Genesis 11:5-9--The Tower of Babel

Genesis 11:5-9
World English Bible
​
5 Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built. 6 Yahweh said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing will be withheld from them, which they intend to do. 7 Come, let’s go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So Yahweh scattered them abroad from there on the surface of all the earth. They stopped building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there Yahweh confused the language of all the earth. From there, Yahweh scattered them abroad on the surface of all the earth.

---

Though the LORD is omniscient and did not need to see things for Himself, He came down to earth to see the city and the tower for Himself that the people built.  God saw that they were unified in their rebellion and that if they stayed unified it would lead to even worse rebellion which might hinder the LORD's gospel plans for the future (though He is sovereign, He could see all of man's potential choices and how letting man live in a state of rebellion here and letting sin go unpunished was not the best option).  He chose not to kill all of them, but instead created a situation whereby they had little choice to do what He commanded in the first place--to spread out over the entire earth.

He broke them up into different language groups and each of these groups settled in various places (usually in the same region, but sometimes spread out over great distances, which is why we can see related language groups in different geographical regions).  These different languages did not evolve over long periods of time, but instead all the different families of languages appeared as a result of a single event.  It is true that new dialects and amalgamations of languages have come up since then, but this is very similar to the situation with the animals on the Ark.  You don't need every animal that we see today, just the basic information for all the variety of animals that we see today.  In the same way, not every dialect of every language needs to be created at the Tower of Babel, but the root languages from which all these different branches and dialects would appear did form at one time as a result of a single event.

The confusion this caused stopped construction of the city and tower of Babel as the workers could no longer communicate with each other.  The city was named Babel because of the confusion of languages that started there, and we still use the word babel today to refer to someone speaking in a way that sounds like incomprehensible nonsense--they are making noises that sounds like speech, but they are not forming comprehensible words (at least, not to us).  We may also use this word to refer to so many voices saying so many different things that no one can pick out a single voice and understand what they are trying to say.

This act was "reversed" in a way at Pentecost when people came together to celebrate the Feast of Weeks who were speakers of a multitude of different languages, yet they all understood Peter's sermon as if he was speaking in their native tongue.  The Holy Spirit allowed the gospel to be proclaimed in one tongue and understood in every tongue so that language no longer divided people in a way that cut them off from being a part of God's eternal plan for all people of all nations.  We train people today to learn other languages and I mentioned some of that in yesterday's article and gave some links to some missions organizations that are involved in translation and in languages studies for missionaries, but we also try to share the gospel with native speakers who already know another language and then get them to share the gospel with those who speak their language.

There are even parts of our country where large immigrant communities live and English is not the primary language spoken in the community.  It is challenging sometimes for us to send English-speaking missionaries into these areas, but our hope is that as we do so, there will be witnesses and ambassadors for Christ from those communities that will share with their friends, family, and neighbors (even though we know "a prophet is not welcome in his hometown.")  Pray for these missionaries today who are helping to break down language barriers and for the work of organizations like Home - TWR Website which are broadcasting the gospel into countries all over the world in their own language, even in places that it hard to get a person to (just air drop some pre-programmed solar-powered transistor radios and the people can hear someone sharing the gospel with them in their own language as long as the broadcasters know the language groups they are trying to reach). 

Also pray for all those who broadcast over the internet and satellite radio.  There's even work to tell Bible stories (specifically the story of the gospel from Genesis to Revelation) to those who still have a completely oral tradition with no written language at iBIBLE (the book of Genesis and the Gospels have been translated into several of the world's major languages).  Last, but not least, there is much work among the deaf peoples of the world to translate the Bible into the various sign languages (there no international sign language--sometimes with more than one dialect or branch of sign language for the same spoken language.  You can find Bibles for the deaf of many language groups here:  deafbible.com/.

One final resource I want to recommend is the Gideon Bible app for smartphones (links available here:  Read The Bible | Gideons International).  They have bibles available in over 2,200 languages.  You can look up a verse or passage you are thinking of in your language, then switch to the other language and let the person you are trying to share with read in their own language.  As you can see, God is working in a mighty way to bring about people from every tribe, tongue and nation, and He has commanded us to be a part of that mission before He ascended.  We should be able this work until he returns.