Genesis 11:4

11:1-4 How soon men forget the most tremendous judgments, and go back to their former crimes! Though the desolations of the deluge were before their eyes, though they sprang from the stock of righteous Noah, yet even during his life-time, wickedness increases exceedingly. Nothing but the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit can remove the sinful lusts of the human will, and the depravity of the human heart. God's purpose was, that mankind should form many nations, and people all lands. In contempt of the Divine will, and against the counsel of Noah, the bulk of mankind united to build a city and a tower to prevent their separating. Idolatry was begun, and Babel became one of its chief seats. They made one another more daring and resolute. Let us learn to provoke one another to love and to good works, as sinners stir up and encourage one another to wicked works.

(4) A tower, whose top may reach unto heaven. —The Hebrew is far less hyperbolical: namely, whose head (or top) is in the heavens, or skies, like the walls of the Canaanite cities ( Deuteronomy 1:28 ). The object of the builders was twofold: first, they wished to have some central beacon which might guide them in their return from their wanderings; and secondly, they had a distinctly ambitious object, for by remaining as one nation they would be able to reduce to obedience all the tribes now perpetually wandering away from them, and so would “make them a name.” We may, indeed, dismiss the silly stories of Josephus about their defiance of God and Nimrod’s impiety, and the purpose of escaping a second deluge, for all which there is not the least vestige of authority in the sacred record; but we undoubtedly find a political purpose of preventing that dispersion of mankind which God had commanded ( Genesis 1:28 ), and of using the consequent aggregation of population for the attaining to empire. There was probably some one able and ambitious mind at the bottom of this purpose, and doubtless it had very many advantages: for it is what is now called centralisation, by which the individual sacrifices his rights to the nation, the provinces to the capital, and small nations are bound together in one empire, that the force of the whole body may be brought to bear more rapidly and effectually in carrying out the will of the nation or of the ruler, as the case may be.

4 . a city, and a tower ] The story seems to suggest that in the abandonment of tent for city life these primitive people were disobeying the Divine command. whose top may reach unto heaven ] Lit. “its top in heaven.” Probably the words are intended quite literally to suggest the endeavour to “reach unto” Heaven, which was regarded as a solid vault. As the highest stage in an Assyrian or Babylonian pyramid, Ziggurat, was surmounted by a shrine of the deity, there is perhaps more meaning and less fancifulness in these words than has often been suspected. It is natural to compare the later Greek legend of the giants who sought to scale Olympus and to dethrone Zeus. But there is no indication of warlike defiance. The famous tower at Borsippa, on the left bank of the Euphrates, whose ruins now go by the name of Birs Nimrud, was a temple dedicated to Bel-Nebo, and rose in seven tiers or stages, representing the seven planets. This building, having fallen into ruins, was restored by Nebuchadnezzar. A similar building, E-sagil , dedicated to Bel Merodach, the patron god of the city, must have been one of the most enormous structures of ancient Babylon. The fame of temple towers or pyramids, Ziggurats , of this description was doubtless widely current throughout Western Asia, and may have given rise to strange legends concerning their erection in primitive times. let us make us a name ] i.e. make ourselves renowned. Cf.

Isaiah 63:12 , “to make himself an everlasting name”; 2 Samuel 7:23 , “to make him a name.” For the Heb. shêm = “name” in the sense of “renown,” cf. Genesis 6:4 , “the men of renown”; Isaiah 55:13 , “it shall be to the Lord for a name.” Some scholars prefer to render shêm by “monument,” or “memorial,” as possibly in 2 Samuel 8:13 . Old Jewish commentators thought it might refer to Shem, or even to the sacred Name of the Almighty! lest we be scattered abroad ] The tower was to be visible to the whole world, and make its builders famous for ever. The tower and the city would be a conspicuous place for purposes of concentration and defence. It was apparently (see Genesis 11:6 ) the Lord’s will that the people should scatter over the world. The people resolved upon a project which would frustrate the Divine purpose, gratify their own ambition, and protect them as far as possible against punishment. Distance and isolation meant danger.

Whose top may reach unto heaven, i.e. a very high tower; a usual hyperbole, both in Scripture, as Deu 1:28 9:1 , and in other authors. This tower and its vast height is noted by Herodotus, Diodorus, and others. Let us make us a name, i.e. a great name, as the phrase is elsewhere used. Compare also 2 Samuel 7:9 , with 1 Chronicles 17:8 . See also Isaiah 63:12,14 Da 9:15 . They take no care for God’s name, and the defence and propagation of the true religion, as duty bound them, but merely out of pride and vain-glory labour to erect an everlasting monument of their wit, and wealth, and magnificence to all posterity. Their design was not to secure themselves against a flood, which they well knew brick buildings were no fence against; nor would they then have built this tower in a plain, but upon some high mountain; but rather to prevent a total and irrecoverable dispersion. They sought therefore to bind themselves together in one glorious empire, and to make this glorious city the capital seat of it, and the place of refuge and resort upon any considerable occasion.

4. a tower whose top may reach unto heaven—a common figurative expression for great height (De 1:28; 9:1-6). lest we be scattered—To build a city and a town was no crime; but to do this to defeat the counsels of heaven by attempting to prevent emigration was foolish, wicked, and justly offensive to God.

Verse 4. - And they said . Being impelled by their success in making bricks for their dwellings (Lange), though the resolution to be mentioned may have been the cause of their brick-making (Bush). Go to, let us build us a city. Cf. Genesis 4:17 , which represents Cain as the first city builder. And a tower. Not as a distinct erection, but as forming a part, as it were the Acre-polls, of the city (Bochart). Whose top may reach unto heaven . Literally, and his head in the heavens, a hyperbolical expression for a tower of great height, as in Deuteronomy 1:28 ; Deuteronomy 9:1 (cf. Homer, 'Odys,' 5:239, ἐλάτη τ η΅ν οὐρανομήκης ). This tower is commonly identified with the temple of Belus, which Herodotus describes (1. 181) as being quadrangular (two stadia each way), and having gates of brass, with a solid tower in the middle, consisting of eight sections, each a stadium in height, placed one above another, ascended by a spiral staircase, and having in the top section a spacious temple with a golden table and a well-furnished bed. Partially destroyed by Xerxes ( B.C. 490 ), it was attempted unsuccessfully to be rebuilt by Alexander the Great; but the remaining portion of the edifice was known to be in existence five centuries later, and was sufficiently imposing to be recognized as the temple of Belus (Pliny, 6:30).

The site of this ancient tower is supposed by George Smith to be covered by the ruin "Babil," a square mound about 200 yards each way, in the north of the city; and that of the tower of Babel to be occupied by the ruin Birs-Nimrod (situated six miles south-west of Hillah, which is about forty miles west of Bagdad), a tower consisting of seven stages, said by inscriptions on cylinders extracted from the ruin to have been "the Temple of the Seven Planets, which had been partially built by a former king of Babylon, and, having fallen into decay, was restored and completed by Nebuchadnezzar" ('Assyrian Discoveries,' 12. p. 59; 'Chaldaean Genesis,' p. 163; cf. Layard's 'Nineveh and Babylon,' chap. 22. p. 496). It is, however, prima facie , unlikely that either Babil or Birs-Nimrod is the exact site of Babel. The original building was never finished, and may not have attained any great dimensions. Perhaps the most that can be said is that these existing mounds enable us to picture what sort of erection the tower of Babel was to be. And let us make a name , שֵׁם ; neither an idol temple, ֵשם being = God, which it never is without the article, הַשֵׁם - cf.