창세기 Chapter 11

Translation: ESV

1

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.

Key Message

Common language and ability are a blessing when directed toward God, but bring judgment when used for self-glory.

▸The Tower of Babel story begins with the unity of language.

The Tower of Babel story begins with the unity of language. This means that before the dispersal after Noah, humanity had one language and a common means of communication. A common language is itself a good thing, but in this text it becomes the background that enables humanity's project of pride and self-deification. Unity itself is not the problem — the question is what that unity is directed toward.

Related Verses

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
3

And they said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.

Key Message

Human technology and collective will are good when directed toward God, but bring judgment when used to exalt one's own name.

▸The technical details of the Tower of Babel's construction are recorded.

4

Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.'

Key Message

Pride that seeks to exalt one's own name and resist God's will brings judgment; true renown is given by God.

▸The purpose of building the Tower of Babel is stated clearly in two parts.

5

And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.

Key Message

The tower humans boasted would reach the heavens is so small that God must come down to see it; the pride of the creature before the Creator is fundamentally futile.

▸The narrative that God must 'come down' to see the tower humans claimed would reach the heavens is sharp irony.

7

Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.

Key Message

The judgment of language confusion is mercy in preventing the unlimited spread of evil; God's judgment always contains preserving grace within it.

▸God says 'Come, let us go down,' intentionally mirroring what humans said in verse 4 ('Come, let us build').

9

Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

Key Message

The attempt to exalt one's own name instead of God's name ultimately leaves only the name 'confusion'; only the name God gives is eternal.

▸The name 'Babel' is the Hebrew rendering of the Akkadian 'Bab-ili' meaning 'Gate of God,' but Genesis connects it with the Hebrew verb 'balal' (to confuse) as a wordplay.

10

These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood.

Key Message

Even after the confusion of Babel, God's redemptive history does not stop but continues through a new genealogy.

▸The genealogy of Shem following immediately after the Tower of Babel story is a turning point where the focus of redemptive history narrows from all humanity to the particular lineage leading to Abraham.

26

When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

Key Message

God's redemptive history begins with grace that calls a single person even from an idolatrous background; Abraham's story starts precisely from such a background.

▸Shem's genealogy concludes with Terah's three sons: Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

31

Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there.

Key Message

An incomplete response is also within God's providence; human stopping cannot forever hinder God's purpose.

▸Before Abraham's calling (Gen 12), it is notable that his father Terah first set out toward Canaan.