When God created the earth, He had a plan of happiness and love for the people who would live there. However, instead of fulfilling God’s plan for them, people fell into the temptation of choosing their own ways. In the next two lessons, we will study how nations failed to find the right path and how God guided people in their struggle to find light in the darkness. This darkness was produced by their desire for self-government.
The desire for self-government first manifested in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve, under the influence of the serpent, disobeyed God and fell under the temptation of longing to be “ ‘like God’ ” (Gen. 3:5, NKJV). Consequently, Adam and Eve, as fallen beings, gained a knowledge of sin and thus lost the moral power to choose good over evil (Gen. 3:22). Later in the early history of humanity, the men of Babel decided to erect a tower in order to get to the door of God (“Bab-El”) in heaven so that they might usurp God’s place (Gen. 11:1–4). But the builders of Babel became confused and, as a result of their presumption, God dispersed them over the earth.
Even the people of Israel tried to govern themselves, and instead of embracing God’s rule, they looked for a king from the men among their tribes. God responded to all of these human movements with divine initiatives. First, God called Abraham to become a blessing to the nations. Then Israel and later the church were called to witness to the nations about the kingdom of God. Against the temptation to rely on human power to build the kingdoms on this earth, and thus fall into darkness, the Bible brings the hope of the kingdom of God, the only light for the nations.
Part II: Commentary
Adam and Eve
In the Garden of Eden, the story of the confrontation between Eve and the serpent reveals the root cause of human failure; namely, the ambition to replace God. The serpent appears first in the narrative. When he speaks, he sounds like God, the Creator Himself. The serpent “said” (Gen. 3:1, NKJV), just as God “said” ten times in the Creation story. The same verbal form wayyo’mer, “He said,” is used in both stories. The construction of the phrase is troubling, for the subject of the verb “he said” is not indicated. In fact, this is the only case in this entire passage that the subject is not clearly given. And to add to the confusion, the verb is even preceded by the name Elohim, “God,” giving the impression that God is speaking. The Hebrew text has the following sequence of words: “God [he] said to the woman.” Thus, the serpent seems to have replaced God.
Interestingly, the same phenomenon occurs when the woman engages in disobeying God. The phrase describing her behavior, “the woman saw . . . was good” (Gen. 3:6, NKJV), is reminiscent of God’s evaluation of His creation: “God saw that . . . it was good” (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 25, 31). This echo between God’s words and Eve’s words suggests that she has already replaced the divine Creator with her own opinion. Indeed, she behaves like God: “She took of its fruit and gave to her husband with her, and he ate” (Gen. 3:6, NKJV). These three verbs (italicized in the quotation) have so far been associated only with the Creator. God “gave” to eat (Gen. 1:29). God “took” the man (Gen. 2:15), and God “took” one of his ribs (Gen. 2:21, NKJV). Thus, Eve identifies herself as the Creator and one-sidedly imposes her “rule” over Adam.
Later, both Adam and Eve will attempt to take God’s place again when they realize that they are naked. The biblical text reports that they “made themselves coverings” (Gen. 3:7, NKJV). The verb “make” has so far been used only in conjunction with God, the Creator (Gen. 1:31, Gen. 2:2, etc.). Significantly, Adam and Eve attempt to solve their problem by putting themselves in the place of God, the Divine One, a move that already had been initiated by the woman. It is troubling that the human couple has now joined the serpent’s agenda, which is to usurp God’s role. Their blasphemy is also suggested in echo between the word ‘arom, describing their “nakedness,” and the word ‘arom, describing the serpent’s “cunningness” (Gen. 3:1, NKJV).
The Builders of Babel
The language that is used to describe the work of the builders of Babel echoes the Creation account, with the deliberate intention of reversing the work of Creation and replacing the God of Creation. Already this intention is indicated in the table of nations in which Nimrod’s foundation of the kingdom of Babel is introduced with the technical word re’shit “beginning” (Gen. 10:10), which echoes the divine Creation account (Gen. 1:1, NKJV). Nimrod, whose name means “we shall rebel,” is presented as the creator of Babel, just as God is the Creator of the heavens and the earth.
In the story of the tower of Babel, we observe the same usurpation. The phrase, ‘al peney, “on the face of,” which was used to refer to the condition of the earth before Creation (Gen. 1:2, NKJV), reappears here (Gen. 11:4). While the Creation account moved from one element (waters) to multiplicity and diversity, Babel reverses the state of multiplicity into one element. The word of God, wayyomer ’Elohim, “God said,” has been replaced by the builders’ word, wayy’omeru, “they said” (Gen. 11:3, 4, NKJV). The divine fulfillment of Creation wayehi, “and there was” (Gen. 1:3, NKJV), has been replaced by human achievement wattehi, “and it was” (Gen. 11:3, NKJV). The divine self-deliberation or consultation na‘aseh, “let us make,” of the divine Creator (Gen. 1:26) has been replaced by human self-deliberation na‘aseh, “let us make” (Gen. 11:4). The builders of Babel have the same ambition as Eve: they want to be like God.
The Call of Abram
With these words, God calls Abram: “ ‘I will make you a great nation . . . and make your name great’ ” (Gen. 12:2, NKJV). God’s calling of Abram responds to, and stands against, the designs of the builders of Babel. Thus, it is no accident that God’s call to Abram to leave happens in the land of Ur of the Chaldeans. It is indeed striking that the ancient Sumerian city of Ur is located in the region of Babylonia that has the closest association with the incident of Babel.
That Abram heard the call to leave a place saturated with the memory of Babel makes sense and should not surprise us, not only because of historical and geographical considerations but also because of its theological implications. From the cry of the prophets to the apocalyptic supplication, the divine call to “get out of Babylon” (the Greek name for Babel) has a long theological history in biblical tradition (see Isa. 48:20, Rev. 18:4). The divine call means not only deliverance from oppressive exilic conditions, as well as national restoration to the Promised Land, but also implies a return to the covenant.
The builders of Babel wanted to make for themselves a great name and make themselves into a unique universal nation (Gen. 11:4). But it is God who makes a name great and only God who makes one particular nation great and unique in contradistinction to the other nations. Interestingly, the verb “make” is a keyword of the Creation account, where it occurs seven times, with God as the subject (Gen. 1:7, 16, 25, 26; Gen. 2:2 [twice in this verse], 3). The same verb was used three times to describe the activity of the builders of Babel (Gen. 11:4, 6 [twice in this verse]), and one of them, in particular, in relation to their “name” (Gen. 11:4). Babel stood, then, in place of the Creator. The call to Abram restores God’s prerogatives. Only God, as the Creator, can truly “make”; and only God can “make a name.” Moreover, only the name of God is described as “great” (Josh. 7:9).
The Blessing of Abram
The word barak, “bless,” is a keyword in God’s call to Abram, where it appears five times. The use of this word is particularly prominent in the book of Genesis, where it occurs 88 times (in comparison to 356 times in the rest of the Hebrew Bible). The Hebrew concept of “blessing” is often associated with the prospect of fruitfulness (Gen. 1:21–23). Thus, the call to Abram overturns the ideology of Babel. Against the builders of Babel, who refused to go along with the divine plan of creation to multiply, the blessing of Abram restores the forces of creation and the promise of the future.
While the builders of Babel founded their security only on themselves, the blessing of the nations is solely dependent on God’s blessing to Abram. The essential reason for this blessing lies in a future historical event: “ ‘in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’ ” (Gen. 12:3, NKJV). The prepositional phrase “in you” means “in your seed” or “through your seed.” That is, it is not “in Abram” that the blessing is obtained, but “in the seed” of Abram, which is the same Messianic “seed” as in Genesis 3:15, with which our text shares many common words, grammatical forms, and associations of words and themes. The same language is used by Paul to describe the universal effect of the covenant “in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 6:15, NKJV).
Part III: Life Application
Replacing God. Knowing that the essence of sinning is to replace God, ask yourself this question: How, if we are not careful, may God be replaced in every level of our lives? Discuss the following aspects in your class:
In your words: when you lie, you hide or distort a fact. You have replaced the truth (what God sees) with your version of it. When you boast, you generally exaggerate your value at the expense of your neighbor or even at the expense of God Himself, just as Nebuchadnezzar did when he built the city of Babylon (Dan. 4:30).
In your work: when you overwork, you ignore the laws of health or your family, who needs your presence and attention. When you are lazy, you do a sloppy job. When you cheat and when you plagiarize, you steal the work or findings of someone else, pretending that it is yours.
In your religion: when you worship someone else or something else other than God, whether it is money, work, a car, a house, or yourself, you thus commit idolatry.
Responding to God’s Call. Knowing that replacing God is sin, what can you do to allow God to remove self from the throne of your heart and enthrone Himself? Find examples in the Bible that demonstrate this divine interposition.
Discuss God’s response to human sin; reflect on the issue of substitution—the fact that God chose to die in your place so that you might live. Meditate on specific events in the history of Israel in which God worked for humans (for example, the Creation, the Exodus, the Babylonian exile, or specific times when God fought for His people [Exod. 14:14], etc.).
Notes
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Key Text: Daniel 7:14
Study Focus: Gen. 12:1–9.
When God created the earth, He had a plan of happiness and love for the people who would live there. However, instead of fulfilling God’s plan for them, people fell into the temptation of choosing their own ways. In the next two lessons, we will study how nations failed to find the right path and how God guided people in their struggle to find light in the darkness. This darkness was produced by their desire for self-government.
The desire for self-government first manifested in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve, under the influence of the serpent, disobeyed God and fell under the temptation of longing to be “ ‘like God’ ” (Gen. 3:5, NKJV). Consequently, Adam and Eve, as fallen beings, gained a knowledge of sin and thus lost the moral power to choose good over evil (Gen. 3:22). Later in the early history of humanity, the men of Babel decided to erect a tower in order to get to the door of God (“Bab-El”) in heaven so that they might usurp God’s place (Gen. 11:1–4). But the builders of Babel became confused and, as a result of their presumption, God dispersed them over the earth.
Even the people of Israel tried to govern themselves, and instead of embracing God’s rule, they looked for a king from the men among their tribes. God responded to all of these human movements with divine initiatives. First, God called Abraham to become a blessing to the nations. Then Israel and later the church were called to witness to the nations about the kingdom of God. Against the temptation to rely on human power to build the kingdoms on this earth, and thus fall into darkness, the Bible brings the hope of the kingdom of God, the only light for the nations.
Part II: Commentary
Adam and Eve
In the Garden of Eden, the story of the confrontation between Eve and the serpent reveals the root cause of human failure; namely, the ambition to replace God. The serpent appears first in the narrative. When he speaks, he sounds like God, the Creator Himself. The serpent “said” (Gen. 3:1, NKJV), just as God “said” ten times in the Creation story. The same verbal form wayyo’mer, “He said,” is used in both stories. The construction of the phrase is troubling, for the subject of the verb “he said” is not indicated. In fact, this is the only case in this entire passage that the subject is not clearly given. And to add to the confusion, the verb is even preceded by the name Elohim, “God,” giving the impression that God is speaking. The Hebrew text has the following sequence of words: “God [he] said to the woman.” Thus, the serpent seems to have replaced God.
Interestingly, the same phenomenon occurs when the woman engages in disobeying God. The phrase describing her behavior, “the woman saw . . . was good” (Gen. 3:6, NKJV), is reminiscent of God’s evaluation of His creation: “God saw that . . . it was good” (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 25, 31). This echo between God’s words and Eve’s words suggests that she has already replaced the divine Creator with her own opinion. Indeed, she behaves like God: “She took of its fruit and gave to her husband with her, and he ate” (Gen. 3:6, NKJV). These three verbs (italicized in the quotation) have so far been associated only with the Creator. God “gave” to eat (Gen. 1:29). God “took” the man (Gen. 2:15), and God “took” one of his ribs (Gen. 2:21, NKJV). Thus, Eve identifies herself as the Creator and one-sidedly imposes her “rule” over Adam.
Later, both Adam and Eve will attempt to take God’s place again when they realize that they are naked. The biblical text reports that they “made themselves coverings” (Gen. 3:7, NKJV). The verb “make” has so far been used only in conjunction with God, the Creator (Gen. 1:31, Gen. 2:2, etc.). Significantly, Adam and Eve attempt to solve their problem by putting themselves in the place of God, the Divine One, a move that already had been initiated by the woman. It is troubling that the human couple has now joined the serpent’s agenda, which is to usurp God’s role. Their blasphemy is also suggested in echo between the word ‘arom, describing their “nakedness,” and the word ‘arom, describing the serpent’s “cunningness” (Gen. 3:1, NKJV).
The Builders of Babel
The language that is used to describe the work of the builders of Babel echoes the Creation account, with the deliberate intention of reversing the work of Creation and replacing the God of Creation. Already this intention is indicated in the table of nations in which Nimrod’s foundation of the kingdom of Babel is introduced with the technical word re’shit “beginning” (Gen. 10:10), which echoes the divine Creation account (Gen. 1:1, NKJV). Nimrod, whose name means “we shall rebel,” is presented as the creator of Babel, just as God is the Creator of the heavens and the earth.
In the story of the tower of Babel, we observe the same usurpation. The phrase, ‘al peney, “on the face of,” which was used to refer to the condition of the earth before Creation (Gen. 1:2, NKJV), reappears here (Gen. 11:4). While the Creation account moved from one element (waters) to multiplicity and diversity, Babel reverses the state of multiplicity into one element. The word of God, wayyomer ’Elohim, “God said,” has been replaced by the builders’ word, wayy’omeru, “they said” (Gen. 11:3, 4, NKJV). The divine fulfillment of Creation wayehi, “and there was” (Gen. 1:3, NKJV), has been replaced by human achievement wattehi, “and it was” (Gen. 11:3, NKJV). The divine self-deliberation or consultation na‘aseh, “let us make,” of the divine Creator (Gen. 1:26) has been replaced by human self-deliberation na‘aseh, “let us make” (Gen. 11:4). The builders of Babel have the same ambition as Eve: they want to be like God.
The Call of Abram
With these words, God calls Abram: “ ‘I will make you a great nation . . . and make your name great’ ” (Gen. 12:2, NKJV). God’s calling of Abram responds to, and stands against, the designs of the builders of Babel. Thus, it is no accident that God’s call to Abram to leave happens in the land of Ur of the Chaldeans. It is indeed striking that the ancient Sumerian city of Ur is located in the region of Babylonia that has the closest association with the incident of Babel.
That Abram heard the call to leave a place saturated with the memory of Babel makes sense and should not surprise us, not only because of historical and geographical considerations but also because of its theological implications. From the cry of the prophets to the apocalyptic supplication, the divine call to “get out of Babylon” (the Greek name for Babel) has a long theological history in biblical tradition (see Isa. 48:20, Rev. 18:4). The divine call means not only deliverance from oppressive exilic conditions, as well as national restoration to the Promised Land, but also implies a return to the covenant.
The builders of Babel wanted to make for themselves a great name and make themselves into a unique universal nation (Gen. 11:4). But it is God who makes a name great and only God who makes one particular nation great and unique in contradistinction to the other nations. Interestingly, the verb “make” is a keyword of the Creation account, where it occurs seven times, with God as the subject (Gen. 1:7, 16, 25, 26; Gen. 2:2 [twice in this verse], 3). The same verb was used three times to describe the activity of the builders of Babel (Gen. 11:4, 6 [twice in this verse]), and one of them, in particular, in relation to their “name” (Gen. 11:4). Babel stood, then, in place of the Creator. The call to Abram restores God’s prerogatives. Only God, as the Creator, can truly “make”; and only God can “make a name.” Moreover, only the name of God is described as “great” (Josh. 7:9).
The Blessing of Abram
The word barak, “bless,” is a keyword in God’s call to Abram, where it appears five times. The use of this word is particularly prominent in the book of Genesis, where it occurs 88 times (in comparison to 356 times in the rest of the Hebrew Bible). The Hebrew concept of “blessing” is often associated with the prospect of fruitfulness (Gen. 1:21–23). Thus, the call to Abram overturns the ideology of Babel. Against the builders of Babel, who refused to go along with the divine plan of creation to multiply, the blessing of Abram restores the forces of creation and the promise of the future.
While the builders of Babel founded their security only on themselves, the blessing of the nations is solely dependent on God’s blessing to Abram. The essential reason for this blessing lies in a future historical event: “ ‘in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’ ” (Gen. 12:3, NKJV). The prepositional phrase “in you” means “in your seed” or “through your seed.” That is, it is not “in Abram” that the blessing is obtained, but “in the seed” of Abram, which is the same Messianic “seed” as in Genesis 3:15, with which our text shares many common words, grammatical forms, and associations of words and themes. The same language is used by Paul to describe the universal effect of the covenant “in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 6:15, NKJV).
Part III: Life Application
Replacing God. Knowing that the essence of sinning is to replace God, ask yourself this question: How, if we are not careful, may God be replaced in every level of our lives? Discuss the following aspects in your class:
In your words: when you lie, you hide or distort a fact. You have replaced the truth (what God sees) with your version of it. When you boast, you generally exaggerate your value at the expense of your neighbor or even at the expense of God Himself, just as Nebuchadnezzar did when he built the city of Babylon (Dan. 4:30).
In your work: when you overwork, you ignore the laws of health or your family, who needs your presence and attention. When you are lazy, you do a sloppy job. When you cheat and when you plagiarize, you steal the work or findings of someone else, pretending that it is yours.
In your religion: when you worship someone else or something else other than God, whether it is money, work, a car, a house, or yourself, you thus commit idolatry.
Responding to God’s Call. Knowing that replacing God is sin, what can you do to allow God to remove self from the throne of your heart and enthrone Himself? Find examples in the Bible that demonstrate this divine interposition.
Discuss God’s response to human sin; reflect on the issue of substitution—the fact that God chose to die in your place so that you might live. Meditate on specific events in the history of Israel in which God worked for humans (for example, the Creation, the Exodus, the Babylonian exile, or specific times when God fought for His people [Exod. 14:14], etc.).
Notes