The Tower of Babel

Several generations later, the descendants of Noah assembled together to build a stairway tower as a “gateway of the gods,” but the LORD God confused their language and scattered them.

Now Noah was not perfect; neither were Adam and Eve, nor Abel, Seth, or Enoch. But they did acknowledge the Lord God of the Bible as the one true living God who created heaven and earth and all that is therein. They came to know Him as a loving, merciful God who is also righteous and holy in His dealings with people. They also recognized His unlimited power and self-dependency.

But self-centered people began to recreate God into someone with whom they were more comfortable. They said, “God is powerful, but He has weaknesses, too. Besides, He is needy and only we can meet His needs.”

Then, “Since God is weak, maybe there are many gods, each making up for others' weaknesses.”

“These weak gods don’t always communicate clearly. If we don’t pamper the gods, then they will become hostile and threaten to hurt us.”

Eventually, the majority of people believed that the gods could be manipulated by humans. Things deteriorated so that they worshiped many gods instead of the true, living God.

One day, in the plain of Shinar, many who had settled there decided to build a huge tower out of brick and mortar. They said to each other, “Come on, let’s build a city and a tower that reaches up to Heaven. We will be famous and won’t be scattered all over the earth.”

So, even though God had said to fill the earth, the majority of the people chose to do the opposite of God’s commandment. They began to build a city with a tower that went high into the sky. They called this their gateway to the gods, reaching up to their home. They imagined gods coming down the long stairways to the temple at the bottom of the tower to be appeased and interact with the priests and priestesses.

So God “came down” to see the city and the tower men were building. He said, “Look, they are all staying together and are united in their disobedience, since they speak the same language. Something has to be done, or they will continue in this folly. Let’s go down and break them up, by making them speak different languages so they won’t be able to understand each other.”

You can imagine the confusion. One man asks for a tool, another doesn’t understand. Fights may even have broken out. The work on the city definitely stopped because God confused their language and scattered them all over the earth.

The Babylonian name of their city literally meant “gateway of the gods.” “Babel” is the Hebrew translation of that name which sounds like the Hebrew word for confusion. Both ideas convey the story of the Tower of Babel.