The Devotional Journey
Bible Reading 7
Yahweh judges mankind at the tower of Babel
Read Genesis 11:1–9.
This is the account of the Tower of Babel and it tells us where all the languages of the world came from. It also tells us why humans are found scattered all over the world.
After the Flood, Yahweh told mankind to fill the earth. But once again, just as it was before the Flood, mankind collectively chose to ignore God. Mankind wanted to be their own ultimate authority. They wanted to exclude Yahweh from their lives.
In this great building project that they were undertaking together, they wanted to build a tower and a city so they could stay in one place. Besides rejecting Yahweh’s command to fill the earth, the people wanted to make something that would proclaim their own greatness. They wanted to be famous.
When Yahweh created mankind, He made mankind in His image, to be His representatives. As people lived all over the earth, God’s presence would be there through His representatives. Now the post-Flood generations were rejecting God’s plan and purpose for them.
But Yahweh demonstrated how intimately involved He is with His creation. He came down to closely examine what mankind was doing. As the all-knowing God, He already knew what they were thinking and doing. But by coming down, He was demonstrating that He was deeply interested in mankind and that He was a careful judge. Yahweh saw that mankind was building a life that excluded their Creator. This was actually disastrous for mankind.
In His love, Yahweh created in an instant, many intelligent languages. Imagine, suddenly, people started speaking in multiple newly created languages, all with proper grammar and vocabulary! Who could created so many languages in an instant? Only Yahweh could do that.
He did that to stop their collective rebellion against Him. Now, not understanding each other, the people scattered all over the world by leaving in their own language groups. This was how God divided up the people into nations.
This is known as the fourth divine institution of tribal diversity. Yahweh separated the people to create nations independent of each other. This would prevent the people of the world from collectively rebelling against Him.
We see that Yahweh is powerful, but also loving. He stopped mankind from collectively plotting against Him because He wants all people in the world to have the opportunity to know Him. We see that God continues to be at work in the world He made. He is accomplishing His purposes in spite of the plans and projects of sinful people.
The people of Babel were not very different from the people of today. Fallen mankind doesn’t like the idea that there is a sovereign, righteous Creator-Owner-God of the universe. People don’t like to hear that He has standards and we will all be answerable to Him. People would rather pretend there is no god, much less the God of the Bible.
Let’s examine our own hearts today. Are we interested to know the God of the Bible more deeply and do we want to know His good plans for us? Or would we prefer He didn’t interfere in our everyday lives?
Let’s remember that He loves us and is constantly calling us into deeper fellowship with Him each day. Let’s be thankful that He is really interested in mankind and interested particularly in each of us.
Also, let’s thank Him for the gift of language, that we can understand and also communicate our thoughts and feelings to our loved ones and they can do likewise with us.