And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
—Genesis 11:4
In the book of Genesis, building a city was the equivalent of building a kingdom where one could rule and “be someone,” have fame, reputation, or power—make a name for oneself. The Tower of Babel was there to protect from attack, but at the same time it served as a religious stronghold, a place where you defend a belief, or an idol, or a leader, or an ideal. They said—all together, remember?—one language, one speech? “Let us” build it, with the new materials “we’ve” discovered. “We are so advanced,” they thought, so superior, so important, “that our tower will reach to the heavens.”
Maybe “reaching the heavens” was a way of saying that their gods would be impressed with their architectural endeavors and they would earn a few plus points to contribute toward their success to becoming someone. Whether they intended to literally climb the ladder to success, or achieve it through high society, they hadn’t counted on opposition from anyone strong enough to halt their success.
They were trying to go up, but they could not. But He who was up could easily come down because He is actually everywhere. Now, however, He comes down to intervene, to take part. Apparently He had not been invited, or they wouldn’t have gone that far with their nonsense. But we see that the blueprints of the city already under construction, and the Lego tower, with its stick-glue reinforcement, were right before the Lord God’s eyes.
“And the Lord said, ‘Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them’”(v.6). The people are one; one language. God did not refute the fact that the people had one language and one speech, and that this is powerful.
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