Tower of Babel: God’s Judgment on Pride — Genesis 11 Daily Word

Explore how human pride clashed with God’s power at the Tower of Babel. Discover why God confused languages and scattered humanity across the earth in Genesis 11.

Genesis 11:1-9 Daily Word — The Tower of Babel is an event where human pride and God’s sovereignty collide. When humanity, united by a single language, attempted to build a tower reaching to the heavens, God confused their language, bringing about the first division in human history.

The Tower of Babel

[Scripture]

[1] Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. [2] And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. [3] And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. [4] Then 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.” [5] And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. [6] And 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. [7] Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” [8] So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. [9] Therefore its name was called Babel, 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. (Gen 11:1-9, ESV)

[Daily Word]

# The whole earth had one language and one speech.

However, as we saw earlier in the genealogy of Japheth, Genesis 10:5 records that from these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations. Likewise, in the genealogy of Ham, 10:20 states: by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. And in the genealogy of Shem, verse 31 records the same: by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. Ultimately, this tells us that although the whole earth once had one language and one speech, something has now occurred that caused the languages of the whole earth to be divided.

# Introducing Nimrod.

The reason Nimrod is introduced here is that he is connected to Babel. Nimrod was a mighty ruler of his time who conquered nations by force. The kingdom inaugurated through this ruler is a region called “Babel” in the land of Shinar, recorded in Genesis 10:10. It is here that the kingdom of Babylon is established. Then, looking at Genesis 11:2, we see that as people were moving eastward in obedience to God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,” they came upon the plain of Shinar and settled there.

The expression “east” (ketem) here can be understood from a human perspective as moving in an eastward direction. However, this is written from God’s perspective, and from God’s perspective there is no purely spatial meaning. God speaks of everything centered on Himself alone. Rather, He expresses this in terms of time — there is only the past, present, and future of the Garden of Eden that God created in the beginning. Therefore, to the east of the Garden of Eden, which has existed since the time of creation, there lies only a future to which humanity must one day return.

So, to express the words of verse 2 from God’s perspective: the people were moving eastward within Eden — that is, within the kingdom of God — when they came upon the plain of Shinar and settled there. That place, however, represents a future so far removed from God that humanity cannot return by its own power. The people pressed on toward the plain of Shinar.

The plain of Shinar is the region of Babylon, situated between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. There, the people settled according to their own will, apart from God’s purposes. (They drove their stakes into the ground.) God’s will, as expressed in Genesis 9:7, was that they be fruitful and multiply, teem on the earth and multiply in it. God commanded them to keep moving forward — yet they stopped and settled down.

# This brings to mind the past disobedience of Cain.

(4:16) Cain departed from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. There we can see that Cain built a city and named it after his son Enoch. Yet this place was far removed from God’s will, and the account ultimately ends with Cain’s descendants sinning against God and being cast away. In the same way, “Nimrod” begins a course of sin entirely contrary to God’s will. This is seen in verse 4, where the people united with a misguided purpose and became of one mind.

Their intention was to build a city and a tower with its top reaching into the heavens, to make a name for themselves, and to avoid being scattered over the face of the whole earth. So they resolved to make bricks, bake them thoroughly, and coat them with tar in order to construct a strong tower by which they could make their name known throughout the world. Above all, they wanted to rise higher than God in heaven, to declare to all the world that when human strength is gathered together it can achieve such greatness, and to utterly reject the blessing God had bestowed upon the earth.

# The LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the people were building.

In verse 5, we read that the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. This does not mean that God came to the earth in a physical, literal sense; rather, it means that He came down to examine the tower of sin that humanity was constructing on its own. In particular, the Hebrew expression translated as “the people were building” is bənê hāʾādām. In other words, the people referred to here are not the sons of Noah, but the sons of Adam. This tells us that the sinful nature humanity acquired through Adam’s sin remained in people even after the judgment of the flood.

[9] The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? [10] “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” (Jer 17:9-10, ESV) God then judged in [6] And 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. (Gen 11:6, ESV): “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.”

Although the people building the Tower of Babel descended from Noah and were originally one people, God knew that they neither used language that pleased Him nor would they abandon their wicked plans. Therefore, the judgment He carried out, as stated in verse 7, was to confuse their language so that they could no longer understand one another.

This was a judgment God enacted upon those who lived on His earth yet lived as though He did not exist. Through this, the language of all who were building the tower was confused, and they naturally scattered, each gravitating toward others who spoke their own tongue. It is for this reason that God caused the place to be called “Babel.” However, before it received the name “Babel,” ancient sources reveal that the people of that region had named the tower “Ka-dingir-ki.”

The meaning of Ka-dingir-ki is “the gate of god.” The people harbored an arrogant ambition to ascend to the heavens and reach the very gate where the gods dwelt. And so God scattered their misguided thinking and condemned that land with the name Babel. Yet the fact that a man named Nimrod later made that place his own city signals the beginning of yet another cycle of sin.

(1 Cor 14:33) [33] For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, (1 Cor 14:33, ESV)

What God desires of us is that we share the same heart as His, speak the same word as His, and live our lives within the Lord.

Therefore, what we must do is keep God’s Word, live a set-apart life in every place we are planted, and preserve the peace we have with God. It is my prayer that you would believe that when we walk in these things, our lives are enriched within the will of God — and that we would be a delight to Him.

Tower of Babel, human pride, God’s judgment, confusion of languages, the beginning of division

Originally published in Korean at bible2u.com