Genesis 11:1-9 - Our name or God's name?
You were created to multiply God's image over the entire creation. (Note: we skipped chapter 10 and the rest of 11, unless you like reading massive lists of impossible to pronounce names...)
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Genesis 11:1-9 (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.
Watch / Listen to the DIG DEEPER video:
Genesis 11 Summary
v1-4 - Rather than scatter out over the whole earth, the descendants of Noah congregate together and decide to build a city.
v5-8 - God frustrates their efforts by dividing them into different languages, forcing the people to go in different directions.
Dig Deeper
At first it may seem odd that God was upset with the efforts of the people to build their new city with a tall tower. After all, we've built thousands of cities with buildings far taller than what this tower likely was.
In order to understand the problem God has with these people, we must understand the primary purpose God has for mankind.
God gave Adam a very simple mandate: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it." Noah was given the exact same command using slightly different words when he exited the ark: "Be fruitful and increase in number, multiply on the earth and increase upon it."
Compare these instructions with the rationale these people had for building their city, which is given in verse 4. Let's look at their second reason they gave first. They began building so that they would
not be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.
This is exactly the opposite of what God had commanded man to do!
Yet it's the first reason they give that's the most egregious:
Let us make a name for ourselves.
As image bearers of God, our job is actually the opposite of this. We're not to make a name for ourselves, rather, we're to glorify God as we work in His world!
When we understand the self idolatry that motivated the construction of Babel, we can see that God confusing their language wasn't an act of spite, rather it was His grace spreading the people out so that they would not invoke God's wrath again as they did before the flood.
AAA Prayer:
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, whose discipline is evidence of His grace;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that you will glorify God's name and not your own.
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
