Soaking in the Biblical Text:  Genesis 11

The Obvious

Genesis 11 is obviously composed of three parts:  an anecdote about the Tower of Babel, a genealogy—mostly about men who begat other men, and a detailed introduction to Abraham’s family—who is named “Abram” at this point.

The Babel anecdote begins with a curious factoid:  all the people on earth speak the same language.  And they all seem to be gathered together, migrating in an undetermined direction. (The Hebrew can either mean “eastward” or “from the east.”)  They soon stop migrating settle in a place called Shinar—an ancient site not found on modern maps—and decide to build.  Their techniques are advanced for the time; they have invented brickmaking and masonry.  And so they use their skills and ambitions to build a whole city, its crowning feature to be a tower that would reach to heaven.  

When the workers are in the middle of construction, God comes down to take a look–and immediately disapproves.  In order to stop the project, God seems to conjure up a bit of wizardry, and everyone suddenly begins speaking in different languages.  Everyone is still talking, but people don’t comprehend each other.  People pay no heed to one another, and the work comes to a halt.  The unfinished tower becomes a monument to human weakness rather than human strength. 

In the second section of the chapter, we are forced to endure yet another biblical genealogy, hoping it will be brief.  We probably don’t remember everyone’s name—biblical genealogies are like being introduced to dozens of people at a party, and we know we won’t remember their names five minutes later.  But two things stand out in this part of the chapter:  1) the absence and brushing off of women—all the focus is on the men, and 2) the long age spans—these guys lived anywhere between 148 and 600 years.  That’s a long time to be drawing Social Security!

In the final section of chapter 11, the focus is on Terah and his descendants.  It sets us up for the stories to follow in Genesis.  (Hang in here with me, I’ll make this as simple as possible.) Terah is the father of three sons:  Abram, Nahor, and Haran.  The youngest son, Haran, becomes the father of Lot, but then dies an early death and the Grandpa Terah has to take care of Lot.  Terah’s two remaining sons take wives, Abram marries Sarai (to become Sarah) and Nahor marries Milcah.  

The text is confusing due to pronouns that dangle without antecedents, but it hints at cousins marrying cousins in this family.  You might be tempted to think we are in Arkansas, but no—we are in the land of Ur.  After Haran dies, Grandpa Terah takes the whole clan and they migrate toward Canaan.  But they only get part way, stopping in a place they name, “Haran,” after the dead brother.  It is specifically pointed out that Sarai is barren.  Everyone settles down in Haran and that is where Terah dies and chapter 11 ends.        

The Less Obvious

1. The people of Babel are obviously ambitious—to build both a city and a tower.  But what is less obvious is the role that fear plays in their endeavors.  Ambition is bold and grabs the reader’s attention.  But among the ambitious, fear is subtle, invisible—yet no less a motivator.  The people of Babel have a fear that they will be “scattered.”  The word “scattered” appears three times in just nine verses—a clue to give it careful attention. In verse 4, the people specifically say that they do not want to be “scattered.”  This is a sharp insight into how the human mind works:  ambition is often fueled by hidden fears.  One cannot deal with ambition—one’s own, or an enemies—if one does not see the connection with fear and anxiety. 

• The term “scattering” appears several times in the Bible—mostly as a punishment for wrongdoing.  In other words, if the people of Babel are worried about being scattered, they likely know, based on past experiences with God, they are doing something to displease him.  Thus far in Genesis, the primary ways people have displeased God is in being violent (Genesis 6: 11-12).  It is plausible that when God shows up and is displeased at what he sees, it is partly because violence is a key method used by the leaders to keep everyone speaking the same language and working toward the same goal. History is full of coercive violence forming the foundation for empires and great accomplishments, starting with the practice of enslaving other humans.  It is very plausible that God not only saw the tower, but the violence employed to build it.

• The people want to make a name for themselves (v. 4).  One of the greatest powers people have been given in the Bible is the power to hand out names.  In Genesis 2, God God brings all the animals of creation to the first human being and grants the human the task of naming them all.  In that chapter, the power to name something or someone is accompanied by the “namer” being assigned authority and accountability over the “namee.”  Parents are given the responsibility of naming their children.  Names give us definition before we can even think how to define ourselves.  “Naming” is a powerful act.

In several prominent biblical stories, people are renamed, thus re-purposing their lives, redefining their identity and character.  Abram will soon become Abraham, Sarai will be renamed Sarah.  Jacob will become Israel.  Simon will become Peter. And Saul will become Paul.  Each of these changes were initiated by God and represent a sort of being “born again.”  

In this story, we note that the people wish to “make a name for themselves.”  Thus we are introduced to the eternal human impulse of rebelling against being defined by others.  This is not always a bad thing.  Because of the evil that always abides in every human heart, we are constantly handing out names and labels that dehumanize others, to the disgust of God.  The most important evangelistic work of the church is to liberally hand out the name of “beloved” to as many people as we can—through word and deed—to counter the world’s cruelty.  

But there is an underlying school of thought in the Bible that it is an illusion to think we can name our own selves. The only being who can give themselves a name is God. We cannot give ourselves the name “beloved,” someone else must give us that.  We cannot give ourselves the name “immortal.”  Nor can we gives ourselves the names “worthy,” “good,” “forgiven,” or “god.”  No self-given “name” can negate reality. And yet the people of Babel were determined to “make a name” for themselves.  They would build a tower that would reach to heaven.  They were trying to be their own gods.  It wouldn’t work.

In chapter 12, in contrast, God will give Abram a name that the people of Babel can only envy.  But it will be God-given, not self-assigned.  Abraham’s name will become great.  But greatness is not something Abraham can achieve without God’s help. 

• It is amusing to note that God has to stoop down or come down to be able to see a project that in human eyes is the most enormous undertaking on earth.  After seeing what is going on, God decides to baffle those working on the project. 

• The causing of confusion (vs. 7) is a military tactic, used to disable the enemy by interfering with their means of communication. While the biblical text is not explicit, it implies that God caused the people of Babel to speak in different languages.  Before this story, the people of the earth all spoke one language; but evidently not afterward. 

The word “confuse” appears in Psalm 55:9, where David is terrorized by some unknown enemy, in this case the treachery of a friend.  In order to be delivered of his fate, he asks God to “Confuse, O Lord, confound their speech; for I see violence and strife in the city.”  Was there violence and strife also in Babel?

In Isaiah 3:12, the leaders keep the people confused in order to get away with their evil deeds in the muddle.  

God uses confusion as a tool to thwart those who do wrong.  It is often something worth praying for in our own world.

• God prefers diversity over conformity.  When we look at the arc of the Babel story, it begins with conformity:  one language, one people, one place—repeated for emphasis (vv. 1 and 6).  When God is finished with Babel, however, there is no longer just one language or people or place.  They are scattered, and they can’t understand the multiple languages that now exist.  Diversity has both a positive value and a negative value.  As a positive value—not seen in this particular text—diversity stretches and expands human possibility. As a negative value, diversity acts as a form of checks-and-balances, keeping our relationship with God humble and our relationship with others from becoming useless. In a humorous image, even when people are building their highest structure, God still has to “come down” to be able to see it, v. 5.  

In verses 1 and 6, the literal translation is, “Now all the earth was of one lip” and “one people with one lip for them all.”

• The Hebrew text of Genesis 11 uses a play on words.  “Babel” sounds similar to “Babylon,” the superpower that had humiliated Israel at the time the book of Genesis was being written and copied onto scrolls. The kings of Babylon exhibited the same hubris as the workers in ancient Babel.  In Isaiah 14, the king of Babylon is thus taunted:  “How you have fallen from heaven…you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God…I will ascend to the tops of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High…but you re brought down to Sheol…those who see you will stare at you…Is this the man who made the earth tremble?’” This story seems to keep renewing itself, even to our own day. The good news of Genesis 11 is that God will always topple tyranny.  There is hope!

• The genealogy includes seven generations, a symbolic number indicating that this particular family is of universal importance.  The decreasing ages of the characters, in contrast to earlier genealogies in Genesis, indicates that as time goes on, human sin and weakness is draining the strength from humanity. 

• The story of Babel is a transitional story, a bridge from the Noah narratives to the Abraham narratives.  The two ages, the age of Noah and the age of Abraham, have this in common:  God was working to make a better world.  In the age of Noah, that work consisted of deconstruction—eliminating evil from the world through destruction and annihilation.  God immediately saw the flaws in that approach and created rainbows to remind everyone that violence doesn’t solve violence.  After solving the problem of Babel (with diversity), God is faced with new avenues for people being alienated from each other.  And the biblical story moves immediately to Abraham—God’s solution for alienation.

In the Abraham stories, God creates the concept of covenant—an experiment that continues in our own day.  God isn’t finished with us yet.  “Covenant” is an experiment still in progress.  

After the massive and undiscerning destruction of the great flood, the Babel story introduces us to a more precise and strategic destruction.  Deconstruction is still a necessity if there is to be renewal, re-creation, and reform in the world.  But it will not be the fruit of God’s rage from now on.  It will be the consequence of God’s wisdom.  In the story of Babel, human sin is not held in check by God’s rage, but by God’s insistence of diversity among humans.  In human diversity, human sin is exposed and confronted.  The deconstruction of Babel is not the same as the deconstruction of the flood.  Both destructions respond to human violence and hubris and human rebellion against God.  But the Babel story is more humane, forming a bridge away from the flood and toward the theme of “covenant.”  In “covenant” and “faith” being introduced to Abraham, God reveals two new tools for making the world a better place—constructive tools.   

1. In our own day, the story of Babel invites us to think about the dangers that emerge when human beings amass vast amount of power—whether political, technological, financial—or through brute force.