Day 4 - Babel

There is a great deal in the reading this morning that one could sit back and reflect upon: from Babel to Abram’s call to the situation with Lot and Sodom to Melchizedek (this rather strange figure to whom Abram pays a tithe). Where I was drawn to reflect though was early with Babel and what it tells us about God and humanity.

If you go back to 9:1 you read: And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (ESV). Then look at 11:3,4: They began saying to each other, “Let’s make bricks and harden them with fire.” (In this region bricks were used instead of stone, and tar was used for mortar.) Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world” (NLT).

• What do you already notice (or notice again) about humanity?

• What was their motivation?

• What does this tell us about our nature? (Pride, etc…)

But let’s keep reading (verses 5-9): But the LORD came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building. “Look!” he said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them! Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.”

In that way, the LORD scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city. That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the LORD confused the people with different languages. In this way he scattered them all over the world (NLT).

• Look at verse 6 (and perhaps look in other translations) - what is the issue with this? Why is God concerned with the people being united? What are they united for? What ought they be united in?

• What does this tell us about God and his involvement with mankind?

• How does the call of God to Abram in Genesis 12 add to and address this incident at Babel?