Gleanings from Genesis Lesson 2 part 8 "Doc Notes"

Gleanings from Genesis Lesson 2 part 8 "Doc Notes"

 

Gentle reader,

 

We continue on the subject of the Tower of Babel and its significance. After the flood we have marked restraints are now imposed. The duration of human life is greatly curtailed. The length of a generation is much shorter. The soil takes more toil now and gives less in return; and "flesh" is now included in man’s diet. A restraint of "fear" towards man, also has to be put upon the beasts. The restraint of the death-penalty is put upon the slaying of man by man (which "violence" had become rife in the pre-Flood days: The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. (Gen 6:11-13)

 

Amid these restraints the faithfulness of God stands out in the sign of the Rainbow. The Divine promise was necessary. It gave man an assured hope for the future.

 

But there another restaint imposed, namely, the confusion of tongues Chapter 11: verses 1-9. The essential fact to grasp is that the pluralising of human language was a culminating restraint measure. It was precipitated by a human confedercy to establish a big racial centre, with a high astral tower. We must not attribute to those long ago builders the stupidity of imagining that they could build a tower right up to heaven. The real motive therefore was the desire for renown, and the object was to establish a noted central point, which might serve to maintain their unity. The one was just as ungodly as the other. For, according to the divine purpose, men were to fill the earth, i.e., to spread over the whole earth, not indeed to separate, but to maintain their inward unity notwithstanding their dispersion. But the fact that they were afraid of dispersion is a proof that the inward spiritual bond of unity and fellowship, not only "the oneness of their God and their worship," but also the unity of brotherly love, was already broken by sin. Consequently the undertaking, dictated by pride, to preserve and consolidate by outward means the unity which was inwardly lost, could not be successful, but could only bring down the judgment of dispersion.

In Chapter 11:4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

 

The words "may reach" in your English translation are in italics, indicating there are not come in the orginal. The verse does not really relate to the height of the tower. What it say is "And his top with the heavens", that is with an astronomical planisphere, Zodiac pictures, and drawings of the constellations-just as we find in the ancient temples of Esneh and Denderah of Egypt.

 

About 5 miles S.W. of Hillah, the most remarkable of all the ruins of Babylon, the Birs Nimroud of the Arabs, rises to a height of 153 feet above the plains from the base covering a square of 400 feet, or almost four acres. It was constructed of kiln-dried bricks in 7 stages to correspond with the planets to which they were dedicated: the lowermost black, the color of Saturn: the next orang for Jupiter; the third red, for Mars; and so on. These stages were surmounted by a lofty tower, on the summit of which we are told were the signs of the zodiac and other astronomical figures; thus having ( as it should have been translated) a representation of the heavens, instead of ‘ a top which reached unto heaven’. I would not go so far as to claim that these are the remains of the original tower; but they do illustrate its nature and dimensions.

 

The Babel crisis probabbly occurred some 300 years after the Flood. In Chapter 10:25 And unto Eber were born two sons; the name of the one was *Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan. (Gen 10:25) Where Peleg was named (From פלג palag, to divide, because in his days, which is supposed to be about one hundred years after the flood, the earth was divided among the sons of Noah. Though some are of opinion that a physical division, and not a political one, is what is intended here, viz., a separation of continents and islands from the main land; the earthy parts having been united into one great continent previously to the days of Peleg. This opinion appears to me the most likely, for what is said, Gen10:5, is spoken by way of anticipation).

 

Peleg died 340 years after the Flood, as can be easily be reconed in Chapter 11:10-19. The Babel tower was designed to hand down antediluvian traditions. Its wrongness lay in the fact that its builders were defying the Divine command to spread abroad and multiply and replunish the earth.

let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.' Such defiance of God was the spirit of Babylon their meaning "let us rebel", their motive even today was pride and ambition.

 

Next time we will consider type teachings in Genesis

 

Denis