Genesis 11: The Tower of Babel, a Shameful Ambition

Introduction

"There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves." Jairo Lopes, pastor of the Baptist Church of Miratejo in Portugal, opens his message with these words from C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. Other vices can bring people together. Pride, however, always means enmity, and first of all enmity toward God.

The message is preached on the church's anniversary. The pastor recalls everything God has given the congregation: a rented school, many families and many children, seminary students, a seminary. This is exactly the moment, he says, to be on guard against pride, "a shameful ambition."

Picking up his study of the book of Genesis, he opens Genesis 11:1-9, the story of the tower of Babel, and announces five stages of this shameful ambition. This Sunday he covers two of them: an arrogant pilgrimage and a self-centered construction. The rest is announced for the following Sunday.

Message outline

1. Babel, the key to chapters 10 and 11

Moses writes for the Israelites camped on the plains of Moab, ready to enter the promised land. He explains to them where the nations came from.
Unlike the secular accounts of the time, the Bible teaches that the division of peoples comes from God: he put to shame the futile ambition and idolatry of an arrogant, disobedient culture. It is both an act of rebuke and an act of blessing, preparing God's plan to bless all nations in Genesis 12.
Chapter 10, the table of nations, gives the big picture. Chapter 11 zooms in on what happened: it explains Nimrod and why, in the days of Peleg, the earth was divided. The two chapters are meant to be read together.
For the first readers, these words (languages, lands, cities, Shinar, Nineveh, Babylon) recalled the origins of their enemies and of great Babylon, whose culture and idolatry left their mark on every empire, right up to our own culture.
In chapter 10, God does not intervene in the narrative: he does not step onto the scene until Genesis 11:5. Yet he governs, even when the arrogant think they are acting out of his sight. God sees the heart and discerns pride down to the smallest detail.

2. A story built as a satire

At first glance, verse 1 looks harmless: one people, one language, one heart, one aspiration. But verses 1 and 9 are the two opposite poles of the story.
Verse 1 shows a worldwide unity that is a gift from the Lord, used for self-centered purposes. Verse 9 shows the result of that pride: shame. The people go from unity to scattering, from unity to confusion.
The text is a satire, a moral critique of humanity's insignificant greatness and pathetic pride. "When we are proud, we are pathetic."
The maxim to engrave in our minds: pride leads to ruin. Almost every nation has a proverb that says the same thing.

3. First stage: an arrogant pilgrimage (verses 1 and 2)

The whole earth had one language, literally "one lip": the same way of speaking and the same vocabulary. There was no barrier of communication or culture, and a language carries with it the expressions, habits and identity of a people.
Verse 1 shows that the blessing of unity is corrupted by arrogance. Verse 2 shows that the blessing of abundance is corrupted too.
This "they" refers to a large part of Noah's descendants who came down from the mountains of Ararat, following Nimrod, of the line of Ham. Genesis 10:8-12 paints his portrait: that of a tyrant.
They journey toward the east. In Genesis, the east suggests distance from God: Adam and Eve leaving the garden, Cain moving away from it. These people are not aligned with the Lord.
Instead of filling the earth as God intended, they look for a place to settle. They find a plain in the land of Shinar, poor in stone but rich in tar, a blackish material close to asphalt.
Like Lot looking at the plain, they look for whatever will satisfy their hearts. "Lord, we are not here to serve you, we are here to serve ourselves." It is the devil's old lie: you can be your own god.
"They lived there": this place becomes the home of their most self-centered aspirations, the place of pride.

4. The discontent that keeps us wandering

These people were discontent. Their journey reflects discontent with God and with his will, a search for the satisfaction of the ego, here and now.
We, too, wander from place to place: another job, another country, better technology, a new relationship, another church. We do not stay where God wants us. We are neither content with enough nor joyful in abundance.
Why is this arrogance? Because arrogance does not believe that God knows where we should be, what we should desire and what is enough for us.
"I must learn that God knows what is enough for me." It is the only way to kill dissatisfaction.
The pastor asks the question: when some of the paths we choose end in shame, is it not God humbling us because of our pursuit of empty glory? Are we pilgrims of God's will or of our own satisfaction?

5. Second stage: a self-centered construction (verse 3)

"Come, let's make bricks, and bake them thoroughly." The text stresses the cooperation, ingenuity and intelligence of these people. With no stone available, they develop the technology of fired bricks.
The blessing of technology is corrupted by self-centeredness.
Moses tells this first for a play on words between verse 3 ("Come, let's make bricks") and verse 7 ("Come, let's go down, and there confuse their language"). What man builds for his own glory, God takes apart for his.
Next, to show that technological progress is not the same as obedience or godliness. Going off in search of better conditions and getting them is not in itself a sign of holiness.
Ingenuity, progress, stability, accessibility: when they come with a heart that is not upright before God, they become dangerous. All this work was mobilized to serve one person: the ego.

6. Making a name for ourselves without God (verse 4)

"Come, let's build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let's make us a name." The blessing of building is corrupted in its turn. They build an empire, not to honor God, but apart from him, to lift up their ego, which separates them from God and from one another.
"For ourselves," "our name": among the Babylonians, there is no "you." Isn't this how pride works in our marriages, our families and our churches? We measure our friendships by what we can get out of them, and we spend ourselves to be served.
Historians see a ziggurat here, a temple tower about 90 meters (300 feet) on each side and just as tall. The pastor compares it to a large concert hall in the Netherlands that holds about 17,500 people.
"Whose top reaches to the sky" does not describe size first of all, but paganism. The tower was not made to climb to heaven or to escape another flood: it was meant to be a gate for receiving the gods, a meeting point between earth and heaven, at a time when mountains were seen as the dwelling place of the gods.
What the nations have always wanted is to rebuild Eden, but without God. Why without him? Because we are arrogant.
The tower is also designed for fame and for security through unification: "lest we be scattered abroad." The desire for reputation and the fear of insecurity or of being disconnected are marks of the fallen culture, still visible today. That is why, the pastor says, social media and the internet make us so dependent: we never tire of admiring our own image.
In Hebrew, the word "name" (shem) sounds like Shem, the ancestor of Eber and Peleg (Genesis 10:21-25). Yet it is not Babel that receives a name, it is the line of Shem, in Abraham: "I will bless you and make your name great" (Genesis 12:2). If God is to give a name, he gives it by his grace and through his work.
Nebuchadnezzar, even after God's warning, will say: "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the royal dwelling-place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?" (Daniel 4:30). All of God's gifts become corrupted in the hands of the self-centered.

7. The only remedy for pride: the Gospel

Human self-centeredness has only one solution: the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. What he did on the cross can transform the self-centered heart.
To the person who has heard the Gospel many times and has always turned it down, the pastor says: it is your pride showing, and it is keeping you from being saved.
To believers: a large part of the setbacks in your life may come from your pride, from your desire to serve yourself and seek your own glory.
We must kill the arrogance in our hearts: stop constantly looking at our virtues or our failures, stop trying to get pity or to show ourselves off in conversations.
For the church celebrating its anniversary, the question is put: are we known for our humility or for our arrogance? It is time to let go of all arrogance in our homes and in the church, and to be like Christ, gentle and humble.
Christ died on the cross and offers salvation to the one who repents, humbles himself, confesses that he is a sinner and places his faith in the one who was crucified in his place. "Only Christ can save you from yourself."
How will God respond to the pride of Babel? The pastor invites the congregation back the following Sunday for the rest of the story.

Key takeaways

Pride is the vice no one is free from, and it is first of all enmity toward God.
Babel shows that unity, abundance, technology and the ability to build are gifts from God that pride corrupts.
Wandering from one project to the next out of dissatisfaction means not believing that God knows what is enough for us.
What man builds for his own glory, God takes apart for his. A true name is received by grace.
Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ, gentle and humble, can heal a self-centered heart.

Personal application

In what area of your life are you looking elsewhere for a satisfaction that God has already given you?
Are you a pilgrim of God's will or of your own satisfaction?
Do your talents, your work and your resources serve your own name first, or God's?
In your marriage, your family or your friendships, is there still a "you," or only an "I"?
What display of pride, small or large, do you want to ask God to reveal and transform this week?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

What does the tower of Babel represent in Genesis 11?

For Jairo Lopes, the tower is a ziggurat, a temple tower. It was not built high to reach heaven or to escape another flood: it was meant to serve as a gate for receiving the gods, a meeting point between earth and heaven. The nations have always wanted to rebuild Eden, but without God.

Why speak of a "shameful ambition" regarding Babel?

The story is built as a satire of human glory. Verse 1 shows a world united by one language, verse 9 shows shame and scattering. The people go from unity to confusion, and the text engraves a maxim: pride leads to ruin.

What is the link between Babel and the promise made to Abraham?

At Babel, people want to make a name for themselves. In Hebrew, the word "name" sounds like the name of Shem, the ancestor of Abraham. Yet it is to Abram that God says in Genesis 12:2: "I will bless you and make your name great." The preacher concludes that if God gives a name, he gives it by his grace and through his work, never through man's proud effort.