Chapter 5, Genesis 11. The Tower of Babel.
AFTER Noah came out of the ark, he lived three hundred and fifty years longer, dying at the age of nine hundred and fifty years. His three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, each had many children, from whom came all the nations of the earth.
At that time they all spoke the same language, and as they were traveling from the east they came to a plain in the land of Shinar and they dwelt there.
They said to one another: Let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly, and build a city and, a tower with the top reaching up to heaven, and we will make a great name for ourselves and shall not be scattered over all the earth. So they made the bricks and used them for stones and took slime for mortar and began building their great city and tower. How soon they forgot God who had brought their fathers through- the flood! Now that they thought all danger was past, they wanted to get along without Him. Although man forgets God and his need of Him, God does not forget His creatures. He provides for them, and watches over them, but He wants us to remember that all we have comes from Him—life, health, food and clothing, and sometimes He has to remind us of this by withholding these blessings from us. So when God saw what these men were doing, and the city and the tower they were building, He said These are one people speaking the same language; if they are allowed to do this, and become strong without Me, they will do all sorts of wicked things that their evil hearts will prompt them to do. So I will go down and confound their language. So the Lord changed their speech, and each spoke a different language and they could not understand one another. So instead of remaining together as they had purposed to do, they had to scatter from that place and the city and tower were never finished. It was called Babel, which means confusion.
The different languages we hear spoken today, although very different from what they were these thousands of years ago, date then from that time and must ever remind us how hateful to God is man’s self-will, and independence of Him.
ML 02/07/1909