|
by
Doug Ward |
The eleventh chapter of Genesis tells of some ancient Mesopotamians who join
together to build a city and a tower-the infamous Tower of Babel. God sees that
their plan will have negative 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 sojourning in his territory. Wary of the growing Israelite population,
Pharaoh warns his people, "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 dispersed..." 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 suggest that the builders at Babel may have been slaves. There are
other hints in Genesis 11 pointing in this direction. One is the statement 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
collective name for itself, no names of individuals in the group are mentioned.
These
hints point to the idea that the Babel group was subject to a kind of
groupthink, an enforced uniformity that prohibited individual 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 suppressing 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 purpose.
We
can catch a vision of God's plan for humanity 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 communicate 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.
File
translated from TEX by TTH,
version 3.66.
On 12 Jul 2024, 11:05.
