"Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth." Genesis 9:1
"Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 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 and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 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. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel — because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth."
Genesis 11:1-9
After the flood, God blessed Noah and his sons and gave them direction. They were to "be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth." (Genesis 9:1) It was disobedience and evil living that had led to the flood in the first place and it didn’t take long for God’s people to begin to settle back into their disobedient ways once again.
In Genesis 11, we see that the "whole world had one language and a common speech." This commonality was not what led man to get in trouble but it was a contributing factor in them conspiring to disobey God and set up a city where they would seek to "make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth". This obviously did not set well with God and so He did something about it. He "confused their language" so they could not understand one another and scattered them over all the earth. Thus we still use the word babble today to describe language that is unintelligible.
From Babel, we need to draw several lessons for our daily living today:
1. The language God gives us to use is only useful when we use it toward His purpose, not our own. One could say that there are more ways for people to communicate with one another in the 21st century than in any time in history and yet we seem to communicate just as badly as ever. Don’t think that this is by accident. God will confuse any matters that are not done to His glory. It started at Babel. It continues today.
2. When we decide to be disobedient, God still will get His way. Despite the people’s desire to do their own thing and make a city where they would settle and not disperse, God had the final say and His will was still done as the people were scattered. He will do the same thing to us in the places where we are resisting Him in our lives.
3. Success will only occur if we are carrying out the will of God. The people would have been successful in constructing the city if it had been God’s will for them to do so. It wasn’t however and so their efforts failed. Conversely, it was God’s will for Noah to build the ark that would carry him, his family, and the prescribed number of creatures to safety during the flood. And the plan was carried out to fruition because it was all God’s plan. The same will happen for us in life as long as what we are doing is in accordance with the will of God.
What a blessing it is for us to have the bible and the accounts of God’s people as they succeeded and failed. It gives us a ripe opportunity to read and learn from the mistakes of the past. Thanks be to God for His word and the wisdom it brings. We only need to apply it to our every day living.
In Christ,
Mark
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