The LORD Reigns1
Genesis 11:1-9
1Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen2 for mortar. 4Then 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.” (They wanted to establish one huge government and make this tower the center of it. Their intention was that the tower would keep the people from being scattered abroad. They had forgotten the command to, “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”3 Ambition was at the heart of the plan. They hoped to build up an empire by centralizing all mankind that, like their tower, would defy heaven itself.)
5And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.
To God their huge tower was a mere nothing. He is said (to use the language of man) to come down from heaven in order to see such a trifle.
6And 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. 7Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.
How easy it is for God to frustrate our plans and bring about his own purposes, despite any opposition. What happened the moment God “confused their language”? The scene has been very graphically sketched by Bishop Hall.4 “One calls for brick, the other looks him in the face, and wonders what he commands, and how and why he speaks such words as were never before heard. Instead of brick he brings him mortar with a reply to him as little understood. Each scolds the other, expressing his anger in words only he can understand. From argument they fall to quiet requests, but still with the same success. At first every man thinks his fellow mocks him; but now aware of this serious confusion, their only answer was silence, and ceasing. They could not come together, for no man could call them to be understood; and if they had assembled, nothing could be determined, because one could never understand the other’s purpose.”
9Therefore its name was called Babel,5 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.
An appropriate comment on the events at Babel can be found in part of Psalm 33.
Psalm 33:10-22
10 The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
11 The counsel of the LORD stands forever,
the plans of his heart to all generations.
12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!
13 The LORD looks down from heaven;
he sees all the children of man;
14 from where he sits enthroned he looks out
on all the inhabitants of the earth,
15 he who fashions the hearts of them all
and observes all their deeds.
16 The king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
17 The war horse is a false hope for salvation,
and by its great might it cannot rescue.
18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
19 that he may deliver their soul from death
and keep them alive in famine.
20 Our soul waits for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield.
21 For our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
22 Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.
Our hope should not be a tower of Babel or in ourselves. Let us depend on the Lord our God who is our tower of protection.
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1 Psalm 99:1
2 A black, sticky tar-like substance.
3 Genesis 1:28
4 Probably Anglican Bishop Joseph Hall (circa 1600).
5 Babel sounds like the Hebrew word for confused
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