"The Lord said, 'Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. and this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech.'" (NASB)
So let me get this straight... Civilization is clicking along, everyone's cooperating, people are speaking the same language, building great monuments and temples, and along comes God. He whammies them, and strikes a dissonant chord in the harmony they had created.
Why would he do that?
Because they were worshiping false gods?
Because they had become too prideful?
or
Because they dared challenge God's supremacy?
Not a one of those reasons is enough, but all those reasons together make a good one. That is the core message the Bible wants to get across to us on a personal and communal level, but what if I told you that God really didn't have to do anything except let it happen?
What exactly were the people doing when God said:
"...this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them."
NASB
(emphasis mine)
I guess to answer that question, we have to figure out what the people meant when they said:
"Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth."
NASB
And while we're on about the people, who were they?
If you're just joining us, or if it's been a while, now would be a good time to back up about three posts and get a running start. Just follow the links at the end of each post, and you'll end up back here
They were the people of the kingdom Nimrod started.
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| The land inside the black polygon is Sumer. The land inside the white polygon is the Kingdom Nimrod started |
Ham's grandson, Nimrod took his tribes east to the plain of Shinar (Sumer), but I doubt they were the only Sumerians who desired to reclaim their homeland and rebuild their kingdoms. Don't forget Upnapishtim, the Sumerian Noah.
At any rate, Shinar must have come roaring back, possibly because floods back then often had a way of rejuvenating soil, uncovering tar pits, and culling the weak along with the not-so-smart.
They grew strong. They had not one, but seven gods-minus one, and a host of other anthropomorphic forces: (another seven)
- Enlil - the god of heaven
- Ninhursag - the earth goddess
- Enki - the god of wisdom (that's the guy...the one who's associated with serpents)
- Nanna - the moon god
- Utu - the sun god and god of justice
- Inanna - goddess of love and war (she would survive and change her name to Ishtar)
Then there was An. He was the Father god to all the other gods. I guess you could say, the Lord God, but over the centuries An and his Adawmish followers were marginalized and eventually pretty much ignored in favor of the six gods who could Make Sumer Great Again!
Here's the thing about greatness, the land could only hold so much of it. They needed elbow room (Hitler called it lebensraum)
Here's the same chart I showed you above, except that this time I've included more Sumerian cities than the Bible lists, to illustrate the extent of their ambition, but what we want to notice is the difference between the two polygons.
The black one encompasses Sumer. The white one illustrates the reach of the kingdom Nimrod began.
The Sumerians expanded their empire. They invaded other lands, subjugated other peoples, and in order to preserve their own identity they imposed their language and their gods on their new subjects (Semites, Assyrians Akkadians, and perhaps the seldom mentioned Chaldeans, in the vicinity of Ur).
It most likely would have been those subject peoples who both physically built and supplied the famous tower (a ziggurat, most likely devoted to either Enlil or Enki) dedicated to preserving the Sumerians' name.
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| Remember these guys? |
The Four Horsemen were alive and well, but the Sumerians' plan back fired,. Maybe because it would be several thousand years before MLK would say:
“Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
The project that was supposed to prevent them from being scattered abroad across the face of the earth was the flash point of the crisis that resulted in the disappearance of the Sumerians as a people, including their language (which wouldn't be rediscovered until over 4000 years later). The good news is that their method of expressing the written word, Cuneiform, along with the core elements of their mythology were folded into the languages and nations that emerged from the chaos.
Long story short, The Sumerians were swallowed and then forgotten by those they sought to dominate.
They had ignored the God of all creation in favor of the six gods of human nature, and by human nature I mean motivated self interest in its purest most primitive form.
But what did all that have to do with the tribes of Shem?
A better question is: What did the tribes of Shem have to do with all that?
Next time: What Happened to Peleg?
Peace Y'all
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