TOWER OF BABEL

019-TORRE DE BABELThe tower of Babel is the first big engineering piece of work designed by human beings that appears in the Bible, except for the ark that God ordered Noah to build, for God himself gave the design of the ark. The construction of the tower of Babel started shortly after the flood.1

Babel was a human initiative and it clearly disobeyed God, who had ordered to spread all over the earth and not to settle in the same place.2 The project was consolidated by a group of rebels to God, led by their king Nimrod, the first mighty man.3 They aimed to be known in the world. They chose a great plain in order to live there. They built a city and conceived the idea of building an enormous tower that reached the sky to live together in the city and the tower without ever being scattered. They thought they would be safe if there were another flood, for the tower they were going to build would have a height superior to the levels that had reached the floodwater.

The tower, made of baked bricks and tar, intended to be robust, and lasting.4 We do not know its dimensions, but the fact that it was conceived to host a vertical part of the city gives us an idea of such monumental work. The builders raised themselves before God. But He would not allow them to complete their work. It is interesting to remark how God himself stopped the construction of the tower and the city, and he did it by confusing the workers’ languages and so making impossible the development of their project.5 Confusion is, precisely, the meaning of the word Babel, as until then the same language was spoken all over the earth. From that moment on, they parted and spread all around.6

 

Biblical References:

  1. Genesis 11: 4
  2. Genesis 9: 7
  3. Genesis 10: 9, 10
  4. Genesis 11: 3
  5. Genesis 11: 7, 8
  6. Genesis 11: 9