Gen 11:1-5
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†. Gen 11:1 . . Everyone on earth had the same language and the
same words.
The Hebrew word for "language" is from saphah (saw-faw') which means:
the lip. The one for "words" is from dabar (daw-baw') which means: a word
(as spoken or written)
Spoken languages are a combination of words and lips; viz: vocabulary and
pronunciation; viz: accent. It's one thing to know the words of a language,
but it is quite another to speak them with the correct pronunciation. In that
day, everyone used the same words and spoke them with the very same
accent.
†. Gen 11:2 . . And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a
valley in the land of Shinar and settled there.
The name "Shinar" was of course given later because these early migrations
were to lands heretofore uninhabited. According to Gen 10:10, Shinar
became Nimrod's turf.
The amount of time elapsed between Noah's bender and this migration isn't
stated in the Bible; plus, there's really no way to tell which part of the world
was "the east" in the author's day. Here in the USA, the Great Continental
Divide is an east/west determinant. Funny thing is, if you're located in
Phoenix Arizona, then Billings Montana is to your continental east even
though geographically, it's almost directly north; so when you see directions
like "east" and/or "west" in the Bible, it's probably best to NOT think
compass directions. For example in the case of the Magi of Matt 2:1. As best
as we can tell, their city was somewhere east of the meridian that runs
north/south through the Jordan River Valley but that kind of an east is
continental rather than geographical so there's really no telling where they
came from.
This particular migration was "from" the east; which means pioneers from
among Noah's progeny, whose numbers at this point are totally unknown,
went out west looking for greener pastures. Although the region of Shinar
has not yet been precisely pinpointed, we can take a relatively educated
guess at it.
"In the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, King
Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it. The Lord
delivered King Jehoiakim of Judah into his power, together with some of the
vessels of the House of God, and he brought them to the land of Shinar to
the house of his god; he deposited the vessels in the treasury of his god."
(Dan 1:1-2)
The "Shinar" of Daniel's day is apparently the region where ancient Babylon
was located. Babylon's location today is marked by a broad area of ruins just
east of the Euphrates River, approximately 90 km (56 mi) south of Baghdad,
Iraq. It's part of an area commonly known as the Fertile Crescent; a very
large region arching across the northern part of the Syrian Desert and
extending from the Nile Valley to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In the
early post-Flood years, this region was very lush. But today much of it is arid
wasteland.
†. Gen 11:3a . .They said to one another : Come, let us make bricks
and burn them hard. (Brick served them as stone)
Brick are blocks of clay or other ceramic used for construction and
decorative facing. Bricks may be dried in the sun but are more usually baked
in a kiln. They cost relatively little, resist dampness and heat, and can
actually last longer than some kinds of stone.
Brick was the chief building material of ancient Mesopotamia and Palestine.
The inhabitants of Jericho in Palestine were building with brick about 9,000
years ago (7,000 bc). That's about 5,000 years before Abraham's day.
Sumerian and Babylonian builders constructed ziggurats, palaces, and city
walls of sun-dried brick and covered them with more durable kiln-baked,
often brilliantly glazed brick, arranged in decorative pictorial friezes. Later
the Persians and the Chinese built in brick, for example, the Great Wall of
China. The Romans built large structures such as baths, amphitheaters, and
aqueducts in brick, which they often covered with marble facing.
†. Gen 11:3b . . and bitumen served them as mortar.
According to Webster's, bitumen is any of various mixtures of hydrocarbons
(as tar) often together with their nonmetallic derivatives that occur naturally
or are obtained as residues after heat-refining natural substances (e.g.
petroleum).
Likely the tower's builders used a variety of pitch that's hard at room
temperature but can be liquefied by heating.
Naturally-occurring asphalt/bitumen, a type of pitch, is a viscoelastic
polymer. This means that even though it seems to be solid at room
temperature and can be shattered with a hard impact, it is actually fluid and
will flow over time, but extremely slowly; very slowly: we're talking about
years to even detect.
The Hebrew word for "mortar" is very ambiguous and is often translated
clay. It appears, from the language; that they used a pitch for cement where
they would have normally used some type of clay for cement.
†. Gen 11:4 . . And they said: Come, let us build us a city, and a
tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we
shall be scattered all over the world.
Magnificent cities have a way of attracting tourism, commerce, and industry.
People want to come and visit, and to live there. Politically, their scheme
made good sense. More people equals more prosperity; resulting in more
power and control over the region-- and of course the larger their tax base
the more city services they could provide citizens; including an effective civil
defense program.
There's nothing really intrinsically wrong in building a large beautiful city.
But in their case, it wasn't the right time for it. God wanted the post
Flooders to move out and populate the entire globe, rather than accumulate
in one local region.
Towers served a variety of purposes in the ancient world. Some were used
as look-outs, others were used as tombs, and yet others were used as
bloody altars for human sacrifices. The purpose intended for the tower of
Gen 11:4 isn't stated but guessing from the wording, I'd say it was intended
to be a grand monument; sort of like the 630 foot stainless steel Gateway
Arch in Ste. Louis Missouri, or a magnificent minaret like the 239-foot Qutab
Minar in Delhi India. Something like that would certainly go a long ways
towards getting the Shinarians the renown they sought.
But their wish that the tower's top be in the sky suggests their primary
motive was to use its facade to display a variety of gods popular in that day.
There's towers like that right now that in the city of Madurai in the South
Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the banks of River Vaigai. The towers
are literally festooned with hundreds of gods. So if your favorite god is up
there somewhere, there's no need for you to leave town and go on a
pilgrimage elsewhere to worship. People love their religion. So if you give
them the liberty and the means to practice it; they'll love you forever.
Tolerance is good politics. If only militant Islamic fundamentalists
understood this.
†. Gen 11:5 . .Yhvh came down to look at the city and tower that
man had built,
That verse presents an interesting theological problem. Wouldn't it make
better sense by saying Yhvh looked down, instead of saying the Yhvh "came"
down? Why bother to come down? Doesn't the Bible's God see all and know
all? Isn't God omniscient? Can't He see everything from right where He is?
Yes, the Bible's God can do that alright; but a certain celestial being in the
Old Testament scriptures-- often labeled yhvh --is never God in person. It's
a divine agent who goes by the name of God, stands in for God, speaks for
God, speaks as God, reports to God, and takes care of God's business in this
world of ours; for example:
"I am sending an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you
to the place that I have made ready. Pay heed to him and obey him. Do not
defy him, for he will not pardon your offenses, since My Name is in him; but
if you obey him and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies
and a foe to your foes." (Ex 23:20-22)
The name of that angel is his master's name, and actually, the words Moses
heard spoken at Ex 23:20-22 were spoken by that heaven-sent messenger
on behalf of his master. That mysterious being is not only an enigma; but
also quite frightful as anyone who's studied its activities in the books of
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy can attest. In other words:
wherever the name yhvh appears in the texts of those books; it's that
mysterious angel.
"Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the
elders of Israel: and they saw the God of Israel: and there was under His
feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of
heaven in his clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel He laid
not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink." (Ex 24:9-11)
Did they really see the actual God? No.
"He said: thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see Me, and
live." (Ex 33:20)
"No one has seen God at any time." (John 1:18)
"You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor viewed Him in person."
(John 5:37-38)
What Moses and his entourage saw was the mysterious being whose name is
his master's.
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