Genesis 11

ere again we see the importance of continuity with the end of the eleventh Chapter giving us an account of the Main Man of Genesis, Abraham, or Abram for now, and his origins as a true son of Noah, from the line blessed by Noah, Shem. First though, the account of the tower of Babel bears some mentioning. 

Doesn't God sound like a jerk when he says, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech” ? I mean, come on God, all they want to do is build a big tower! Why are You being such a killjoy?

But I think the key verse in order to understand is "This is only the beginning of what they will do." When you think on it, that's a pretty ominous prediction. Imagine a World where Herod the King of Judaea or a man similar to him was king over the whole World. How then could God incarnate the Christ through a natural birth without him being destroyed? True, the Roman Empire stretched across the Western world, but the different customs and languages of the peoples ensured that the Romans used the existing rulers of the people as their proxies, which allowed the Holy Family to escape into another foreign jurisdiction when Herod tried to destroy the Christ child. The multiplicity of nations was an important part of God's plan, to allow him the freedom to intervene subtly in human events, and to ensure that no evil empire could take over the whole world. 

Tall towers gave a tactical advantage to those who had them in their cities. Someone with a tall enough tower would, according to a Jewish flat-earth cosmology, be able to see out over the whole Earth. They would be able to shoot arrows and throw rocks down on immediate attackers, making an attack difficult. 

It is also interesting that the architects of Babel decided to use bricks instead of stone for their city, and tar instead of mortar. The very use of "instead of" suggests that there was something wrong with their creation even in its physical conception. They used the wrong ingredients. Furthermore, if we do a word search on the term "Brick" or "Bricks" we find 15 references: The first occurs here in Genesis. Nine of them are in reference to the bricks the enslaved Israelites were forced to make for Pharaoh in the book of Exodus and Judith 5:11. In 2 Samuel 12:31 David enslaves the Ammonites and forces them to make bricks among other things. Isaiah 9:10 says “The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place.” Isaiah 65:3 describes Israel as "a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and offering incense on bricks." Ezekiel 4:1, God has Ezekiel portray the siege of Jerusalem on a brick as a punishment from God. Nahum 3:14 is addressed to the Ninevites, mocking them, telling them to "take hold of the brick mold," although it will not avail them to avert the destruction that God has appointed against their wickedness. 

So, bricks in the Bible, aside from their mention as the material used to make the tower of Babel, are associated with slavery, inferior work, idolatry, and God's divine punishment. By making these associations, we can get a better idea of what was wrong with Babel, and the connotations that may have been drawn in the minds of the original audience when they were told that the masters of Babel used brick instead of stone.

I recently read a delightful fantasy novel by one of my favorite Catholic authors, John C. Wright, called Somewhither. In it he has his protagonist accidentally fall through an inter-dimensional gateway, landing him in a World where the languages were never confused, and the forces of the Tower of Babel rule over the whole Earth. It's quite a dystopia, with the people living under a horribly oppressive police state and most people in one or another kind of abject slavery.

So we can be confident God knew what he was doing in diminishing the power of man yet again (after keeping him mortal by kicking him out of Eden, destroying the Nephilim with the flood, and limiting man's years to 120) by confusing the languages, because man is too evil to be trusted with power, and moreover since every good thing comes from God, it is completely His right to take goods away that are misused. What might look like the caprice of a malevolent deity is the intricate fabric of a master plan for salvation.



Arguably Personhood is Impossible without some kind of Community. I appreciate your valuable comment(s).