Thinking about the Tower of Babel: Unrestrained and Unguided Human Capacity

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, and welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. It's time for our weekly devotional, and today we're going to be looking at Genesis 11, 1 through 9. And I'm going to structure this devotional a little bit differently than I normally do. I'm going to walk through a series of observations about this text and then talk a little bit about how I read it, how I interpret it, and how I think it connects into particularly Genesis 12. So the issue, the way I'm doing this, the difference that I'm taking, or the different path that I'm taking this week, is really conditioned by some of the more common interpretations of Genesis 11, 1 through 9. If you're not familiar with this text, it's usually referred to as the Tower of Babel narrative. And even that name is a little bit, I think, misleading. But many times what you'll hear about this narrative is that it's about human pride, about the hubris that is exhibited by humankind. And that's normally rooted in a reference to making a name for ourselves in verse 4. So the tower builders say that they want to build this city and tower, and they want to make a name for themselves. And that making a name of themselves is usually associated with pride. And oftentimes in the Old Testament, that's actually true. It does denote this moment where people want to make their name higher than, let's say, God's name or higher than other people's name. They want their name to be remembered. This idea of the name is actually pretty crucial in the Old Testament. And so it makes sense why interpreters have gone that way. Unfortunately, I think a closer reading of this text yields a slightly different interpretation. And so while I don't deny that there may be an element of pride or hubris here, I do think that there are other things at play that we need to be paying attention to. So that's why I'm taking a slightly different approach. So let's take a look at a few different things in these observations. And if you're watching this on video, I'm looking down because my notes are just right here in front of me on the screen. But I'll be walking through these observations and going back and forth between my observations and the text. So here we go. And the first observation I would just make is that 11.1 and 2 really do provide us with some important background information. Now, I've talked about this before when you're interpreting Old Testament narrative and you see background information that's normally signaled by the word now in our English translations. In Hebrew, the word arrangement goes from verb, subject, object. That's normally what the word order in Hebrew is in biblical narrative, verb, subject, object. In English, we usually use a subject, verb, object sort of structure. So it would be odd for me to say, we are going to study as opposed to saying, study we are going to. Something like that. I start to sound like Yoda. But in Hebrew, that was the verb, subject, object was the general sentence structure. You run into that an awful lot. And so the verb comes first. But when you see the now, particularly at the beginning of a new passage, a new narrative, something like we see this in Genesis 3.1, for instance, where now the serpent was the craftiest of all the animals that the Lord God had created. That is usually a conjunction, what's called a vav in Hebrew, connected to a noun. And that generally signals this idea of background information. And so we have that here. In Genesis 11.1, we see, now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. Okay, so this background information is given, I think, for our benefit. So we should begin by recognizing that, hey, there's something about this earth having all the same language and the same words and deciding to go toward the plain of Shinar and settle there. There's something important about that to this narrative. We wouldn't necessarily be getting this background if it wasn't important. And so we just need to keep that in mind. I will argue or suggest later on that I think this plays into the broader interpretation of this narrative. But right now, let's observe that that's there, that it's background information that we actually need, that this is something that we're being signaled to, that's going to feature as some sort of importance within the narrative. Okay, I think the second thing that we want to observe is not actually necessarily in this text, but I want to point out the way that this differs from previous texts that we've seen. In Genesis 3.1-7 and Genesis 6.1-4, we see a repetition of a very similar sort of quote-unquote sin pattern. And that is, I think, a riff on what we see in the Genesis narrative, Genesis 1.1-2.3, where God creates something and then he sees that it is good. God sees that, you know, the things that he is creating are good. He determines or deems them good. He looks out at them and decides, yes, this is what I wanted. This was the intended design I had wanted. And so I am deeming this good. This is going to be definitionally good. And in Genesis 3.1-7, we see that Eve, when she is looking at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she looks at it and she sees that the tree was good for fruit, good for eating, that it was desirable to make one wise, and she takes of the fruit of the tree. So we see seeing, good, and taking. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. See that similar pattern in Genesis 6, 1-4. In Genesis 6, 1-4, the sons of God see the daughters of men that they are, usually as translated, beautiful. But that word beautiful, that translation, is actually the same Hebrew word as good. So we could just say, just for clarity, to emphasize the parallel, saw that the daughters of men were good. And they took them, whomever they chose. So we see again this repetition of see, good, and took. Now in both of those narratives, I think we are supposed to understand that the problem in Genesis 6, 1-4 is very similar to the problem we see in Genesis 3, 1-7. That there is a boundary being crossed. That there is an intentional determination of what is good and a taking of that good. A determined, you know, human beings are sitting back and they're saying, this is what's good for us. We're going to do it this way. And that's intentionally coded into the text through this repetition. We don't see that in 11, 1-9. Again, I'll circle back and explain why I think that's important. But for right now, I just want to recognize that it doesn't fit this pattern that we've seen in previous other narratives. The third observation is God's identification of the problem and his solution to that problem in Genesis 11, 6-7. So the people are gathering in the plain of Shinar. They're going to build, begin building the city and the tower. And God comes down and he says, behold, they are one people and they all have one language. And this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down there and confuse their language so that they may not understand one another's speech. The problem that the Lord sees and the solution that he comes up with all have to do with what we saw in the background information in 11.1. He's solving a problem that is related to everyone being able to speak the same language and the things that they are able to do because they can coordinate together with relative ease. And so he sees this now as a problem within humanity. And he acts to fix that problem. Finally, I just wanna say there are several references to what's being built in this narrative. I'll talk a little bit about a ziggurat later on in this episode. But right now, what I wanna note is that when the people initially decide that they're gonna build something, they say in verse four, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. Okay, so there's a

and there's a tower. That's verse 4. And then in verse 5, the Lord comes down to see the city and the tower which the children of men have built. Oftentimes when we see this narrative treated, what we're dealing with is in what I would call an overemphasis on the tower aspect. So a lot of commentators suggest that this is a ziggurat. And there's some real feasible reasons to think that it could be a ziggurat. I think actually the ziggurat interpretation is kind of compelling, and I would love for it to be the emphasis of this narrative because I think it does yield some really interesting interpretive results. Unfortunately, there's another aspect of this narrative that I think is problematic for that interpretation. But a ziggurat was essentially a spherical tower, almost like a silo that tapers in at the top. It had a room at the top where people would go up and they would do religious things, offer sacrifices, pray, all those sorts of activities that you would expect to see in a temple-like structure. And because it was closer to God, up, and within the cosmic geography of the ancient Near East, that would have made sense. Heaven was up, earth was below, below that was Sheol in the underworld and the deeps. And so they had this understanding of a three-tiered structure, a multi-tiered structure to the world. But it was a more of a phenomenological view of what the world was. They weren't thinking of it from a scientific perspective. They were looking at it from this, how do we experience it? Thing, you know, the heavens are up, the earth is down, there are things under the earth, there's things to my right, to my left. And so they just understood the earth in that way, the way that they actually saw it, not in the way that they couldn't really observe the earth, let's say, from space and understand more about what was going on there. So that would have made sense. The problem I see with that interpretation is actually in verse 8. So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of the earth, so this is after the Lord confuses their languages and disperses them. And they left off building the city. No mention of the tower. I think it's actually fairly interesting that there's no mention of the tower. If this is the Tower of Babel narrative, the tower is mentioned in conjunction with the city twice before, but at the end, there's no tower referenced. And I think that's just something we need to notice. If the emphasis is on the tower, it really feels like there's no reason to omit the tower in that last reference. But there it is. And so I think overall, what we're looking at here is a narrative, just based on those observations, and I'll kind of get into my interpretation of this. Number one, I think that we're given the information about the people having one language and one word to emphasize this idea of human coordination. My tendency is to think that this, unlike, let's say, Genesis 3, 1-7 or Genesis 6, 1-4, isn't overt rebellion against God. It's not about determining something in opposition to God. It's not about crossing a boundary that we understand. I think people had so lost their way that they didn't understand really what they're doing in this moment. They're in the midst of a world where things are difficult. They're living in a fallen and broken world. And so everything that they're proposing here makes sense if they don't understand who God is. If they don't know that they're supposed to be relating to him as dependent beings, if they don't understand that they are to be relating to him in a dependent fashion, what makes sense? Well, we can all talk together. We can all coordinate together. We have this technology. We can make bricks. We have the ability to do that. And as we see in verse 3, come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. So they have this technology. They have the ability to coordinate. And so what makes sense? Well, if we don't want to be scattered across the whole earth, that's maybe dangerous. That makes us vulnerable. That separates us. That doesn't seem like a good thing because we're dealing with some pretty heavy stuff, right? We have the technology to stay together. We have the ability to plan to stay together. And look, we could really make this into something special. We could be the people who provide this for coming generations. That has to do with some of that. Let's make a name for ourselves. And again, that very much could be pride, but there's part of me that feels like this isn't exactly pride. And I'll come back to that a little bit later, but I think that's part of what connects to Genesis 12. So let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide, or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. My reading of this is, so far, that, number one, the people who are building the city and the Tower of Babel, they don't really understand that they're acting against God. They don't necessarily know that they are supposed to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. They don't understand that what they're building in the city and the tower with its top in the heavens isn't going to be representative of who God is, right? I think if we read back, we think about that temple, right? The tabernacle that Israel is given the instructions for in Exodus, and obviously, later when David builds the temple. This temple is to be meticulously constructed. I'm sorry, not David, Solomon. Solomon builds the temple. Excuse me. But the tabernacle and temple were to be meticulously constructed based on instructions given by God so that the temple was a representation, sort of a shadow, of the heavenly temple. It was to represent God in that way. And so, if that temple, if the city and the tower that the people at Babel are building right here, if it's not up to snuff, they're just deciding they're going to build it. They're going to design this. This is going to be our name. This is going to be fantastic. We're all going to live together. Unfortunately, all of that is going to misrepresent God. And it almost doesn't matter that this misrepresentation isn't intentional. Like I said, I don't think they're trying to do this in sort of an overtly rebellious fashion, but they're doing it out of ignorance. It doesn't make a difference. It's going to misrepresent God, and so it becomes a problem. Now, my tendency is to see that as the people begin to build the city and the tower, and then in verse 5, we see that the Lord comes down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built. Number one, again, God coming down sort of fits with the cosmic geography of the ancient world, but I also think it may have an element of sarcasm that these people are looking to build this great and wonderful city and yet God still has to come down to see it. That tower hasn't quite reached the heavens yet. And this is where God then pronounces what the problem is. The problem is not that they're building an idolatrous tower. The problem is not that they're establishing a city, so God is not against some sort of urban environment or what have you. Instead, what does he look at? He looks at the capacity of the people to implement the plans that they want to implement apart from him. Behold, they are one people and they have one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And notice he says this at the end of verse 6, and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Now, I don't think we should take that in the absolute sense, but the point is that these people can accomplish an awful lot apart from God. They can remake a world in which God is functionally absent, even though God is always present, but that God is always misrepresented and that they have the ability as they coordinate the God-gifted strengths that he has given humanity, the amazing things that he has allowed us to do, also allow us when exercised apart from him and in coordination with one another, they allow us to create societies that offer us security, which mask us from our need to depend on God. They mask our need to depend on God. That is what I think the problem here is. God is going to look down on this and say, my gosh, these people who are fearfully and wonderfully made, these people that I have endowed with great power and great gifts, they don't know me. And so whilst many have rebelled against me, there are also those who are ignorant,

still exercise these capacities to further forget me. They can live, even though they are always dependent on me, they could live as if I don't even exist. That's how powerful and gifted these humans are. And so I think this is really a narrative about the unrestrained and unguided capacity of humankind. It's a cautionary tale about the unrestrained and unconstrained capacity of humankind to forget God through our own apparent, and I say apparent intentionally, self-sufficiency. And so we get enamored with our own achievements. We forget that we are dependent on God. We move forward and do whatever it is that we want. And ultimately, our unrestrained and unguided capacities create a problem. And so what does God do? He says, well, let's fix this. Let's make it harder for them to coordinate. Let's make it harder for them to exercise their capacity. And so he says, we're going to go down there and confuse their language so that they may not understand one another's speech. Interestingly, and this is something I think I didn't observe, but we should, God fixes the speech problem that we saw in the background, this coordination aspect, that the people should not be able to get together and do whatever it is that they want to do. So God is fixing that problem again. That's why I think that this narrative has less to do with pride and more to do with coordination and the unrestrained and unguided capacities of humankind, that as human beings are pulled together and they're united and they think up these plans and they seek out to accomplish them, these are things that can continually reinforce the fact that even if God exists, we don't really need him. And that's a situation that God doesn't want for humankind. And so he fixes that situation by confusing their languages. And then in verse eight, we see that the Lord disperses them. So they didn't want to be dispersed. They didn't want to be scattered, but the Lord disperses them across all the face of the earth and they leave off building the city. There's nothing said about the city being destroyed, which I also find interesting. There's nothing said about the city being destroyed. There's nothing said about the tower being destroyed. And again, what I, what I see here is that God is not as concerned with the city or the tower. What he's concerned with is this broader ideology that's coming in, this, this broader vision that the humans are trying to implement that would squeeze him out of their lives in any functional way. And so then we, we close this off in verse nine. It says, therefore, its name was called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. Again, we see that confusion coming back in. And from there, the Lord dispersed them over the face of the earth. So again, my tendency is not to read this as a narrative about pride or human hubris or anything like that. And it's in part because of all these different elements that we can already see in the text. Yes, they have the, we want to make a name for ourselves, which could denote pride. And again, I wouldn't leave that out necessarily. But what I would say is that you're seeing multiple times that the language comes up, that the language is there throughout the narrative. Pride is never really mentioned. And even in verse nine, where we're summing this up, it's called Babel, not because the Lord there humbled the proud, but because there the Lord confused the language. And so I think that's the central point of this entire narrative. Now, how does it connect to Genesis 12? Well, I think that what we're seeing here is a shift. The Lord sees that not only are these people who have coordinated, let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. ...together and they're using their unguided and unrestrained human capacity to do whatever it is that they want to do, are largely ignorant of him. And so he fixes the first problem and says, nope, they're not going to be able to do whatever they're going to do. We need to curtail that. But now, how do I fix the knowledge of me problem? And that's where I believe the call of Abraham comes into play. When God calls Abram, he says to him, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land I will show you, and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. And so here what we see is God calling Abram into covenant. And God is going to call Abram into covenant and Abram across the rest of his life is going to begin learning how to interact with God. What does it mean for Abram to use his various gifts and capacities in a dependent relationship upon the Lord? But notice that he's going to make Abram's name great. Instead of Abram making his own name or instead of the people of Babel trying to make their own name great, God is going to make Abram's name great. And this is the way that it is supposed to go because unlike the people who are trying to build the city and the tower in Genesis 11, 1-9, who are using their unguided and unrestrained human capacities to try to do something that would allow them to live their lives in largely independently or in ignorance of the dependence they have on the Lord, might be the better way to say that. What God is going to call Abram to is a life spent learning how to live in dependence on the Lord. And through that dependence, he is going to make Abram's name great. And so it almost doesn't matter what capacities Abram has. He develops some. Abram is not just a sort of simple lackey. He doesn't have, you know, he brings assets to the table eventually. He is blessed by God in a variety of ways. You know, I think one of the more important narratives is Genesis 14 where Abram musters a small army and goes and rescues a lot. Abram is not without resources, but the call that God is giving to Abram is to leave many of those resources, to walk into a vulnerable position, to leave his family, leave security, leave safety. And the journey with him is as God in a land that he does not understand, that he does not know, that he has no ownership in. And so Abram really does occupy a very vulnerable position. And from that vulnerable position, as he learns dependence on the Lord, Abram will have his name be made great. The lesson for us, number one, I think God has gifted all of us in great and unique ways. But the reality is that we can use those gifts to pretend that we are independent of God. But really what we should be doing is we should be recognizing that those gifts are from the Lord and living in a dependent relationship upon him. We should be constantly looking back and saying, not what can I do in this situation, but more, what would God have me do in this moment? What would God have me do in this situation? We're always looking back and looking beyond what we think is possible to what God is actually going to do through us as we yield our lives over to him. Part of that is just living in obedience. Part of that is recognizing that, hey, even though God has gifted me with all of these amazing things, oftentimes what God wants me to do is exercise constraint so that his glory can shine through me. And I think that's an important lesson for all of us. I don't think it leads us to passivity, but I do think that it is important for us to remember that even within the life of Abram, we see Abram be proactive in going to rescue Lot, for instance, but we see him overstep in trying to solve his heir problem with Hagar. So he's married to Sarah, but he has sex with Hagar, has a child, and then God ultimately replaces that child with Isaac. And so Abram has these sort of fits and starts where he has to try to learn, how do I navigate these situations with God? We have to do the same thing. And so it's not advocating for passivity, but it's also not advocating for automatic activity. I think what I would argue for is we need to be discerning and try to understand how is God going to be glorified in what I'm doing right now? How are people going to look past me and the strengths that God has given me? How are they going to look past those and actually see God working? And even more than that, and certainly...

places, I often wonder what would God do if I weren't just leaning on my own strength, on my own understanding. So, hopefully that is a little bit different than you've heard Genesis 11, 1 through 9 before. Hopefully, it is encouraging to you and gives you some food for thought as you go throughout this week and I'd just like to close in prayer, and then we'll see you next week on Thinking Christian. So here we go. Let's pray. Lord, thanks so much for this narrative. Thanks for the gifts and capacities that you give us. We pray that you would help us to exercise those wisely and independence on you. We ask, Lord, that you would just help us to follow you, that we would be willing to set aside our strengths so that your glory would be shown and that we would never seek to earn the credit to make a name for ourselves, but always to point to and glorify you in everything that we do. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Hey, remember to check out Tuesday and Thursday's episodes this week on Thinking Christian. We're also going to be having some political politics and theology sort of episodes coming up. I'm preparing for my time at Pulpit in the Pew. That's a Christian post event in Grapevine, Texas at the end of this month. And so I'd encourage you to look out for things with that. And also, as always, you can purchase my book, Serpents and Doves, Christians, Politics, and the Art of Bearing Witness on Amazon.com. You can also check out all of that on UsefulToGod.com. So thanks, everybody. Take care and we'll catch on the next episode of Thinking Christian. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian Podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Many of us feel hurried. Did you know that being in a hurry is costing us more than we realize? Hi, I'm Jem Fadling, co-host of Unhurried Living, where my husband, Alan, and I help people learn to live and lead from fullness rather than on empty. We provide resources and training to teach you healthy patterns for rest, work, and spiritual connection. With more than 25 years of experience at the intersection of spiritual formation and leadership development, Unhurried Living seeks to inspire others to rest deeper, live fuller, and lead better. Join us each week as we continue to have conversations about leadership, soul care, the power of prayer, and much more. You can find Unhurried Living at lifeaudio.com and on your favorite podcasting app.