Ge 11

CHAPTER 11: THE TOWER OF BABEL

v.4 The tower was a ziggurat a temple tower where people planned to worship the stars and the heavens.

v.26 Since Shem and Abram were contemporaries, Shem may have given the details of the ark and the Flood to Abram.

The whole earth was of one language, and one speech (Gen 11:1). Probably Hebrew because in the earlier record of the book of Genesis, the names of the people were Hebrew names that have Hebrew meanings. And so the original language was perhaps the Hebrew language itself. "The whole earth was of one language, one speech."

And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly (Gen 11:2-3). Now this is an interesting thing because it shows that very early after the flood, they had brick kilns and rather than just building their houses out of rocks, they were advanced to the state of making bricks and putting them in the kiln, burning them thoroughly. So rather than just adobe kind of buildings, they were now using a mortar with a cured brick or a burned brick and they began to build, of course, the city of Nineveh, the city of Babylon, all began to be built in this period by Nimrod himself. And so they said, Let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth (Gen 11:4).

Now God's command was to actually fill the earth. It's an attempt to sort of countermand God's commandment. "Lest we be scattered abroad throughout all the earth." Let's join together. Let's just, you know, congregate in this area. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded (Gen 11:5). Now again we're describing the activities of God in human terms as though God were coming down and looking things over. In reality, God is omnipresent. He was watching the thing the whole while.

The LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they all have one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do (Gen 11:6). The developing of this religious system. Now it is very possible that originally God placed the stars in the heavens for signs and that the Gospel is actually given in the Zodiac, the virgin, the lion. But as Satan has always taken the things of God and twisted them and perverted them, so from the original message that God had placed there in the heavens of His plan for the ages, that there was that perversion of it into what is the modern astrology, which began way back again in the Babylonian era here in Babel where they were going to build this tower as an observatory to observe the constellations and so forth at the sky. But it is quite possible that originally the Gospel was there indeed in the stars as far as the message of God to man.

Now it would seem that the Magi who came from the east to find the Christ child were reading correctly the heavens. "We have seen His star in the east, we've come to worship Him". And that they were reading truly the signs that God had placed there. Now the Bible says that God has placed the stars for signs and for seasons. And it is very possible that originally there was indeed the message of God in the stars but has been perverted, as I say, into the modern astrology. And the perversion began way back there where they began to look at the stars for the influence over their lives, rather than looking to God.

And so God in His Word puts down astrologers, stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, those who sought them to govern their lives by the influence of the stars upon them and so forth. And God really speaks out very heavily against that in the prophecy of Isaiah. But it is an ancient, ancient thing, the horoscopes and all. But as with so many things, it is possible that in the beginning it was pure and had a true message of God, but it has been perverted as time has gone on. So God seeing this development said Let us go down, and confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. And so the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel (Gen 11:7-9);

Babel, whichever pronunciation you prefer. It really is a word that just sort of it was a word that was adapted because of what the sound sounded like. Just like the word "barbarian" is a word that was developed by the Greeks and the word "barbarian" in Greek literally is barbar. And anybody who didn't speak Greek was a barbar because your language sounded so funny. So anybody who didn't speak Greek, they just considered them uncultured, you know; they're barbar. It just means that they talk some other language rather than the cultured Greek. And so from that we get the word "barbarian" but it originally was just a, you know, just a sound that they made, unintelligible sound by which they were sort of mimicking any language other than Greek. It's barbar, oh; he's a barbar. And so this "Babel" is the same thing. It's a mimicking of a sound that was not understood. Babel just is somewhat like the barbar. Babel. It's just "I don't understand what you're saying". What do you mean "ba-ba"? And so the word has come to mean confusion, lack of understanding. And so they called the name of the place Babel. because the LORD did there confound or confuse the languages of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth (Gen 11:9).

And so at this point, the people who were speaking. Of course this was a tremendous miracle indeed, the development of all of these languages. Now the interesting thing about languages is that many times we think of the English language because we grew up with it, you know, it's such an excellent language in communicating ideas. And we think, you know, people who are living in say, primitive cultures, in stone age cultures surely they must have a primitive form of language. Ours must surely be a highly cultured form of language, the English language. And they must have very primitive language, but it is an interesting thing that many of the primitive cultures have the most complex languages, highly complex languages, much more so than English. And thus, there is great difficulty in translating into many of these languages of primitive people.

You think, oh, it would be easy to translate, you know, "The man went to church." But some of these primitive cultures have so many words for "man". So you'd have to know if the man was one that you knew well, or you knew slightly because they have one word for man that you know well, and another one for a man that you know slightly. Then you'd have to know whether you like the man or not. And then you'd have to know whether or not you respected him. And actually they have maybe twenty different words for "man." So you'd have to know all kinds of things about this man before you know which word would fit the text or the translation. Now the word "he went," did he go once in his life? Or did he go occasionally? Was it something that he was accustomed to doing? Or something that was rare for him to do? And so even in the verb you have so many different words that would describe it, that you get into the translation and really you want to throw up your hands and quit because these languages are so many times so much more complex.

I have a friend who was translating the gospel of Mark into the Choco dialect in Panama and he came to the place where he was working with his translating helper, and he came to the place where Jesus spit in the ground and made mud and put it in the blind man's eyes and told him to go to the pool of Siloam and wash it out. So in translating this word "spit" the native said, But how did he spit? You know there's many different ways to spit. Well, we only have one English word but the Choco Indian has so many different words. You have a different way of spitting and of course how do you know which word it is? We don't know what word it is. And because you know they have so many different words he said, "Well", he said, "did he hock and spit? Or did he pick up—did he pick up the dirt in his hand and just spit and mix it up? Or did he spit on the ground and mix it up? Or did he put the dirt in his eye and spit in his eye and mix it up?" And he would have a different word for each action. Oh, we don't know what Jesus did, but this development of language.

Now it is interesting that man has in any and every culture, no matter how primitive, highly complex method of communicating of ideas, and I don't care how primitive or ignorant that particular culture may be. Their languages are highly developed in the ability to communicate their ideas, whether they do it through grunts, through a singsong, or whatever. They are able to communicate their ideas no matter how primitive their culture. This certainly is something that separates man from the animal kingdom. There is nothing in the animal kingdom that even approximates a complex form of communication of ideas. But yet in the most primitive culture of man, and in every culture of man, there is a language communication. So this was the beginning of the separation of languages. Now after the separation into the basic language groups, there of course have become modifications even within the same language or generalized language. We find the romance languages and similarities between the Spanish and the Portuguese and the Italian and the French. We find that there is certain similarity between the German and the Scandinavian. We find that English is a language that has borrowed much from Latin and from Greek.

So there have been developed languages from the basic language system, but God divided their languages. And instantly they no doubt got together in groups that they could communicate to, family groups and so forth where they could communicate to each other, but it caused the division and the separation. And that spreading out then into the world and scattering abroad upon the face of the earth as is described. Now we're going to zero in down to Abraham because that's where our story must move. So these are the generations of Shem (Gen 11:10):

Getting now again a repetition of the generations of Seth, Shem, but moving definitely just down towards Abraham. He was a hundred years old, and he begat Arphaxad two years after the flood: he lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and he begat sons and daughters (Gen 11:10-11). So he lived to be about six hundred years old approximately. Arphaxad lived five, thirty-five years, and begat Salah (Gen 11:12): And we get, he begat Eber and we follow down to Abraham, and actually that's the one where we're coming to, so let's go on to verse twenty-six.

Terah lived seventy years, and he begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran (Gen 11:26). Now whether or not this is the order in which they were born, we do not know. Whether or not you know how old was Terah when Abraham was born, we don't know. Maybe he was the third son. We have no way of knowing but he lived seventy years and he had these three sons, Abram, Nahor and Haran. Now he lived after that for many years also. Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot. And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. And Abram and Nahor took them wives (Gen 11:27-29): So their brother Haran died early having married and born one son, Lot. Actually he bore some daughters, too. And they took wives and the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah, for she was also the daughter of Haran (Gen 11:29),

So he married his niece. the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. But Sarai was barren; and she had no child. And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran (Gen 11:29-31) So with Haran dead, Lot being his son, Abraham sort of adopted Lot because Abraham did not have any sons of his own. So he sort of adopted Lot and Lot became a journeyer with Abraham. But they altogether went from the Ur of the Chaldees (Gen 11:31), Now it was in the Ur of the Chaldees, in this area where this false religious systems, the Pantheism and Polytheism and all began to develop and the perverted religious systems, and so they left the Ur of the Chaldees. to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran, and dwelt there (Gen 11:31). Now the fact that they all left to go to Canaan means that in the beginning, it could be that Abraham's father also received the call of God to leave and get out of this area that had begun to become religiously polluted and to come into a whole new area. But Terah, they came as far as Haran and there they dwelt. And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran (Gen 11:32).

Now there is a seeming contradiction of scripture here when you get in the New Testament and Stephen is talking about Abraham being called of God to leave the Ur of the Chaldees and to go to Israel, how that after he said Terah died, Abraham then went on to Canaan. But when you start putting the ages together, you find that Abraham actually left, if Terah lived to be two hundred and five years old, then he was seven years old when Abraham was born then, and Abraham was seventy-five when he left. The seventy-five and the seventy makes a hundred and forty-five years, and yet he lived to be two hundred and five years old. So you have a discrepancy in mathematics here. So what is the solution or what is the answer?

There are a couple possible suggestions. Number one, Abraham may not have been the firstborn son. They may not be listed in the order of their births but in the order of precedence of their son, and Abraham could have been born many years after. In other words, seventy years and maybe Haran was born when he was seventy years old. And it doesn't give his age at the time of Abraham's birth. That's one possibility. So that Abraham was sort of a late child and that indeed by the time he was seventy-five his father was two hundred and five years old, very possible.

Another possibility is that Stephen is talking in sort of a spiritual sense that he died. You remember one day a young fellow came to Jesus and said, "I'll follow you but allow me first to go bury my father". And Jesus said, "Let the dead bury the dead. Come and follow Me" (Matthew 8:21-22). Now the "let me first bury my father" was a common term. It didn't mean that his father was dead. It isn't that Jesus is showing a disrespect for a father who had died, but it is a term whereby a person was saying "I don't want to do it now. I want to wait until my father dies". It's just a term of procrastination or putting something off until later. I want to do it later. Wait till my father dies. Your father can be alive and healthy. He may be good for another fifty, sixty years. But it was a term of procrastination, a common term of procrastination.

Now knowing the use of Jesus in this term in the ideas that were given by it, it could be that Stephen is using it in the same sense and that Terah, when they came to Haran, died spiritually because Terah began to actually apostatize and became also a worshipper of false gods. So it could be that he's referring to the spiritual death of Terah when he turned to spiritual apostasy. And it was at that point, when Terah spiritually was dead unto God, that Abraham realized he had to make his journey alone. And he took off with his —with Lot and the servants and so forth, and his wife Sarah. And they began then to journey onto the land that God had promised to show him.

Actually going from the area of the Ur of the Chaldees going to Haran, they were going about six hundred miles northwest. It was about four hundred miles from Haran, down to the land of Canaan to the area of Shechem where he was ultimately to end up. But Abraham started off journeying in obedience to God from the Ur of the Chaldees. They stopped with his father. It could be that his dad said "hey, this is good. Let's settle here. Let's settle in this area. It's nice, you know, it's productive and all".

Let's settle here and there was a spiritual death of Terah to the call of God and awareness of God or the spiritual death. And Stephen could be referring to that when Terah died, then that spiritual death, Abraham realized that he had to leave now his father and that family and journey on by himself to the land that God had promised to show him. So don't cast off your faith because of a bit of mathematics here. There are possible explanations for and which one is correct, of course, we don't know.