Perhaps another famous Bible story, the Tower of Babel is recorded in the Old Testament Book of Genesis. It is the first major event in the Bible since Noah’s Ark and the flood.
One of the most amazing elements in this biblical account surrounds the claim that the entire earth spoke one language. Nowhere else in the Bible is it found that the whole world possessed a common speech, where all people from all lands understood each other.
But it's said that the Tower of Babel incident changed everything, and the Old Testament narrative implies that it was this event that introduced all the world languages, as they are to this day.
The Tower of Babel and Mankind After the Flood in the Old Testament
The Bible describes an orderly post-flood world. Following the cataclysmic events of Noah’s Ark and the flood, Noah’s sons Shem, Ham and Japheth procreated and the human race started again. It's said that people intermarried and individuals lived in diverse places, spreading out across the earth.
The Book of Genesis reveals that things did not remain in order for too long. The Old Testament Bible story of the Tower of Babel shows that mankind was up to its old habits again. According to the Bible story after the flood, God commanded Noah to “be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1).
But the generation living during the time of the construction of the Tower of Babel departed from the teachings of Noah and by extension disobeyed God. Genesis chapter eleven says that the people of the earth gathered together in one place, rather than filling the earth. Basically, they found a plain in Shinar, lived there and commenced building a magnificent city with a gigantic tower that attempted to reach heaven.
The Tower of Babel and the Judgement of God
According to the Old Testament account of the Tower of Babel, Yahweh God Almighty Himself came down from heaven in the form of pre-incarnate Christ. He had a close look at what they were doing. It should be noted that there are a few occasions in the Bible where God visits His creation as pre-incarnate Christ.
The Scriptures declare that God is all-seeing and all-knowing, therefore such divine visitations might be viewed as pointless by some, but Bible scholars like Matthew Henry tend to suggest it was to reveal God’s glory through doing the impossible by existing both physically and spiritually at the same time. That is, to be able to exist in the dimensions that He Himself created. After all, if God could not defy limited human imagination and logic, He could not be God.
What’s important here is that the Tower of Babel incident must have been sufficiently serious to warrant God’s intensely close attention. The only way to stop these people from constructing the Tower of Babel was to prevent team work; and there was only one way to make them fill the earth as required.
The solution was confusing the common language of the people. When people can’t understand each other, they have no choice but to jettison the Tower of Babel project and live among others who speak the same language. The will of God in the Old Testament, as revealed to His servant Noah, was thereby accomplished when every individual could verbally interact, despite living in different tribes and nations.
For more information about Noah, please read The Flood, Noah’s Ark and the Antediluvian People in the Bible, The Old Testament Book of Genesis Bible Story of the Flood’s End, The Old Testament Genesis Bible Story of Noah After the Flood and The Old Testament Genesis Bible Story of a Drunken Noah.
Sources:
Genesis 11:1-8.
Matthew Steel - Matthew is the owner of a small business called Matscopy. He specialises in writing media releases for small to medium enterprises. He is ...
