A kingdom trying to take God’s world (Genesis 11)

You know the Tower of Babel? Everywhere else in the Old Testament, Bā·ḇěl is translated “Babylon.” Babylon (Babel) was not a tower; it was a city. And the city had a tower:

Genesis 11:1-4 (NIV)
¹ Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. ² As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. ³ They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

Before this region was called Babylonia, it had several names: Sumer, Shinar, and Chaldea. The Sumerians built these towering structures called ziggurats, probably for worship. Abraham’s family came from Ur (11:28, 31). The ziggurat at Ur still exists today, though it would have been taller in Abraham’s time.

To the Hebrews, these towering structures represented Babylon’s attempt to take over God’s world. They were trying to reach up into the heavens and grasp the power of the gods in human hands, so they could rule the whole world.

The city and its tower

Babylon was building a city as an administrative capital, a central government that would hold all people under its power, instead of having separate nations spread out all over the world (verse 4).

The narrator notes that Sumerians built their ziggurats from baked bricks (verse 3). Why tell us that? It’s an architectural statement: they created man-made building materials, rather than use the stones the gods provided.

The tower made the same statement: they’ve reached up into the heavens, to bring the power of the gods into human hands. They wanted people to bow to their greatness, to make a name for themselves as the city that ruled the world.

Babylon’s attempt to take over the world posed a serious threat to God’s plan to save the world through Israel. The kingdom God established through Abraham later falls to the government that was trying to take over the world (2 Kings 25).

So why didn’t God crush the evil empire of Babylon at this early stage, before it became a plague on the earth? That’s the question Genesis 11 is addressing.

God’s covenant declared he’d never give up ruling the world (Genesis 9). But he didn’t stop the nations from going their own way, forming their own governments instead of recognizing God’s authority (Genesis 10). Will the Lord let the evil empire take his whole world?

Genesis 11:5-9 (NIV)
⁵ But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. ⁶ The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
⁸ So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ That is why it was called Babel [Babylon]—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

God does not cede the world to Babylon. God intervenes, but not as we might expect. Babylon fights wars to build its kingdom (10:9-10), but God doesn’t bomb Babylon to bits. God simply frustrates them, confusing them so they don’t understand each other.

God’s kingdom as partnership with us

By giving different languages to different peoples, God limits what they can plan to do together. The inability to get on with each other still implodes political powers today. History consists of national fights and international wars, but God does not permit one enduring evil empire to take over the galaxy.

In the Old Testament narrative, the Babylonian Empire was a major hurdle on the way to restoring the earth as a kingdom of heaven. In the sixth century BC, Babylon did take over God’s world as they knew it. But God frustrated Babylon, so it fell under its own weight (Jeremiah 51).

Babylon became a symbol for every superpower that seduces the nations into its web so it can take over the resources and the people of God’s world (Revelation 17). But Babylon falls, like all the superpowers it represents (Revelation 18). God appoints the King of Kings (Revelation 19).

That’s why God called Abraham to partner with him. Instead of destroying Babel (Babylon), God left them in confusion while he established his kingdom through those who partner with him. Babylon does not take over God’s world.

Related posts

• Can the nations take over God’s reign? (Genesis 11)
• The nations (Genesis 10)