Located in the plains of Shinar of northern Mesopotamia, Babylon, or Babel, ushered in the world of many languages and nations scattered over all the earth. The brief Babel narrative finds people in opposition to God, and tells of the scattering of the nations developed from the descendants of Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. How did the peoples of the earth in chapter 10 – the Table of the Nations – become so distinctly different and settle over the whole earth? In brief, God scattered them. The Babel account begins and ends with the Hebrew words, kal-ha-eretz, all the earth. This framing device gives a clue to the writer’s ingenious, compact method of imparting wordplay, repetition, and an hourglass literary device intended to convey the contrast between man’s foolish arrogance and the Lord God’s majestic power. Babel’s secrets are unlocked in just nine verses. The hourglass account of Babel presents itself like this:

The first two verses and last two verses provide two opposite narrations. Kal-ha-eretz, all the earth, had just one language and one common speech or vocabulary. This is the top of the hourglass. However, God confused their language and scattered the people over kal-ha-eretz, all the earth. This is the end of the account and the base of the hourglass.

The second set of two verses (verses 3 and 4) and the second-to-the-last set of two verses (verses 6 and 7) give two opposing discourses. In the first discourse the people say, “Come, let us bake bricks and use mortar,” and “Let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens to make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of kal-ha-eretz.” In the opposing discourse, verses 6 and 7, God says, “If as one people with one language they can do this, there is no limit to what they can do. Come, let us go down and confuse their language, so they will not understand each other.”

The central verse (5) serves as the transition between the discourse of the people and the discourse of God and says that the Lord came down to see the city and the tower they were building. The fact that God “came down” gives us a clue that the heavens were not reached!

The final narration in verses 8 and 9 presents the opposite effect of the first narration. Their languages are now different and the people become scattered over all the earth, kal-ha-eretz.

They were building a tall ziggurat, a tower to reach the heavens, so that they could make a name for themselves. The tower of Marduk in Babylon reached a height of 300 feet and demonstrated the new technology of bricks of mud and mortar made of tar or asphalt. The new method of construction gave taller structures more strength, and for certain, gave them confidence in their enterprise. The city was very possibly under the supervision of Nimrod, a descendant of Ham and Cush, and a king of this region. Mesopotamia included ancient Sumer, the cradle of the first civilization after the Great Flood. Unfortunately, God’s directions to the people included being fruitful and multiplying – a task they had no problem accomplishing – but also spreading out over all the earth, kal-ha-eretz.

The ancient problem of hubris so famous in the Greek tragedies of Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles had a much earlier beginning with Babel. This in part is what God meant when He said, “If as one people with one language they can do this, there is no limit to what they can do.” He was not speaking of great undertakings, but of great sin, arrogance, hubris. Essentially, the people succumbed to Eve’s temptation in the garden of Eden, the idea of being like God. In this case, to be as gods the people thought they could reach the heavens and make a name for themselves. The wordplay becomes a mnemonic for the sin. In Hebrew the phrasing sounds alike for name – shem – and heavens – shamayim. “Let us reach shamayim and make shem.” If we consider the dominance of consonants over vowels, the two words sound remarkably close. The phrasing of wordplay and the tight structure of this account would have been helpful to Moses’ listeners as they heard the reading of the new scripture. Availability of the manuscript would have been limited and many people were illiterate, a good reason for getting their attention orally in a memorable way.

Moses, the presumed author, further enhanced the wordplay by repeating the words for heavens and the earth – shamayim and ha-eretz – echoing Genesis 1:1, the first sentence of the Bible:

In the beginning created God the heavens and the earth.

Bereshit bara Elohim et has-shamayim et ha-eretz.

– Genesis 1:1

The account of Babel therefore has something to do with the distinction between the heavens and the earth. A Psalm of David gives an important clue:

The highest heavens belong to the Lord,

but the earth He has given to mankind.

– Psalm 115:16

The peoples’ overweaning presumption was their attempt to become God, in effect doing away with Him – Nietzsche would say killing God – as they would take His place and make a name for themselves. This sin contained the seed of perhaps greater arrogance than their disobedience to the commission God had given them at Ararat, when the Lord spoke to Noah and his three sons, saying to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth (Genesis 9:1). Surely they had multiplied, but they chose to remain concentrated on the plain of Shinar, the land between the rivers (Tigris and Euphrates). They even said as much in 11:4 – “Otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.“

In a sense the Lord God laughed at their prideful arrogance. Imagine the Almighty One examining their ziggurat, the 300-foot tower of Babel, as He descended from the highest heavens to see their paltry work. The confusion of the language occurred easily, at God’s command, just as God said to Abraham,

“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” – Genesis 18:14

Further wordplay occurs with the words for brick, L-V-N in Hebrew, and confuse, N-V-L. This reversal reinforces how God reversed their intention by confusing the language and scattering them.

We may further observe that the name they made for themselves had quite the opposite of the intended effect. The name of the city became Babylon, or Babel, which sounds like confusion.

Now mankind did not fully learn the lesson of Babel. At least 30 ziggurats have been found in ancient Mesopotamian ruins. Some have inscriptions about reaching the heavens. Many cultures have built pyramids and tall structures to reach the heavens for religious purposes, making a “shem” for themselves by reaching “shamayim.” However, in effect, God’s purpose for mankind – to fill the earth – came about from God’s will exercised at Babel. The moral for readers today may be found in the words of Jesus as he taught His disciples the Lord’s Prayer:

“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

Oh, that we could deny our tendency for self-glorification and self-deification and self reliance, independent of our Creator! If we could only spurn the temptation of Eve to be like God (Genesis 3:5). The better path follows our Lord’s example. We may pray this: “Lord, may your will be done.”