Unit 6 · Babel and the Nations

Genesis 11 begins with a picture. The whole earth had one language. People moved east and settled on a plain in the land of Shinar. There they made bricks and baked them hard. They used a sticky black tar to hold the bricks together.

Shinar is an old name for southern Mesopotamia. That is the land between two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. Today most of it is in Iraq. In the story, the people made a plan there. They would build a city and a tower whose top reached into the sky (Genesis 11:4).

The builders gave two reasons. They wanted to make a name for themselves. They also did not want to be scattered over the earth. Earlier, God had told Noah’s family to fill the earth (Genesis 9:1). Many Jewish and Christian readers see Babel as a story about pride. The builders put their own name first.

Genesis 11:5 says the LORD came down to see the city and the tower. The builders wanted to reach up to heaven. Instead, God comes down to them. Many readers notice the gentle joke here. The tower seemed very tall to its builders. Yet God still had to come down to see it.

Then God speaks. In Genesis 11:7, God says, let us go down and mix up their language. Who is us? Philo, a Jewish writer in Egypt, wrote a whole book on this story. It is called On the Confusion of Tongues. He said God was speaking with the heavenly powers that serve him. Many scholars today say God is speaking to his divine council.

Other readers hear a royal way of speaking, like a king who says we. Some Christians hear a hint of the Trinity. After God speaks, the people cannot understand each other. They stop building and spread out. The city is named Babel. It sounds like balal, a Hebrew word that means to mix up. Babel is also the Hebrew name for Babylon.

Archaeologists have found the remains of ziggurats in Iraq. A ziggurat was a tall tower built in steps, like a giant staircase. It stood beside a temple. People in Mesopotamia believed a god could come down to the temple there. The great ziggurat of Babylon was called Etemenanki. Its name means temple of the foundation of heaven and earth.

Many scholars think the tower of Babel was pictured as a ziggurat. The Jewish historian Josephus retold the story around 94 CE, in his Antiquities of the Jews. He said a proud king named Nimrod led the builders. He said they used baked brick and tar, as Genesis does. Genesis itself never names a leader for the tower.

Michael Heiser, a scholar of the Bible’s old languages, thought the builders wanted to bring the gods down on their own terms. In The Unseen Realm (2015), he called Babel the third big rebellion in Genesis, after Eden and Genesis 6. Other readers agree Babel is about pride. They may not count it as one of three.

Genesis 10 is a long list of names. It is often called the Table of Nations. It tells which peoples came from each of Noah’s three sons: Japheth, Ham and Shem. Many names are people. Many are also names of lands or cities. The list moves from one son to the next.

Each part of the list ends the same way. It says these peoples had their own families, languages, lands and nations (Genesis 10:5, 20 and 31). Some names are easy to know. Mizraim is the Hebrew name for Egypt. Canaan is the land where Israel later lived. Other names, like Tarshish, still puzzle scholars.

The list also names Nimrod, a mighty hunter and king. Genesis 10:10 says his kingdom began in Babel and other cities in Shinar. So Genesis 10 mentions Babel before chapter 11 tells its story. The two chapters are linked. Chapter 10 shows the nations spread out. Chapter 11 then tells a story about why.

Readers who count the names in the Hebrew text of Genesis 10 get about seventy. The Septuagint has a couple more, about seventy-two. The Septuagint is an old Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Its first books were made in Egypt around 250 BCE. In later Jewish writing, the seventy nations came to mean all the peoples of the world.

The number seventy shows up in Israel’s own story too. Genesis 46:27 and Exodus 1:5 say seventy people from Jacob’s family went down to Egypt. So the world has seventy nations, and Israel begins with seventy people. Many readers think this match is on purpose.

Clay tablets from Ugarit, an old city in Syria, add another seventy. They tell of the high god El and his wife Athirat, who had seventy sons. E. Theodore Mullen studied El’s council in these tablets in a 1980 book. Mark S. Smith (2001) and other scholars compare this picture with Deuteronomy 32, later in this chapter.

Genesis 10 comes before Genesis 11, but the events are not in that order. Genesis 10 already shows many languages. Genesis 11 begins with one language. So the writer shows the result first. Then he goes back to tell the story behind it. Storytellers still do this today.

Genesis 10:25 gives a clue. It names a man called Peleg. It says that in his days the earth was divided. The name Peleg sounds like the Hebrew word for divide. Many readers link this verse to the scattering at Babel. Others think it means something else, such as a dividing of land.

Deuteronomy 32:8 also talks about God dividing the nations. Many scholars read Genesis 10, Genesis 11 and this verse together. In that reading, the three passages tell one story. People were scattered at Babel. Then God did something about the nations. The next section reads what Deuteronomy says he did.

Deuteronomy 32 is a long poem. It is often called the Song of Moses. In the story, Moses teaches it to Israel near the end of his life. The song looks back over Israel’s history. Verse 8 looks all the way back to the time the nations were split up.

Verse 8 says the Most High gave the nations their inheritance. He divided the peoples and set their borders. Verse 9 says the LORD’s portion is his people. Jacob, another name for Israel, is his share. So the nations get their lands. The LORD keeps one people for himself.

One phrase in verse 8 is hard. It says the borders were set by the number of someone. But whose number? Old copies of the Bible say different things here. Scholars have written a great deal about this small phrase. The next lesson shows the choices.

Most printed Hebrew Bibles use the Masoretic Text. Careful Jewish scribes called the Masoretes copied it. Its oldest complete copy of the Hebrew Bible, the Leningrad Codex, was made in 1008 CE. In Deuteronomy 32:8, this text says the borders were set by the number of the sons of Israel. The King James Version follows it.

In 1947, people began finding the Dead Sea Scrolls in caves near the Dead Sea. Many of the scrolls are more than two thousand years old. One copy of Deuteronomy from these caves says sons of God in verse 8. Many copies of the Greek Septuagint point the same way. They say angels of God or sons of God.

So which reading came first? Many scholars, such as Mark S. Smith, think sons of God is older. They think a later scribe changed it, perhaps to avoid talk of other heavenly beings. Scholars who disagree on much else agree on this. Some newer English Bibles now follow the scroll. Others keep sons of Israel and add a note.

Other old Jewish books also say the nations were given heavenly rulers. Sirach was written around 180 BCE. It says God set a ruler over every nation, but Israel is the Lord’s portion (Sirach 17:17). The book of Jubilees says God put spirits in charge of the nations. But over Israel, it says, God alone rules (Jubilees 15:31–32).

Many scholars follow sons of God in Deuteronomy 32:8 and read it this way too. Michael Heiser built a large idea on it. In his reading, after Babel God set the nations under the sons of God, lesser elohim in his council. God kept one people for himself, Israel. That is why verse 9 calls Israel his portion.

Elohim is a Hebrew word. It can mean God. It can also mean other spirit beings. Psalm 82 shows God judging the elohim for being unfair to the weak. Heiser read the gods of the nations as spirit beings that became corrupt, not only statues. He argued that the LORD made them and is far above them.

Deuteronomy 4:19–20 has a similar pattern. There Moses warns Israel not to worship the sun, moon and stars, the host of heaven. He says the LORD gave these to all the nations. But the LORD took Israel out of Egypt to be his own people. Many readers see the same idea as in Deuteronomy 32.

Not everyone reads it this way. Rashi was a famous Jewish teacher in France who died in 1105. He followed sons of Israel. He linked the seventy nations to the seventy people of Jacob’s family who went down to Egypt. Many Christian readers have also kept sons of Israel.

Other Jewish and Christian readers follow sons of God, or the Septuagint’s angels of God, but read them as guardian angels. In this view, each nation has an angel who watches over it. Daniel 10:20 speaks of a prince of Persia and a prince of Greece. All these readers agree the verse is about God and the nations.

At the end of Genesis 11, the story narrows to one family. Terah had three sons: Abram, Nahor and Haran. Abram married Sarai. Genesis 11:30 says Sarai had no children. Terah took Abram, Sarai and his grandson Lot and left Ur. They set out for Canaan. But they stopped in the city of Haran and settled there.

Ur was a great city in southern Mesopotamia. Archaeologists have dug up its ziggurat, and part of it still stands. Haran was a trading town far to the north, in what is now Turkey. Both cities honored the moon god. In Ur he was called Nanna. In Haran he was called Sin.

Joshua 24:2 adds a detail. It says Abram’s ancestors, including Terah, lived beyond the river and served other gods. So Abram did not come from a family that already followed Israel’s God. Later Jewish writers told more. The book of Jubilees (chapter 12) says young Abram turned from idols and prayed to the one God.

Genesis 12:1 begins with a command. God tells Abram to go. He must leave three things: his country, his relatives and his father’s house. Each one is closer to home than the last. God does not name the new land. He says only that he will show it to Abram.

Genesis 12:4 says Abram went, as the LORD had told him. He was seventy-five years old. Sarai and Lot went too, with the people and goods they had gained in Haran. They traveled into Canaan. At Shechem, God promised this land to Abram’s offspring (Genesis 12:7). Abram built an altar there.

The New Testament book of Hebrews looks back on this moment. Hebrews 11:8 says Abraham went out without knowing where he was going. Jewish and Christian readers both honor Abraham’s trust. A Jewish teaching in Pirkei Avot 5:3 says Abraham was tested ten times. Jewish tradition counts this journey among the tests.

Put Genesis 11:4 and Genesis 12:2 side by side. At Babel, the builders wanted to make a name for themselves. Just one chapter later, God tells Abram, I will make your name great. The same Hebrew word for name, shem, is in both verses. Shem is also the name of Noah’s son, Abram’s ancestor.

Many Jewish and Christian readers notice this match. The builders reached for a great name by their own work. Abram receives a great name as a promise. The builders tried to stay together in one place. Abram leaves home and trusts what God said. The two stories seem to answer each other.

In the story, God does not destroy the scattered nations. Instead he starts over with one man and his family. Many readers see Abram’s call as the turning point after Babel. The builders tried to hold on to one place. Abram lets go of his home. Through his family, the promise says, blessing will reach the nations again.

Genesis 12:2–3 is short, but it is packed with promises. God says he will make Abram a great nation. He will bless Abram. He will make his name great. Abram will be a blessing to others. These first promises are about Abram’s own family growing and doing well.

Then the promises reach outward. God says he will bless those who bless Abram. He will curse whoever treats Abram with scorn. Then comes the last promise. In Abram, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Many readers see this last line as the biggest of all.

At that moment Abram and Sarai had no children at all. So the promise of a great nation sounds almost impossible. That is part of the story’s pull. Readers wait through many chapters to see what happens. Genesis 21 finally tells of the birth of their son, Isaac.

Genesis 10 listed the families of the earth, spread out by their languages and lands. Genesis 12:3 uses the same Hebrew word for families, mishpachah. So the promise points back to that list. In the story, the scattered nations are not forgotten. The blessing is meant to reach them.

Genesis repeats the promise later. In Genesis 22:18, God tells Abraham that all the nations of the earth will be blessed through his offspring. In Genesis 26:4, the promise is repeated to Isaac. In Genesis 28:14, it is repeated to Jacob. Three generations hear the same promise.

Genesis is shaped around this turn. Chapters 1 to 11 tell about the whole world. Chapters 12 to 50 follow one family. Some readers compare it to a camera zooming in. The story narrows to Abraham’s family, but the promise keeps the whole world in view.

Look at the order of Genesis. Chapter 10 lists the nations. Chapter 11 scatters them at Babel. Chapter 12 begins with God calling Abram. Michael Heiser read this order with Deuteronomy 32:8–9 in mind. In his reading, God set the nations under lesser elohim. Then, right away, he called Abram. God gave up the nations for a time, but not for good.

Heiser often spoke of God’s family. In his reading, God wanted a family in heaven, the sons of God, and a family on earth, people. Eden had held both together. After Babel, Abram’s line would be the start of the earthly family again. Through it, the blessing would one day reach every nation.

So, for Heiser, Abram’s call began a long plan to reclaim the nations. Israel was to be the family through whom they would be won back. Other readers put more weight on Abram’s faith and God’s covenant with his family. Many readers see both themes in the text.

Deuteronomy 32:9 says the LORD’s portion is his people. Jacob is his share. A portion is a share, like a piece of land given to a family. In this verse, the nations get their lands, but the LORD keeps a people. The people of Israel come from Abram’s grandson Jacob, who was also called Israel.

Exodus 19:5–6 says something similar. At Mount Sinai, God tells Israel that if they keep his covenant, they will be his treasure among all peoples. They will be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. A priest serves God for others. Many readers think this means Israel was to show God to the nations.

Many readers connect these verses. Israel was God’s portion, but not to keep God to itself. Christian readers often say Israel was meant to show the nations what God is like. Jewish readers also see Israel’s calling as holy and lasting. Many stress living by God’s teaching, the Torah, as the heart of that calling.

Psalm 82 begins with God standing in his council. He judges the elohim, the gods, because they do not defend the weak, the poor and the orphan. In verse 6 he calls them sons of the Most High. In verse 7 he says they will die like humans. Then comes verse 8.

In verse 8, the writer turns to God. He asks God to rise up and judge the earth. He gives a reason: God will inherit all the nations. In Hebrew, inherit comes from the same root as the inheritance in Deuteronomy 32:8. The two verses use the same word family.

Many scholars read Psalm 82 as a scene in God’s heavenly council. E. Theodore Mullen (1980) and Mark S. Smith (2001) studied it beside the Ugarit tablets. Heiser read it as the answer to Babel. God judges the gods who ruled the nations badly, then takes the nations back. Other readers think the gods are human judges. For them, verse 8 asks God to set justice right.

The book of Isaiah picks up the promise to Abram. In Isaiah 49:6, God speaks to his servant. It is too small a thing, God says, only to bring back the tribes of Jacob. God will also make the servant a light to the nations. Then his salvation will reach the end of the earth.

Readers differ on who the servant is. Many Jewish readers see the servant as Israel itself, as Isaiah 49:3 says. Some see a prophet. Christian readers have often seen the servant as pointing to Jesus. The New Testament quotes this verse in Acts 13:47. There Paul and Barnabas use it to describe their own work.

Isaiah 42:6 uses the same picture. There God gives his servant as a covenant for the people and a light for the nations. Many readers see a thread here that starts in Genesis 12. Abram’s family was chosen, but not for itself alone. In this reading, the light was meant to spread to every nation.

In Genesis 15, God makes a covenant with Abram. He tells him to look at the stars and count them, if he can. So many, God says, will your offspring be. Genesis 15:6 says Abram believed the LORD. In Genesis 17, God changes his name to Abraham and gives the sign of the covenant.

Jewish tradition honors Abraham as the first father of the Jewish people. The covenant with him is seen as lasting. Many Jewish readers stress that it is lived out by keeping God’s commandments, the mitzvot. The historian Josephus wrote that Abraham was the first to teach boldly that there is one God, the maker of all (Antiquities 1.7).

A famous old story, called a midrash, is told in Genesis Rabbah, a Jewish book on Genesis. In it, Abram’s father Terah sold idols. Young Abram broke them and said the biggest idol did it. His father said idols cannot move. Abram asked, then why worship them? The story shows Abraham turning to the one God.

Christian readers have long read Genesis 12:3 as pointing to Jesus. In Galatians 3:8, Paul says the Scripture told the good news to Abraham ahead of time. He repeats the promise that all nations would be blessed in him. Paul taught that people from every nation could join Abraham’s family through faith in Jesus (Galatians 3:29).

At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus sends his followers to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19). In Acts 2, at Pentecost, people from many lands hear the message in their own languages. Many Christian readers, Heiser among them, see this as Babel turned around. At Babel, languages split people apart. At Pentecost, one message came through many languages.

Jewish tradition links this festival, called Shavuot, to the giving of the Torah at Sinai. A teaching in the Talmud (Shabbat 88b) says each word God spoke there split into seventy languages. Jewish readers see the covenant with Abraham going on with the Jewish people, not pointing to Jesus. This course describes both readings without choosing between them.