The Bible Book

42

COME, LET US BUILD

OURSELVES A CITY, WITH

A TOWER THAT REACHES

TO THE HEAVENS

GENESIS 11:4, THE TOWER OF BABEL

pyramid that reaches toward the

heavens. Not surprisingly, they are

proud of this achievement.

High ambitions

The story of the Tower of Babel

comes at the end of the first

section of Genesis, before moving

on from the creation of the universe

to a more particular account of the

ancestral origins of the nation of

Israel. The Babel narrative draws

on historical realities—people

did migrate and Babel was an

early name for Babylon—in order

to tell a universal story about

humankind’s tendency to behave

against God’s wishes. It is not just

the Babylonians who are depicted

here, but the whole world, all

speaking the same language.

After settling in Shinar, the

people spur themselves on with

two emphatic statements: “Come,

let’s make bricks and bake them

thoroughly. ... Come, let us build

ourselves a city, with a tower that

reaches to the heavens, so that

we may make a name for ourselves

and not be scattered over the face

of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4).

Wary of what is happening

among the people of Shinar, God

visits the city and its tower. He

sees that if the citizens of Babel

continue to progress at this rate,

nothing will be beyond them. Part

of their power, He decides, lies in

the fact that they all speak the

same language.

The sin of arrogance

Genesis does not explicitly

state the reasons for God’s

disapproval, but among the options

suggested by scholars is that the

tower is an outward expression

of the sin of human arrogance. In

a statement of His own, God says,

“Come, let us go down and confuse

their language so they will not

understand each other” (11:7).

IN BRIEF

PA S SAGE

Genesis 11:1–9

THEME

The power of humanity

SETTING

After the Great Flood

Shinar, Mesopotamia.

KEY FIGURE

People of the world

Descendants of Noah,

who speak one language.

G

enesis 11 describes a

large people journeying

westward in a mass

migration. They decide to settle in

the land of Shinar, another name

for Babylonia, after finding the

Mesopotamian floodplain fertile.

Although there is no stone with

which to build a city, the people

are technologically innovative and

learn to create imposing structures

using bricks, with bitumen for

mortar. They establish a great

city and begin to build a ziggurat,

a temple tower in the shape of a

If ... they have begun to do

this, then nothing that they

propose to do will now

be impossible for them.

Genesis 11:6

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