Noach (Part 4) - Genesis 6:9-11:32

The Tower of Babel story is quite famous, and yet, a lot of people only know it by the tales that they have been told and not by learning the meager 9 sentences that compose the entire myth.

It should be noted that the individual myths that make of the collective anthology that we call the “Torah”, are not always in chronological order. For example, when Abraham (chapter 14) goes to rescue Lot, it says that his army was composed of those who was born upon his land, and yet, if you look at the story chronologically, that tale should have been inserted much later. In fact, it seems to interrupt a narrative that was taking place that continues after Lot is rescued.

The Tower of Babel story in Genesis does not name any people, or give any dates. In fact, it could have happened at any time. Perhaps even before the flood. We don’t know, and there are no literary indicators to tell us otherwise. This is one of the problems with multiple stories being stitched together to make an imperfect whole cloth.

Now, if you want to hold that this took place right after the Flood story was all over, then Noah and his sons were there and a young Abraham was helping as well, for is says, “all of the people of the land” participated. And as I have noted, it may be unrelated to the Noah story at all, and from a different storyteller.

Since it is only 9 sentences long, let’s look at the story in a way that it is normally never presented.

1. And the entire land was of one language and of unified words (meanings).

I use “land” instead of “earth” (lower-case “e”) because it is sometimes confused with “Earth” as a planet, which was an unknown concept in Genesis. This story could be titled, “Why are there so many languages across the land?”

2. And it happened in their migrating from the east, that they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there.

It doesn’t mention who “they” are, but we can assume all of humankind, as small as it was. East of Eden was where Cain was exiled, but that story may not be related to this one.

3. Each man said to his fellow, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them in fire.” And the brick served them as stone and the building-substance (bitumen) served them as stuff-to-build (plaster, spackle).

“Bitumen” and “plaster” are the common translations for “chomer”, which I don’t have a problem with. Of course, such materials have their limits.

4. And they said, “Come, let us build a city for us and a tower with its top in shamayim (“heavens”), and let us make for ourselves a name, lest we become dispersed across the face of the entire land.”

The word “shamayim” was understood as being the underside of the rakia, the solid dome that was overhead. And above that was where Elohim and His myriad of Hosts dwelled. There is this legend that they were trying to get to God and defeat Him. Of course, that is nowhere to be found in the text. One could equally hold that they wanted to play it safe, just in case God wanted to flood them again, which is also not in the text.

5. And YHVH descended to see the city and tower that the sons of man (humans) had built.

This is but one of the many times that God needs to descend to the land to see what was going on, which undermines the modern view of His omniscience. And as for those people who claim that God doesn’t intervene in the affairs of man because He honors free will, well…

6. And YHVH said, “Behold one people and there is one language for all of them, and this they began to do?! And now, should it not be withheld from them all that they plan to do?”

For some reason, YHVH was upset. And rather than tell them, or publically ruin their work, he first whines to His supernatural brethren.

7. “Come, let use descend and there confuse their language there, that a man will not hear (understand) the language of his fellow.”

So apparently, YHVH went on a reconnaissance mission in verse 5, came back upset, and complained in verses 6 and 7, and the next sentence he casts a spell on humanity so that people cannot understand one another, which is a bit overboard, and doesn’t guarantee that building will stop.

8. And YHVH dispersed them from there over the face of the entire land, and they stopped building the city.

It is assumed that it was the language change that caused them to give up and disperse. And the Hebrew word, “yfetz” could also mean “opened a mouth”, so it’s a great play on words.

9. And that is why it is called “Babel” (Bavel), because it was there that YHVH confused (balal) the language of the whole land, and from there, YHVH scattered them over the entire face of the land.

End of story.

Rational people want to assign this story to a specific ruins or remains of a tower. But they ignore that this is a supernatural story with a purpose of explaining why there are many languages, not to describe a historical event without naming a single person or place to which it could be ascribed.

It’s a story that stands alone, a story 9 lines long, and a story that gets expounded upon at the pulpit.