In the Beginning: From Creation to Covenant
Part 5
“The Tower”

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

11:1-8 “Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. 2 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. 3 Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. 4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” 5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 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.”
________________

Now, as chapter 11 opens the great flood has subsided. Noah and his family were the sole survivors of a worldwide holocaust. And in chapter 9, God approaches Noah and his family to make a covenant with them.

9:11 “Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

And the SIGN of the Noahic Covenant is, “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”–vs 13

So the next time it rained the people would not be fearful of another flood. God’s rainbow in the sky would be the constant assurance He would never let that happen again.
______________

Also in chapter 9, God established with Noah the first civic government for a civilized society, as well as the lifting of dietary restrictions. First, God sanctioned the eating of meat.

“Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.”–vs 9:3
_______________

Then God established civic government with the instruction to exercise capital punishment for murderers:

“Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has god made mankind.”–9:6

Now, Moses the great Lawgiver would later bring many more civic and moral laws to govern civilizations with, but it starts here with Noah.
_______________

After the Flood the population rapidly multiplied at God’s command to ’Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth’ (Gen 9:1). God had blessed mankind in its fresh start, confirming His covenant to Noah.

But mankind continued to be a disappointment to God. One particular group migrated to what is now known as Iraq, and that is our focus this time. It became the centre of civilization of the ancient world and Babylon was its capital. Babylon was considered the summit of human achievement. It became the most influential city in the world of that day.

The people of Babel, who were several generations down from Noah, had developed great technical skills. The builders of the Tower had gained the architectural and mathematical knowledge to undertake a large construction project.

God had gifted mankind with intelligence, and they used it. They had also developed as a community, for we find them saying, ’Let US build.’ But they were rebels against God by heart.

In the first place there was their bent towards sin due to their fallen nature. Scripture records their words, ’Let us build ourselves’. Their project was self-centered and self-focused. God was nowhere in the picture.

It took a few hundred years after the flood for man to totally leave behind the spiritual heritage of Noah. They had forgotten their Creator. They were building according to human wisdom and, I believe, as insurance against another flood. Just build high enough and a flood won’t reach us!

It reminds me of the verse, ’Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labour in vain.’–Ps 127:1

They were like the builder in the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders, the foolish building on sand. Jesus said that the wise person ’hears these words of mine and does them’.–Matt 7:26

Now, the Tower wasn’t designed to reach heaven literally, but their vision to reach heaven was a metaphor of crossing from ’man’s place’, the earth, to God’s. But heaven can never be reached by human ambition. Heaven is found only as a gift of God’s grace!

The builders of the Tower of Babel wanted to go upwards by their own efforts. It was an expression great pride. It’s what John calls “the boastful pride of life” (1 John 2:16). The pride of life is the attitude of “I don’t need God.” The tower builders didn’t stop to consider if this is what God wanted them to do. They cared nothing for God’s opinion.

Their second problem was they had burdened themselves with a wrong set of values. They were living in a world of make-believe, a fantasy. They thought they could reach into God’s world by their own efforts via the tower. Achieve utopia by their own efforts. It was a pride-fueled delusion!

Again, the boastful pride of life is the attitude of “I don’t need God. It’s all about me.” The motivation of the builders of the Tower of Babel was ’so that we may make a name for ourselves…’

They were out to build a reputation for themselves, to be lords of the earth. Yet their ambition was doomed to failure because it was a manifestation of pride and pride goes before a fall. Sinful man isn’t capable of ’making a name’. It’s only God who can do that.

The Babylonians wanted to create a city with the Tower as the crowning achievement of their own greatness. They wanted to build a city that was a gateway to an earthly paradise.

This was reflected in the name they gave it, ’Babel’, meaning confusion or literally, ’the gate of the gods’. The people of Babel thought their city ’with a tower that reaches to the heavens’ would ensure their legacy and secure their future.

But what they didn’t bank on was the all-seeing eye of God. The writer of Genesis tells us “But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building” (11:7). And there’s a real irony here. The Tower wasn’t the gate of the gods. It was so small that God had to “come down” to see it!

As a sidenote, we are given here a revelation of the triune Godhead when it says, “Come, let US go down…” The ‘Us’ is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit!

But look at how God decides to bring judgment on this wayward project and stop it in its tracks:

“Let Us go down and confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

Now, “confound their language” means literally, “confound their lip.” This means their utterance, or diction was confounded. It caused a difference in dialect and enunciation intelligible only to those of the same tribe or family.

What God did was to give each tribe or family group a different dialect so that they understood each other within that tribe, but could not understand those of other tribes. In this way God FORCED them to do what he had already commanded–“fill the earth.”

Having not obeyed by submission, they were dispersed by God’s judgment!

Isn’t it interesting that God’s judgment brought confusion of tongues and the inability to understand one another, but on the Day of Pentecost “every man understood what was said in his own language.”
_________________

Now, there was a leader in the building of the tower and his name was Nimrod. The Bible mentions him three times. In Genesis it says of him:

“Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; therefore it is said, ‘Like Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord” (10:8).

Then his movements and actions are recorded: “And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel…” (10: 10)

So Nimrod built a kingdom. He also later built Nineveh.
_______________

The Jewish historian Josephus writes this about Nimrod:

“Now it was Nimrod who excited them (the Babylonians) to such an affront and contempt of God (the building of the tower). He was the grandson of Ham the son of Noah. He was a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them (the Babylonians) not to ascribe it (the tower) to God, but to believe that it was their own courage that achieved it. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his (Nimrod’s) power.”

Now, whether true or not, ancient tradition has it that Nimrod’s mother was named Sumiramis. After Nimrod’s death, it was believed that Sumiramis had another son, Tammuz, who she claimed was Nimrod reincarnated.

It was believed that Tammuz was conceived by a sunbeam (supernaturally), a counterfeit version of Jesus’ virgin birth. The legend of Tammuz spread and became linked to Baal in Phoenicia, Osiris in Egypt, Eros in Greece, and Cupid in Rome. In every case, the worship of those gods and goddesses was associated with sexual immorality.

Interestingly, the celebration of Lent, which has no basis in Scripture, was developed from the pagan celebration of Semiramis’ mourning for forty days over the death of Tammuz (Ezekiel 8:14) before his alleged resurrection.

This is another of Satan’s mythical counterfeits. Whether these traditions have any basis in fact or not is irrelevant. They embody the whole spectrum of occult activity today and were followed in ancient Israel.

Just one example of how they infiltrated even God’s chosen people of Israel is found in Ezekiel 8:12–15.

“12 Then He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, ‘The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land.’ ” 13 And He said to me, “Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing.” 14 So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the Lord’s house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. 15 Then He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Turn again, you will see greater abominations than these.”

In summary, false religion began with the tower of Babel and Nimrod, from which Babylon derives its name. Cain was the first false worshiper, and many individuals after him followed his example. But organized pagan religion began with the descendants of Ham, one of Noah’s three sons, who decided to erect a great monument that would “reach into heaven” and make themselves a great name (Genesis10: 9-10; 11:4)

Under the leadership of the proud and apostate Nimrod they planned to storm heaven and unify their power and prestige in a great worldwide system of worship. That was man’s first counterfeit religion, from which every other false religion in one way or another has sprung.