Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Genesis 11

Genesis 11: the tower of Babel, and more genealogy

Synopsis

This chapter starts off with the story of the tower of Babel. At the beginning of the story, everyone still speaks the same language, and also lives in pretty much the same geographical area.

They decide to build 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” (verse 4). The LORD, however, does not like this plan. “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” (verses 6–7) So He confuses their language, and scatters them over the Earth.

The rest of the chapter is more genealogy, from Shem to Abram.

Thoughts

The moral of this story, I believe, is that men were becoming proud of themselves, and forgetting about God. They were trying to do things on their own, and flouting their accomplishments in front of His face.

I sometimes wonder, when I read this story, how well they would have done in building the tower, if the LORD hadn’t done what He did.

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