Commentaries:
How technologically developed the people were at this time is sketchy. The Great Pyramid of Giza, whether built before or after the Flood, is evidence of a high degree of technology. Whatever the case, God's statement that "nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them" implies the builders of Babel were at least on the verge of great technological leaps. How much can a person discover and develop in a seventy-year life span? Yet these people lived hundreds of years! Since knowledge accumulates from generation to generation, imagine how it would build in a person over 500 years!
Consider what man has accomplished in the last 150 years. He has learned how to harness the power of mighty rivers by building dams to produce electricity. He has built soaring bridges across great chasms. He has drilled deeply into the earth to tap its stores of oil and gas to transport ourselves from place to place, heat our homes, and fuel our factories. Man has put satellites hundreds of miles into the heavens and placed men on the moon. We can watch the astronauts on television though they are 240,000 miles away!
The list of our technological accomplishments seems endless. Technology, though, is not the answer to mankind's problems. By the time the Millennium begins, the world will have realized that knowledge of physical things cannot solve our problems, especially those of the spirit. Each new technological stride merely titillates us for a while, failing miserably to give a sense of meaning to our lives. Technology cannot rid us of competition and inordinate desire. Instead, it only seems to accelerate the plunge toward oblivion and meaninglessness.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Preparing to Rule!
The city and the tower, taken together, represent the cohesion-imparting structure we call community. Babel's builders believed that her bricks would provide economic and social stability, ensured by shared religious and military establishments. To them, Babel meant survival. The city and tower were, then, the first post-Flood comity of nations. Babel failed, of course, because God's response—dividing mankind's language—so thoroughly forced dispersion that man could never unite long enough to rebuild a single Babel.
Yet how he keeps trying! In one sense, the empire builders throughout history have merely relived the story of Babel. Its successors have been many and great: societies deemed by their inhabitants to be stable, indeed insuperable—Thebes, Tyre, Babylon, Nineveh, Rome, Paris, London, Washington. Babel just gets bigger and bigger—from city, to city-state, to nation-state, to empire, to world. Globalism, representing as it does mankind's desperate response to his fear of death due to scattering, is today's version of Babel.
Charles Whitaker
Globalism (Part One): Founded on Fear and Faithlessness
How people feel about ambition is plain in the way they say, "I'm a go-getter" in a tone of pride and self-satisfaction. Many people greatly admire this expression of self-will. However, people often frustrate themselves when they try to accomplish and acquire things through their own will. In seeking security and prestige, self-will frequently develops into conformity to a social status, a peer group, or an organization. In reality, it is slavery to sin.
Martin G. Collins
Overcoming (Part 4): Self-Will
After the waters of the Flood receded, and Noah's sons began having children of their own, mankind began rebuilding and re-establishing itself on the planet. Although God had promised never again to destroy the world with a flood, after a few generations the people—not knowing God and thus not trusting Him—were still inclined to look to their own resources for protection and stability. Many gathered around strong men like Nimrod (meaning "rebellion" or "let us revolt"), hoping that having the right leadership—the leadership that they deemed was right—would shield them from further woe.
The people of one of Nimrod's cities, Babel, began a project conceived out of a desire to preserve themselves rather than to glorify the Divine. With the Flood undoubtedly still on their minds, their first consideration was not their standing before God. Instead, they wanted to create a monument to stand the test of time—something that would help them to endure as a people and bestow a noteworthy reputation upon them. Their natural—carnal—inclination was to try to defend against an act of God rather than to make peace with Him.
In their hostility, it probably did not occur to them to come into alignment and favor with the One who has the power to scatter. Instead, they made contingency plans. Rather than being chastened by the Flood and turning to God, mankind became suspicious of Him—He was not behaving as they thought He should!—and sought to develop a structure to keep the consequences of sin (like scattering) at bay.
Nimrod was the grandson of Ham, yet only three generations after God's destruction of all but eight human beings, God was not part of humanity's calculations. Did the people really believe that God had sent the Flood? Or did they conclude that it was just a natural catastrophe—out of God's control and thus one that they needed to guard against in the future? Though the stories of the Flood undoubtedly played into their thinking, the Bible gives no indication that they received any positive instruction from them. Neither God nor His governance of earth was in their thoughts (Psalm 10:4).
Strong's Concordance shows that name in Genesis 11:4 means "an appellation, as a mark or memorial of individuality; by implication honor, authority, character." It contains the idea of a "definite and conspicuous position." Rather than submitting to God, they sought to elevate themselves. They were sure that they could find a way to advance beyond God-ordained consequences. The ironic outcome is that the identical consequence of sin they were trying so hard to avoid was what God ordained should befall them:
So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11:8-9)
At the Tower of Babel, the peoples' greatest fear came to pass because they left God out of their thoughts. However, it did not have to be that way. It would not have been difficult to inquire about moral and spiritual conditions before the Flood to ascertain why God acted as He did. It does not take much to understand sin and its consequences.
For the people of Babel and the children of Israel, idolatry in some form led them away from God. If they only had wholeheartedly sought God, peace could have been made between Him and them. Instead, they trusted in structures—the Tower of Babel and the Temple in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 7:1-15). In both cases, what they trusted in was destroyed, either by neglect or violence.
The structure was not the problem, for God Himself commissioned the building of the Temple, and after it was destroyed, He commanded that it be rebuilt. The problem was that the structure occupied more of their minds than God did. The same decision is before us: to trust in a structure for safety or to seek the sovereign God of heaven and earth.
David C. Grabbe
Babel: Confusing Wisdom and Rebellion
Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Genesis 11:4:
Acts 2:6-11
