Week 4

Fall 2024

9/22/2024

Central Passage: Genesis 11

Keep in mind that Moses wrote this whole Torah (Genesis-Deuteronomy, also known as the Pentateuch) to be received by Israel as they departed from the paganism of Egypt to enter their promised land to worship God alone. For that reason, this final chapter in the prehistory of Genesis 1-11 continues to set the stage for the call of Abram. The Table of Nations (Genesis 10) reminded Israel that God is sovereign over the nations. Some Christians today attempt to use Genesis genealogies to determine the age of the earth/date for creation, but these lists serve a different purpose (not to mention that they are likely only partial genealogies). (1) God is sovereign over the nations as they multiply after the flood. Note that God cares for all the nations, not just Israel.  (2) The comments on Nimrod and Peleg foreshadow the events surrounding the Tower of Babel. And (3) we see the beginnings of God’s choosing His people through the line of Shem, to whom Abram belongs. So, as you read the story of Babel, remember that God is sovereign, even when the nations forget their place. Genesis 11 gives us this teaching in story form that explains how God judged and forced the nations to spread out over the earth.

Why did God judge them for building a tower? The tower in question was likely a ziggurat. Commonly misunderstood to be a temple (or a pyramid), ziggurats looked like stepped pyramid towers with stairs ascending to the top. The purpose of the ziggurat was to grant human access to the heavens, allowing the gods to descend and reside in the city’s temple (usually located next to the ziggurat).  So they constructed this tower to coerce God’s presence through pagan ritual construction (not to mention how they had not spread out over the earth as God commanded in Gen 9:1). As the people say “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly” in order to presumptuously construct their tower to the heavens, God responds with, “Come, let us go down there and confuse their language.” Their sin was prideful hubris that forgets God’s transcendence and sovereignty over them. God chose to condescend to our level through covenants, not through extortion. As they hoped to immortalize themselves (11:4b, “let us make a name for ourselves”), God forced them into subjection. They refused to live within God’s established order (11:6), so God reordered them to confuse their language. Next, God began His divine work of reconciling His fallen creation to Himself on His terms through His calling of Abram.