One may get the impression that, through the judgment at Babel, we can see God making the best of a bad situation. It goes beyond this, though. To see it, we need to keep the narrative in context. Chapters 10 and 11 are not in chronological sequence; however, in the narrative, each chapter is connected to what precedes and follows it. First, look at chapter 10, also known as the table of Nations. It relates how the descendants of Noah’s sons were divided over the Earth. In Paul’s sermon on the Areopagus, he says that God made every nation of men from one man “that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” Genesis 10 is not then a mere record of what happened, but of what God did. Paul goes on to say why God did this-“so that men would seek him.” This relates to the oracle that Noah speaks concerning his sons, which immediately precedes chapter 10. He says, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem!” It is a subsequent phrase that is of immediate interest, “May Japheth live in the tents of Shem.” A time was coming when the Gentiles would be brought into the Covenant people of God. God divided the nations up in order that he might elect one of these to then be a light to the Gentiles. This was accomplished in the judgment at Babel. Genesis 11 does not then describe God reacting; rather, it reveals how God went about carrying out his sovereign and redemptive purpose.
The creation of a multiplicity of tongues at the Tower of Bable finds its reversal on the day of Pentecost where these tongues, instead of preventing communication, are the means whereby the gospel is universally understood. In Peter’s explanatory sermon of this event, he claims that it is the fulfillment of the Day of the Lord spoken of in the prophet Joel. While this term, "Day of the Lord" is not specifically used in Genesis 11, it is consistently associated in scripture with the coming of God in judgment. The ultimate Day of the Lord has to do with the second advent of Christ and his consequent judgment. However, throughout the Bible, various judgments are spoken of in terms of the Day or the coming of the Lord. All of them, including the passage in question, point forward to this final Day in which the present age ends.
We can look at the tower itself. The imagery is multilayered. Perhaps the simplest classification would be ‘tall things that connect heaven and earth.’ Interwoven are images of the kingdom. Consider what happens: the people build a tower whose top may reach into heaven. God comes down [indicative of their lack of success] in judgment and confounds their language. The people are scattered and the tower comes to nothing.
There is a great tree, the branches of which reach into heaven. A holy one descends from heaven and declares that the tree is to be chopped down. This from the fourth chapter of Daniel. Or go back two chapters to another of Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams. A great image, representing the kingdoms of this world is ground to powder and blown away after a stone descends from heaven and strikes it on the feet. These are all, essentially, the same story. They all end the same way. Nebuchadnezzar is forced to live like an animal for seven years until he acknowledges that God alone rules over the kingdoms of the world. The stone that destroys the image grows into a mountain and fills the whole earth. At first glance, it would appear that the Babel narrative doesn’t fit the pattern; that is, until one considers it in its context. In other words, keep reading. God makes a covenant with Abraham and the kingdom is assured. From here on out scripture is the story of a growing stone.
The location of Babel in the land of Shinar provides another clue concerning its function as the backdrop of election. In Zechariah 5, a woman named Wickedness is in a basket, which is then carried away by two women with the wings of a stork. Kline sees this as a reverse Exodus. The two women with stork wings carrying the basket is a perverse representation of the Ark of the Covenant with the winged cherubim hovering above the mercy seat. The woman Wickedness, who is inside the basket, is apostate Israel. She is being taken to the land of Shinar where she will have a temple built for her. This is not merely going back into Babylonian exile or even into Egyptian slavery. The imagery is that of Babel; it is of being reabsorbed into the non-elect.
Still another theme to note is that of the city. Cities, as such, are not bad things. The New Jerusalem is revealed as a city. Yet, it is instructive to see how Moses deals with this theme, especially that of building cities. We are presented with the specter of Nimrod building a city, but he is not the first. This honor belongs to Cain. Note the similar motives between the two. Those at Babel do not want to be scattered over the earth; Cain builds Enoch after God has condemned him to be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. Later on in the Mosaic writings, when the children of Israel are to enter the Promised Land and live in cities, they are not allowed to forget that these are cities that they did not build. Consider that the narrative of Babel is immediately contrasted with that of Abraham. The placement is not random. The author of Hebrews comments on the significance thereof when he speaks of Abraham’s faith. Abraham, he writes, looked for a city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God. The eternal city is the ideal and it is the pilgrim character of the people of God that most clearly evidences their faith and possession of this heavenly inheritance. In contrast, Babel was a repudiation of this reality.
A possible connection between Babel and the fate of the non-elect may be found in the information that Nimrod was a hunter. Taken by itself, this doesn’t seem as important as the fact that he built cities, or that he was a mighty man on the Earth, or, for that matter, that he was descended from Ham. Yet Moses takes pains to point it out, even going into redundancy by quoting one of the current sayings, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.” And then, after all this, the only other individual in scripture who is called a hunter, and this by the same author in the same book, is Esau. I suspect that the connection may be intentional. Furthermore, there appears to be a connection between both of these men and Cain. Genesis 36 provides a record of the descendants of Esau and of the kings over Edom, who had their own cities and reigned before Israel had any kings. This genealogical record is reminiscent of that of Cain found in Genesis 4. Furthermore, if one agrees with Kline that the Sons of God in Genesis 6 are actually kings in the line of Cain, then there is a parallel with the listing of Edomite kings after the genealogy. Then there is the book of Obadiah, which tells of the coming destruction of Edom. In this book, we are brought back again to the image of the tower/kingdom. This time it is in the form of a contrast between two mountains; namely, Zion and Esau.
We should consider one more aspect of the Tower of Babel. Being a ziggurat, the tower was intended to function as a staircase between heaven and earth. We have already noted that the tower was hardly adequate to the task. It was counterfeit; yet, in this very aspect, it, as do all counterfeits, testified to that which was real. Jacob had a dream in which there was a staircase that reached up into heaven. Angels were ascending and descending on it and the Lord stood at the top of it reaffirming his covenant with Abraham and Isaac. Years later, Jesus explains the vision when he tells Nathanael that he will see “the heavens opened up, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” Jesus has explicitly identified himself as the only link to heaven. He is both Lord of the Covenant and the redeemer judge.
Posted by kcourter at agosto 12, 2003 12:40 PM