Genesis 11:1-9
Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. 2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. 3 Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. 4 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.”
5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 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. 7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
Sin is a disease and like many diseases, sin is hereditary. The sin of disobedience is passed down through all generations since Adam. Through Adam we are all sinners, Adam digested into his body the knowledge of Good and evil and a battle rages warring with the flesh and for the body comes death. Our bodies are wretched. Adams sin of disobedience toward God’s command is imputed onto us all, sin outside the Law has to be accounted for, God is Holy and cannot allow sin to be built up indefinitely so it is dealt with collectively, everyone who did not have a heart to seek God was equally and universally dealt with as one unit, in Noah’s flood.
God commanded us to populate the earth but instead after the flood, we were avoiding being scattered and Nimrod had become a world leader. As we can see, once again men were disobedient towards a direct commandment, and this was only a few short years after the flood, less than a few hundred. Mankind planned to elevate themselves, in an attempt to reach the sky by building a tower. My opinion is that all men having the same language and living within the same vicinity was not a good situation. We were all working together and this meant all of mankind were viewed as one nation, we had one identity in God’s eyes. This meant that if God should pour out His wrath upon mankind again, it could be total extinction because men were all as one.
So by God confounding our tongues and forcing us to scatter and so also fulfilling God’s command, many new nations were born. Mankind now had many identities and this was an amazing act of mercy on God’s part, because now if God was forced to pour out His wrath to deal with sin, God knew He can do so by judging individual nations rather than mankind as a whole. God’s command to scatter was for our own benefit. Our God is Holy and sin must be punished, yet in His Wisdom God engineers a situation that will contain His wrath – God is Good to us yet we are blind to see it and resist!
Also there is a comparison to made with modern day. The world is once again pushing for a one world order. We know this is necessary for prophecy to be fulfilled, but I wonder if by establishing a single world order, that could mean God will no longer perceive us to be formed of individual nations. That might be how God feels justified in pouring out His wrath not nationally but globally for the first time since Noah’s flood, it will be the whole world as a collective.
God bless.
Leon
(All scripture is taken from the NKJV)