The Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel incident occurred around 4,200 years ago—about 100 years after the Flood but before Abraham was born. This was before ancient Egypt, Greece, and other early civilizations.  After the flood waters receded, Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, were commanded by God to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the whole earth.  Sometime after Noah and his family left the ark, Noah planted a vineyard and cultivated the grapes for wine.  One night, Noah apparently became drunk on the wine, and his youngest son Ham “uncovered his nakedness”.  

Genesis 9: 20 Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. ²¹ When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. ²² Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside. ²³ But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father’s naked body. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father naked.

²⁴ When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, ²⁵ he said, 

“Cursed be Canaan!  The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers.”

Besides exposing his father’s nakedness, according to the book of Jasher (an extra Biblical source referenced in the Bible), Ham committed another sin.  Jasher tells us that Noah took with him on the Ark the animal skins that had been knit by the finger of God for Adam and Eve.  According to Jasher, Noah’s son Ham later stole those skins!  We are told that the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia believed that whoever had “possession” of those animal skins, sewn by the finger of God, would have supernatural power.   According to Jasher, the skins were handed down to Nimrod, through Ham, who became a very powerful builder of cities. 

Genesis 10:6 The sons of Ham:  Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan.  Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the earth. ⁹ He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.” 

¹⁰ The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.¹¹ From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah ¹² and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city.

Nimrod built many very rich and powerful cities in ancient Mesopotamia.  This area, in the Middle East, is considered “the cradle of civilization”.   Is Nimrod good or evil?   First, what does the name Nimrod mean? It comes from the Hebrew verb marad, meaning “rebel.”  Nimrod was representative, of a system that is epitomized in rebellion against the Creator, the one true God. Rebellion began soon after the Global Flood as civilizations were restored. At that time Nimrod became very prominent and powerful.

The location of the tower of Babel was in Shinar, in ancient Mesopotamia on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River. Bible scholars believe that the tower was a type of stepped pyramid called a ziggurat, common throughout Babylonia.  Ziggurats were massive structures that were usually part of a Temple complex, and found at the center of the city.  Ziggurats contained shrines, and were the center of the pagan worship that was popular in those cities, at that time.  Remember, pagan worship is just another way to say “demon worship”. 

Ziggurat designs ranged from simple bases upon which a temple sat, to marvels of mathematics and construction which spanned several terraced stories and were topped with a temple.  The Mesopotamians believed that these pyramid temples connected heaven and earth.

In the days of Nimrod, and the Tower of Babel, all the people shared a common language.  The Bible tells us that the people of ancient Shinar, with one language, decided that they should band together to build this massive Ziggurat so that they wouldn’t be “scattered all over the face of the earth”, and they wanted to “make a name for THEMSELVES.  Basically, those who had designed these Ziggurats wanted to thumb their nose at the One True God, while they worshiped pagan gods (demons) from these behemoth structures.  Sadly, the common man probably thought that they were worshiping the truth (multiple gods), but the serpent KNEW…that they were not!  The serpent is a master of DECEPTION! 🐍

There is ONLY ONE TRUE GOD! YHWH, HIS SON YESHUA, OUR ELOHIM who exists as a Triune God (for explanation of the Trinity – see previous post)

The Ziggurat designers and builders chose to use mudbricks and mortar for their construction.  Bricks are very uniform, man-made, in contrast to stones, which are all very unique and “God-made“.  The people wanted to glorify themselves!  This is an important concept.

Satan wants a world, where everyone looks the same (like him) 🐍, shares the same language, and works towards the same common goals, pagan worship, or ultimately, worship of the demons and himself.  Satan wants us all to pursue these goals WITHOUT THE TRUE GOD!   Remember the sin in the Garden of Eden…”We can do this ourselves; we don’t NEED GOD!!”  This was the attitude at the Tower of Babel, and it STILL EXISTS TODAY!!  Although uniformity may sound good, everyone working together towards a common goal, make no-mistake, when this is done WITHOUT the TRUE GOD, YHWH, YESHUA, our ELOHIM, there is evil at the center. 

Satan takes the things of God and twists or distorts them so that they will be used for self-worship.  Pride is at the center! God is the exact opposite.  The True God wants a world where each person is a unique individual, and yet all loved equally by God.  God loves ALL PEOPLE of ALL RACES, SHAPES and SIZES!!!  God wants us to all LOVE and WORSHIP HIM, but HE would NEVER FORCE HIS LOVE!   Worship of the True God happens spontaneously because of HIS GREAT LOVE FOR US. God’s focus is on loving His Creation, on SAVING His FALLEN Creation!!!  It’s easy to love someone who loves you first!!!  The TRUE GOD NEVER FORCES HIS LOVE ON ANYONE!  Forced love is RAPE.  This is one way to tell what is TRUE and what is NOT.  If a RELIGION MUST USE FORCE to gain worship, then it’s NOT from the TRUE GOD!  God, our Elohim, gives everyone a CHOICE, FREE-WILL!!! 

Because of the sinful, evil intent of the tower of Babel (Ziggurat/ancient pagan worship of demons), God Himself stopped the building of the tower, scattered the people across the face of the earth, and mixed up the languages so that the people could not do this again, at least, not for a long, long, long time.  I daresay, if man had been successful at this attempt, we would have likely already destroyed ourselves.  But God is always in control of the timing!!!

We will see, in later posts, that this same spirit of uniformity, of building a global world, open borders, without God, is still very present on the earth, and is working with great fervor at building the modern version of the tower of Babel (Babel 2.0). There is nothing new under the sun.  (Ecclesiastes 1).