of and reason for the various languages of mankind.
2. It probably explains the origin of the "races"within humankind.
"The separate language groups no longer could inter-marry freely with the rest of mankind. As in-breeding and lack of access to the larger pool of genes occurred, ethnic characteristics developed. Furthermore, each local environment tended to favor selection of certain traits, and eliminate the others. Ethnic characteristics, such as skin color, arose from loss of genetic variability, not from origin of new genes through mutation as suggested by evolution.
"The concept of race is an evolutionary idea . . . (Acts 17:26). All humans possess the same color, just different amounts of it. We all descended from Noah and Adam."376
"The Bible doesn't tell us what skin color our first parents had, but, from a design point of view, the middle [color]' makes a great beginning. Starting with medium-skinned parents (Aa_Bb), it would take only one generation to produce all the variation we see in human skin color today. In fact, this is the normal situation in India today. Some Indians are as dark as the darkest Africans, and some--perhaps a brother or sister in the same family--as light as the lightest Europeans. I once know a family from India that included members with every major skin color you could see anywhere in the world.
"But now notice what happens if human groups were isolated after creation. If those with very dark skins (AABB) migrate into the same areas and/or marry only those with very dark skins, then all their children will have very dark skins. (AABBis the only possible combination of ABegg and sperms cells, which are the only types that can be produced by AABBparents.) Similarly, parents with very light skins (aabb) can have only very light-skinned children, since they don't have any Aor Bgenes to pass on. Even certain medium-skinned parents (AAbb or aaBB) can get locked-in' to having only medium-skinned children, like the Orientals, Polynesians, and some of my ancestors, the Native Americans.
"Where people with different skin colors get together again (as they do in the West Indies, for example), you find the full range of variation again--nothing less, but nothing more either, than what we started with. Clearly, all this is variation within kind. . . .
"What happened as the descendants of medium-skinned parents produced a variety of descendants? Evolution? Not at all. Except for albinism (the mutational loss of skin color), the human gene pool is no bigger and no different now than the gene pool present at creation. As people multiplied, the genetic variability built right intothe first created human beings came to visible expression. The darkest Nigerian and the lightest Norwegian, the tallest Watusi and the shortest Pygmy, the highest soprano and the lowest bass could have been present right from the beginning in two quite average-looking people. Great variation in size, color, form, function, etc., would also be present in the two created ancestors of all the other kinds (plants and animals) as well.
"Evolutionists assumethat all life started from one or a few chemically evolved life forms with an extremely small gene pool. For evolutionists, enlargement of the gene pool by selection of random mutations is a slow, tedious process that burdens each type with a genetic load' of harmful mutations and evolutionary leftovers. Creationists assumeeach created kind began with a large gene pool, designed to multiply and fill the earth with all its tremendous ecologic and geographic variety. (See Genesis, chapter 1.)"377
"Many thinkers labor under the illusion that evolution is an empirical science when in fact it is a philosophy."378
3. It demonstrates the inclination of fallen man to rebel against God and to try to provide for his needs in his own way rather than by trusting and obeying God.
4. It illustrates that rebellion against God results in (a) broken fellowship with God and man, and (b) failure to realize God's intention for man in his creation, namely, that he rule the earth effectively.
5. It provides the historical background for what follows in Genesis. Abraham came from this area.
"Irony is seen in the beginning and the ending of this passage. The group at Babel began as the whole earth (11:1), but now they were spread over the whole earth (11:9). By this time the lesson is clarified: God's purpose will be accomplished in spite of the arrogance and defiance of man's own purposes. He brings down the proud, but exalts the faithful.
"The significance of this little story is great. It explains to God's people how the nations were scattered abroad. Yet the import goes much deeper. The fact that it was Babylon, the beginning of kingdoms under Nimrod from Cush, adds a rather ominous warning: Great nations cannot defy God and long survive. The new nation of Israel need only survey the many nations around her to perceive that God disperses and curses the rebellious, bringing utter confusion and antagonism among them. If Israel would obey and submit to God's will, then she would be the source of blessing to the world.
"Unfortunately, Israel also raised her head in pride and refused to obey the Lord God. Thus she too was scattered across the face of the earth."379
