Babel’s Confusion, God’s Preparation

Text: Genesis 11:1-32

Introduction

Genesis 11 represents both an end and a beginning. Primeval history comes to its climactic ending in the fruitless labors of the people of Babel, and the nation of Israel begins with the life of Abraham. Both stories unfold in Genesis 11.

I. The People of Babel Try to Make a Name for Themselves (vv.1-4)

1. The great sin of Babel is not tower-building, or unified labor toward a societal goal. The sin of Babel is the sin of seeking independence from God.
   1. The tower-building endeavor, we are specifically told, was an enterprise in self-sufficiency/proud self-confidence: v.4 “let us make a name for ourselves”
      1. The people of Babel hope to glorify themselves and fortify themselves.
   2. Here at Babel there is such confidence in their social vision, their organization ability, and their technological accomplishments that they feel sure of their success as a society. Does that sound familiar? This spirit has existed in every culture, in every age.
      1. There is no mention of their seeking God for direction, or of their asking God for help, or of their submitting to God’s commands.
      2. In fact, the opposite: God had instructed in Ge 9:1 to be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth. Yet the Babel enterprise is motivated by the desire not to be dispersed over the face of the earth (v.4).
2. A huge number and diversity of people, all over the earth, is God’s idea, as he commands both Adam and Noah to disperse and fill the earth.
   1. We should embrace the diversity we find within humanity, around the globe. We are all one humanity, created in God’s image, and descended from Adam, and then Noah; we should feel a basic connection with each other.
   2. Yet, at the city of Babel, the people do achieve a certain kind of unity, but it is actually  a unified effort to disobey God.
      1. Unity and peace are not virtuous in themselves—it all depends on what you are  unified to do, what the goal of the peace is.
   3. The people of Babel were unified in a selfish, rebellious purpose. And so God is going to confuse and separate them—a vital reminder that our goal is not simply unity (a mistake often made in our day), but finding our unity and identity in the service of the one true God. (Pr 11:21).

II. God Confuses the Language at Babel (vv.5-9)

1. v.5 There is metaphorical language as the narrator says, “The Lord came down to see the city and the tower”.
   1. But there is also obvious irony. The goal of Babel’s people was to build a tower that would reach up to heaven, yet God has to bend down, as it were, to look at their tower.
2.  v.6 Interestingly, it is because God says there actually is great potential in a unified human endeavor that He determines to intervene.
   1. Yet when God says that nothing will be impossible for the people if they are not restrained, God is not speaking of what great things they can achieve without him, but rather of the depths of sin to which he knows they can sink if not restrained.
3. vv.7-9 God disperses the people of Babel over the face of the earth.
   1. In a total turnaround, the rebellion of Babel in order to accomplish significance and security results in the opposite.
   2. As God confuses their languages, they cannot even understand each other, so who will talk about how great their name is? They cannot even communicate, so their unified rebellion becomes complete alienation from each other.

III. God Protects and Prepares the Promised Seed (vv.10-32)

1. vv.10-26 trace the descendants of Noah, thru his godly son Shem, all the way down to a man named Terah, who we discover is the father of a man named Abram.
   1. While the lifespans in this genealogy are still unusually long, we notice that they are already growing shorter after the Flood.
   2. In v.26 the regular rhythm of the genealogy is interrupted when we arrive at Terah, indicating that we have reached another significant, climactic link in the human history.
      1. When we compare the genealogies recorded here in Gen 11 with Luke 3 in the NT, we find all these same names repeated in the lineage of the Messiah.
      2. Even as God quells one of the most comprehensive rebellions in human history, God is simultaneously preparing the way for the promised seed, for the Redeemer to come.
2. vv.27-32 introduce a new section with “These are the generations of Terah”.
   1. This section of Gen will include the story of the patriarch Abraham, and will stretch all the way to midway thru chp 25. Moses wants us to know/remember this man Abraham, and what God did with and thru him.
   2. So even as we conclude chp 11, we feel a sense of great anticipation. God has had to intervene yet again, even after the Flood, to constrain the wickedness and rebellion of humanity—this time at Babel.
      1. Yet God is not forgetting his promise, to bring about the promised seed who would crush the serpent’s head; or his promise to Noah and his descendants, not to destroy the world but rather to redeem it.
3. God is still sovereignly protecting, providing, and preparing for the coming Messiah—by overseeing the lineage of the promised seed.
   1. Against the backdrop of the chaos at Babel in the 1st half of Gen 11, we see the order of the Messianic lineage being recounted in the 2nd half of Gen 11.
      1. What seems confusion and defeat and instability from the human perspective
   2. Yet in v.30, we see already there is a problem: this man Abram, to whom we have traced the promised seed from Adam, thru Seth, thru Noah, thru Shem—this man Abram is married to a woman named Sarai, but she is barren! She can’t have children.
      1. Has the line of the promised seed come to a dead end? How can the promised Savior come from a man and woman who can’t have children?! As we will see, Abram and his wife will themselves struggle with this very point.

Conclusion

1. In the history of Babel we see God’s restraining hand, protecting all humanity—and especially the promised line of the Redeemer—from the potential wickedness of a unified, rebellious humanity.
   1. One day God will work, thru his promised Redeemer, to undo/reverse this confusion of languages and instead bring healing to all the nations.
   2. This will occur initially and in seed-form at Pentacost in Ac 2, as the Holy Spirit, sent by the Lord Jesus Christ, will supernaturally overcome the diversity of languages in order to communicate the gospel of Christ.
      1. And it will come to pass finally and fully when Jesus returns and the peoples from every nation and language are gathered before the throne of the Lamb (Rev 5:9-11).
2. And in the coming story of Abraham we will see God’s willingness to do the impossible in order to bring about his promises, in order to bring his Son and our Redeemer into the world eventually, in order to accomplish our salvation against all odds, and against all opposition.