The eleventh
chapter of Gen-
esis tells of some
ancient Mesopo-
tamians who join
together to build a
city and a tower—-
-the infamous
Tower of Babel.
God sees that their
plan will have nega-
tive consequences,
and he stops the
builders by making it
impossible for them to
understand each other’s
speech.
Genesis does not say
explicitly what is wrong
with this construction
project. One explanation
can be found in the close
parallels between the
Babel story and Exodus
1, where the Egyptian
Pharaoh decides to
enslave the children of
Israel who are sojourn-
ing in his territory.
Wary of the growing
Israelite population,
Pharaoh warns his peo-
ple, “Come, let us deal
shrewdly with them, lest
they multiply…” (verse
10).
Pharaoh’s statement is
very similar to Genesis
11:4, where the group at
Babel says, “Come, let
us build ourselves a city
and … make a name for
ourselves, lest we be dis-
persed…” In fact, these
are the only two
sentences in
the Bible that
have the form,
“Come let us do
x, lest y occur.”
There is a
second parallel
between these
two episodes.
Pharaoh sets
the enslaved
Israelites to
work making bricks and
building cities (Exodus
1:11-14), just as the
group at Babel sets out
to make bricks and build
a city (Genesis 11:3-4).
These parallels sug-
gest that the builders
at Babel may have been
slaves. There are other
hints in Genesis 11
pointing in this direc-
tion. One is the state-
ment in verse 1 that this
group shared not only
a common language
but “the same words.”
Another is the fact
that while the group
sought to make a col-
lective name for itself,
no names of individuals
in the group are men-
tioned.
These hints point to
the idea that the Babel
group was subject to
a kind of groupthink,
an enforced uniformity
that prohibited indi-
vidual expression. I am
reminded of the Borg
Collective from the Star
Trek of the 1980s. Such
a group can accomplish
a great deal (see verse
6) at the expense of sup-
pressing all individual
identity.
If the builders at Babel
were indeed enslaved,
we can see why God
stopped the project by
dispersing the group. In
creating humans in his
image, his purpose is for
us to express ourselves
as unique individuals in
a wonderful variety of
cultures and languages.
The Babel Collective
was thwarting that pur-
pose.
We can catch a vision
of God’s plan for human-
ity in the Pentecost
account of Acts 2, which
is often described as a
kind of reversal of Babel.
There people from many
languages and nations
were enabled to com-
municate and praise
God together. Rather
than suffering under
an enforced uniformity,
they enjoyed a beautiful
unity, joined together by
the Holy Spirit. Let us
strive to promote this
kind of unity.
Dr. Doug Ward is an elder at
Church of the Messiah in Xenia
and an avid reader.