The Tower of Babel

Genesis 11

When Noah was on the ship to flee away from the flood, there were only eight people in his family: Noah and his wife, his three sons, and three daughter in-law. But over three years after that, when Noah passed away, his family had offspring born every where. From that day on, human beings began to give births more and more, and eventually they were everywhere as before the flood.

Even though there were many people in the world, but since everyone came from one family so all of them talked the same language. One day, some people from the East gathered to explore the strange land. When they came to a wide mainland, they liked it very much because the other places had high mountains that caused difficulty in transportation and one village couldn't see much the other village. Seeing a broad land, some people had thought to build a tall tower there.

Those people met together and planned: "Our families now are already too big; our offspring increases everyday; one day we die, surely, there is no one to remember us any more." Another person said: "Our offspring is too crowded; one day they scatter everywhere; they may not recognize their relatives any more. Therefore, we have to build a real tall tower, tall so that it can reach to heaven to send our name for later generations; and when our offspring has scattered, they also know this tower to find the way home with their relatives."

Everyone thought that idea was good, so they agreed to build a very tall tower to leave a good name for the later generations. Therefore, everyone began working hard. They arranged each person to do one job. One person picked up the materials to make bricks; the other person went to find resin to stick the bricks together. They work hard and were very happy since everyone wanted the next generation to know their names. Because everyone had the same goal, the job succeeded very fast. When some of the bricks were done, people began to look for a broad land to build the tower. Who knew how to build then built, who knew how to make bricks then made more bricks; who didn't know how to make bricks then went to find sand; or some people didn't know what to do, they just took care of bringing the bricks to the builders. Also, there were some women cooked for the builders. All these people worked enthusiastically.

One day, when people were busy to build the tower, the Lord looked down from heaven to see their work. God saw people were very arrogant and forgot fast God's commands. They forgot that God just made a great flood to destroy all the people had sins and were proud themselves. They also forgot that their responsibility was to be thankful to the Lord, not that they should make their offspring to thank them. They began to trust their own abilities and wanted to make a good name for themselves, but they did not want to honor God and serve Him. Looking at the tower people were building, the Lord said: "No, these people are very arrogant, I must prevent their work! All these people, are in one nation so they talk one language, now the only way to prevent their work is to confuse their language."

That day as usual, after a long working day, everyone was tired so they went straight to their houses; they ate dinner, took shower, and went to sleep. The next morning, they woke up early, continued their work in order to finish the tall tower. But when they began working, they noticed a strange thing, that's no one seemed to help sincerely. At first, they thought the people working with them had had something to worry, so they didn't pay much attention to the work; or these people weren't given the right tools needed and their suggestions weren't followed correctly. Eventually, they discovered that not because everyone disagreed with each other, but the problem was no one could understand the others' language. When people began to open their mouths talking, they spoke with the languages that others didn't understand.

You try to imagine that right now in a classroom, suddenly, everyone speak their own language; the teacher says things that no one can understand; the students say things that the teach doesn't know what they means; the teacher gives commands but the students don't follow… If that case happened, the solution would be to dismiss the class and let the students go home. So in this story, the confusing situation happened. The people couldn't continue to build because the person stood below him couldn't understand what he needed. The brick-makers couldn't make more bricks because there was no helper for them. Nobody could understand what others were saying; so they looked at each other astoundingly; and then they had to leave the work and went home. Therefore, building the tall tower to reach the heaven was left unfinished in the middle. God only did very small thing - He only changed people's language so they could not understand each other, and He could prevent their work.

Because of different languages, people didn't understand each other, so they scattered across the world; each person went to one place. People called the unfinished tower, the Tower of Babel. The word Babel means confusion, that is the Lord God confused the language of man. That is the reason why human beings have had many languages as you see today. Today, man has to take a lot of time and strength to learn others' languages.

The story of the Tower of Babel shows us that The Lord is the Great Power. God created man, so He has the power over man. He has the power to let us live and work. But God is also Love, He created this wonderful world with all necessary things, so we can live happily and comfortably. God gives us many blessings, but He wants only one thing from us. God wants us to be thankful to Him and honor Him with all our hearts.

QUESTIONS:

How many people were saved in the flood at Noah's time?
When their offspring had increased more, what did they plan to do?
Did they finish their plan? Why?
Why did God hinder their work?

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Written by Minh Nguyen
Translated by D. Ngo