Tower of Babel
Genesis 8-11
Tower of Babel, Genesis 8-11. Can you imagine what it must have been like for the eight people left on the earth to leave the ark and touch foot on the earth? What changes do you think took place from the destruction of the flood?
20 Then Noah built an altar to
the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean
bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord
smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never
again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart
is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every
living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
Genesis 8:13-22, ESV
1
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as
people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar
and settled there. 3 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.” 5
And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children
of man had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people,
and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what
they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible
for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so
that they may not understand one another's
speech.” 8 So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all
the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was
called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the
earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the
earth.
Genesis 11:1-9, ESV
Tower of Babel
Genesis 8-11
In Genesis 8-11 we cover the flood subsiding, God's covenant with Noah, Noah's descendants and the nations which came from him, the tower of Babel, and the genealogy from Shem to Abram.
Can
you imagine what it must have been like for the eight people left on
the earth to leave the ark and touch foot on the earth? What changes do
you think took place from the destruction of the flood?
Noah's
first act was to build an altar of praise to God who had saved them
from the destruction of the flood. God made a covenant with Noah that
day that still continues to this day.
“I
will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of
man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike
down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
Now
that the wicked had been destroyed from the face of the earth,
everything was perfect, right? No, Satan immediately went to work with
the eight survivors of the flood, as we find in Genesis 9, and continued in his plan of destroying all of man through sin.
By
the time we reach chapter 11, we learn of the many nations that
descended from Noah. Even though God had told them to disperse over the
whole earth, they remained in the fertile crescent, and all spoke the
same language. As their sin and corruption increased, they decided to
build what became known as the Tower of Babel, a tower that would reach to God.
We
do the same thing today! We try to build our own towers of approach to
God instead of going through the means He provided through Christ. Did it work in the Book of Genesis? No! Does it work today? No! Man, in his great arrogance, tries to determine his own way to reach God, or even worse, thinks of himself as being just like God.
But,
what happened to the Godly line? Had Satan totally obliterated the
Godly from the face of the earth? That answer will be covered when we
continue with Genesis 12. Chapter 11 does give us a hint when it
concludes with a list of the descendants from Shem to Terah, and then tells us of Abram, the son of Terah. As we will read, God uses Abram (Abraham) to continue the Godly line.
God
cannot be thwarted; the Godly will never be removed from the face of
the earth until God takes them home to be with Him forever. What an encouragement for the believer. God is God. Nothing that man can do will ever thwart His will. The Tower of Babel did not work, and nothing that man invents today to replace God today will work either.
Let us, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, go forth this day doing the work that God has called us to do. That is why we are here. We are safe in the arms of God until the day He calls us home to be with Him forever.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
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