There is an ancient Hebrew word for God. This word is Adonai, and it is the word used in the ancient Biblical text for the Lord God. In some English translations you will see this represented with all capital letters—LORD. It is a name cited over 300 times in what we Christians call the Old Testament. It is an important word—a very important word with which humanity must come to terms. It is a word that reveals the nature of God as Sovereign. A general English definition of the word sovereign is “one that exercises supreme, permanent authority.” Supreme—there is no authority above this. Permanent—it will never end or be dislodged.
Let’s reflect on some of these Old Testament verses the describe God's sovereignty.
Job 41:11
"Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me."
Isaiah 40:22
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
Deuteronomy 10:14
To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.
2 Chronicles 20:6
"LORD, the God of our ancestors, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you."
In the Creation story we find two verses that are important for our focus text. Genesis 1:28 reads: "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.'" Genesis 2:15 reads, "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." Then in the story of Noah, in Genesis 9:1 we read similar words, "Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth." These verses indicate Adonai’s purposes for humanity. And they provide the contrast to how far humanity moved, and has moved, from these purposes.
Genesis 11 begins after the great Flood. In Genesis 10 Noah’s family tree has been articulated in the text and we can see how God re-started humanity from a core group of people. These people had faithfully obeyed the Sovereign Lord’s instructions to withdraw from the world into an ark so that the world could be reformed. When they emerged from that ark, God’s unchanging purposes for humanity were still in place. They were to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. Filling the earth, with its bountiful resources and vast territories, became far less of a priority very soon.
Read Genesis 11:1-9.
There is a textual problem that we must acknowledge when we study this part of God's story. Genesis 11:1 states that the "whole world had one language and a common speech." However, in the previous chapter we read that several clans and tribes had their own languages. To help us explore this problem, let's read what Ben Boeckel has outlined regarding this perplexing textual reality.
If one reads Genesis chronologically (i.e., assuming chap. 10 occurred before chap. 11), then verse 1 seems to contradict chapter 10, which reported the existence of multiple languages (vv. 4, 20, 31).
This problem is usually resolved in one of three ways: 1) Many believe Genesis is not written in chronological order and the reader should understand that 11:1-9 transpired after the flood, but before people were divided into the different nations of chapter 10. This approach works nicely with the Tower of Babel story, which presents humanity as unified (11:1, 6). 2) Others opine that the phrase whole world should be translated more literally as, “all the land,” referring to a specific geographical region that hitherto knew only one language. These interpreters affirm that other languages existed in other parts of the world but were unknown to the people of Babel in Shinar. 3) Lastly, some posit that the one language describes a universal lingua franca. These interpreters affirm other languages were spoken during this time, but that there was one language that people used for commerce and communication with inhabitants of other countries.
Regardless of how one makes sense of the apparent contradiction, the point of the background information in verses 1-2 is to say that people were capable of communicating with each other and that they settled in the east (from Israel’s perspective) in southern Mesopotamia.[1]
As we read in Genesis 11:1, it says, "Now the whole world had one language and a common speech." If you have ever spent any time in a region that has a language different than the one you were born into, the first verse of this passage seems like a little taste of heaven. The struggle of learning a new language, wrestling with understanding and speaking to people of other languages, and the sometimes humorous or terrifying outcomes of misunderstandings, are fresh for many of us. But here, we see that there were no differences in language. There was a commonality we only know in part and if we stay exclusively to ourselves in small communities. But the world now is very different than Genesis 1 and 2 and 11:1. How did our languages become so different? The Sovereign Lord made it so.
Re-read Genesis 11:2-9.
Here we see some of the further evidence of the pervasiveness of the Fall even after God re-formed the world. A good many of Noah’s descendants were deeply susceptible to their own wills and ways. They had begun to move en masse, looking as if they would fill the earth, but then they stopped en masse. This was in direct opposition to the plans and purposes of God. They were supposed to multiply and spread out. Why in the world would they stop in the plain of Shinar? Boeckel writes, "Even after the flood, humanity remained unwilling to listen to God. God created humanity in His image and with great potential, but rather than using that potential to participate in God’s plan for creation, humanity chose to isolate itself."[2] Matthew Henry had a striking perspective on this as well. "[But] the sons of men, it should seem, were loth to disperse into distant places; they thought the more the merrier and the safer, and there they contrived to keep together . . . Instead of coveting to enlarge their borders by a peaceful departure under the divine protection, they contrived to fortify them, and, as those that were resolved to wage war with Heaven, they put themselves into a posture of defence.[sic]"[3]
And once settled in that defensive and static posture, all forms of self-worship grew. Rather than spreading out and being the kind of people they were designed to be, they turned to be stationary builders and urban dwellers. They wanted to make a name for themselves on that spot, rather than everywhere praising the Name of God who made them and gave them everything. They wanted to defy God’s will and stay put. They wanted to prove that they were powerful as well. Their power would turn from making the earth fruitful to baking the earth into bricks and building a monument to themselves. This would be the means of showing that they could reach the heavens—yes, and even piercing the heavens to prove that they were as great as their Creator! Matthew Henry wrote, "They would be like the Most High, or would come as near him as they could, not in holiness but in height. They forgot their place and, scorning to creep on the earth, resolved to climb to heaven . . ."[4]
Indeed, they were powerful. God had created humanity in his own image. That means that we have the ability to be powerful and innovative. We see this in the inventions, efforts, buildings and initiatives of people in our present age. Nothing seems to be impossible at times—even going to the moon and sending spaceships to Mars and beyond. It appears that we can do anything. It appears that we are sovereign. But appearances can be deceiving. Frank Moore wrote: "The text does not intend to imply that God opposes human technology, ingenuity, creativity, or construction, even the construction of impressive skyscrapers. God gave us creative vision and the capacity to bring that vision to reality. God, no doubt, beams with delight when He sees the impressive accomplishments of humanity in our variety of creations and inventions. Rather, God opposes any human technology, ingenuity, creativity, and construction that is used as a testimony to human self-reliance and rejection of God and His plan for us."[5]
God’s own words about humanity here is the stuff of power. God declares that the might and creativeness of humanity is unstoppable! What God did not say is that by that power given to them they were to be gods. There is only one Sovereign God, and he has ultimate authority. Imagine the kind of time and energy it took for the ancient Egyptians to build the pyramids or the ancient Mesopotamians to build the ziggurats or the ancient Mayans to build their temples. Massive amounts of slave hours, planning, materials and resources were spent on these huge unusable buildings. This is the kind of power that was employed by the people living together on the plain of Shinar. Every brick was a symbol of their self-sovereignty and self-glory rather than spreading out to enjoy and work the earth. Most of their thoughts were bound up in making a name for themselves rather than praising the Name of the Lord in every part of the world. Most thoughts were captured by self-acclaim and self-rule on that tiny plain of Shinar.
And God saw all of this. George Livingston penned these captivating words: "God would not be ignored, and the folly of man’s delusion that possessions and creative activity were ultimates [sic] would not go unchallenged."[6] The God-head made the decision to "come down" to see what was going on. The use of this idea of God coming down might be a way to connect to those hearing the story at a much later time. Boeckel writes: "An ancient Mesopotamian audience might read the first verb in this verse and think that the tower had accomplished its purpose. They believed their gods used Ziggurats to come down to earth . . . The top of the tower designed to reach into the heavenly realm was, ironically, so small that it required God’s descent in order for Him to see what the people were building."[7] But this masterful representation or symbolical language of God's activity penned by the writers of this ancient text is fully ironical. For the sovereign God does not require any physical activity of coming down to know what is going on in his world—just as he did not need to walk in the garden to know that Adam and Eve were naked and ashamed. He knows who we are and what we do.
And so, the Sovereign acted. The Stone Edition of the Tanach translates verse 6 in this way, "Behold, they are one people with one language for all, and this they begin to do! And now, should it not be withheld from them all they propose to do?" Adonai limited our power as he limited nature in Genesis 1, 2 and 3. In Job 38:8-11 we read how God rebuked even a faithful Job.
Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?
In Psalm 104:5-9 we also read of God's boundaries for his creation.
He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.
Even the prophet Jeremiah understood bounded nature and the unbounded sin of humanity. We read in Jeremiah 5:21-25:
Hear this, you foolish and senseless people,
who have eyes but do not see,
who have ears but do not hear:
Should you not fear me?” declares the Lord.
“Should you not tremble in my presence?
I made the sand a boundary for the sea,
an everlasting barrier it cannot cross.
The waves may roll, but they cannot prevail;
they may roar, but they cannot cross it.
But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts;
they have turned aside and gone away.
They do not say to themselves,
‘Let us fear the Lord our God,
who gives autumn and spring rains in season,
who assures us of the regular weeks of harvest.’
Your wrongdoings have kept these away;
your sins have deprived you of good.
Our sovereign God put limits on us that were not there before the tower of Babel so that we could find our identity, purpose and fulfillment in him and caring for his creation. Matthew Henry wrote: If they continue one, much of the earth will be left uninhabited; the power of their prince will soon be exorbitant; wickedness and profaneness will be insufferably rampant, for they will strengthen one another's hands in it . . . "[8] He put us on a language leash to bring us back to him for true worship of the One who made us. God pushed us out around the globe to be who we are supposed to be—humble people of the earth rather than creatures deluded into self-sovereignty, magnifying our own importance and finding our identity in our own restless and selfish ways.
God can see all of who we are and the consequences of what we will be if we do not submit to his sovereignty. He knows that we will ultimately self-worship if our identities are found outside of Him. He also knows that we can find our greatest satisfaction in being humble creatures of the Sovereign, living in a world designed for our work and for his glory.
Praise be to our Sovereign God!
Amen
M.R. Hyde Copyright 2021
[1] Illustrated Bible Life, Fall 2021, The Foundry Press, Kansas City, MO.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Henry, Matthew. Unabridged Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (best navigation) OSNOVA. Kindle Edition.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Faith Connections Bible Study Guide, Fall 2021, The Foundry Publishing, Kansas City, MO, p. 23.
[6] Beacon Bible Commentary: Volume 1, p. 67.
[7] Boeckel
[8] Henry.
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