Genesis 11:1-9. The Tower of Babel

Many people think that God destroyed the Tower of Babel. Not so! What God did actually shows God's character, as revealed throughout the rest of Scripture, in a way that destruction would not.

Humans travelled in the East, came to plain, baked bricks to make a city with a high tower, with tar as mortar. Their motivation is [v.4] "... so we can make a name for ouselves and not be scattered all over the earth." Yahweh God did mot like this, mixed up their languages, and so they stopped building the city and scattered all over the Earth - in direct contradiction to the second part of their motivation!

Two things come from this for me. One, which I heard years ago, is that their desire to not be scattered all over the earth was in direct disobedience to the Creational Mandate God had given humanity in Genesis 1, where God wanted humans to spread out all over the Earth and bring it under their control so they could bless it by opening up its potentiaa - thereby imaging the God Who desires to bless, out of (agape) love.

The other corrects a frequent misinterpretation. Many people think that God destroyed the tower. God did nothing of the kind. God just gave the people different languages. As a result, they stopped building the city that would make a name for themselves, and departed all over the Earth. (Some have linked this with modern project development, that for a collaborative project to be successful there must be excellent communication among all the teams involved.)

God could easily have sent a Thor-style lightning bolt to destroy it, but the True God did not do that. Why not? To me it shows God's character and plans.

• God gives respect to humans, even arrogant, sinful ones. God got humans to stop building the tower and city of their own will and decision, rather than forcing them to stop. Destroying the tower would not have given the humans a chance to take their own decision.

• God wanted to give them a chance to obey the Mandate they had been given, to spread out and bless. (Even though humans are utterly sinful, and grossly harm Creation, some blessing comes through us to the rest of Creation.) To me this shows God's grace and love. Destroying the tower is what a Canaanist misunderstanding of God would have expected.

• Note God's motivation for taking this action: because [v.9] "This is just the beginning of what they are going to do. Soon they will be able to do whatever they want!" God was concerned most deeply about their arrogance, which could bring enormous harm because of the capability God had given humans. It is arrogance (with its siblings affluence and unconcern and haughtiness) that led God to destroy Sodom and exile Judah [Ezekiel 16:49]. Destroying the tower would have shown God as fearing rivals, rather than God as wanting humans to bless the rest of Creation.

Remember, "God is love" [I John] not tyrant, and "God has compassion on all God made" [Psa 145:9] even though it may be "cursed".

(Note also the late Jonathan Sacks' commentary on Babel compared with the Flood. I hope to add something on that soon.)

See Also

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Compiled by Andrew Basden. Written on the Amiga with Protext in the style of Classic HTML.

Created: 10 June 2026. Last updated: