Northern Kentucky's Evening Interdenominational Community Bible Study Text of Presentation, Lesson 7, Gen 9:18-11:32 Click Here for Lesson 7 Photos Click Here to return to GENESIS Home Page

Genesis 9:18-11:32
The Tower of Babel: Problems in Family and Society

Noah is 601 when the flood recedes, and he lives another 349 years. What did this man who “walked with God” (Gen 6:9) do with the last 37% of his life? The bible doesn’t say much: he planted a vineyard, he got drunk, he blessed his sons Shem and Japheth, and he cursed his grandson Canaan!

The story about the curse of Canaan is so sketchy it raises more questions than answers. Noah uncovers his genitals while he is drunk. His son Ham sees him naked in his tent, and tells his brothers. We don’t know the details or the cultural mores – at a minimum Ham is disrespectful of his father – but Shem and Japheth arrange to cover their father without looking upon his nakedness. Then when Noah finds out what has happened, he curses Ham’s son Canaan, saying he will be “the lowest of slaves . . . to his brothers” (Gen 9:25). But why is Canaan cursed instead of Ham? The bible doesn’t say how old Canaan is when this occurs; there are at least 3 theories – all speculative:

1. At other places in the bible the term “to uncover the nakedness of” means to fornicate with a relative. Noah’s nakedness may be figurative – not literal – and the real story may be that while Noah was drunk, Ham slept with his mother, and Canaan is the result. This theory provides a good reason to curse Canaan!

2. If this incident takes place soon after the birth of Canaan – maybe even at the celebration of Canaan’s birth – Noah’s curse may be a prophesy of “like father, like son”: Ham is bad, but Canaan will be worse.

3. Canaan may be an adult who has played a demeaning practical joke on Noah. Ham merely discovers the joke – and doesn’t act respectfully – but when Noah gets the full story, he curses the real culprit.

But all this begs the issue. Since the bible tells us so little about Noah, why include this demeaning story at all? Surely its purpose is to make the point that the descendants of Canaan are cursed. Remember . . . Genesis is first written for the Israelites of the Exodus, descendants of Shem, whom God is sending to conquer the Canaanites and take their land. It must be comforting for them to know Noah cursed Canaan hundreds of years before, and prophesied his descendants would be their slaves!

In conjunction with his curse of Canaan, God blesses the “good sons,” Shem and Japheth. But note Noah doesn’t actually bless Shem, but “the God of Shem!” (Gen 9:26). Some commentators say this is a conditional blessing: Shem’s descendants will be blessed as long as they follow the One True God, YHWH – and this includes the Jews.

As for Japheth, Noah says: “May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem” (Gen 9:27). Japheth’s descendants migrate throughout a large region including Russia and Europe. And as for “living in the tents of Shem” . . . this is widely believed to be Messianic prophesy, predicting that Jesus the Messiah, a Jewish descendant of Shem, will be rejected by his people, but accepted by the descendants of Japheth: Gentiles who by belief in the Messiah become adopted descendants of Shem.

The New Testament holds up Noah as an example of faith (Heb 11:7), and his neighbors as examples of people who go about their daily affairs, oblivious to the fact that judgment is coming for their sinful lifestyle (Matt 27:37-39, Luke 17:26-27). This is a good lesson for us all as we conclude 2½ weeks discussing Noah.

Chapter 10 is called the Table of Nations, because the names listed aren’t just people . . . they are 70 (or 72, LXX) nations. When we encounter these nations elsewhere in the Old Testament, we can refer to Genesis 10 to identify their origin. We won’t discuss these nations, but for those who want such detail, a map on the web site matches the names of the nations with their locations. The important points for us from chapter 10 are:

1. All the world’s nations were produced by Noah’s sons after the flood; Jew and Gentile are relatives, and all are included in God’s covenant with Noah.

2. When Jesus sends out 72 missionaries in Luke (cf Luke 10:1), the number is probably symbolic of these nations, foreshadowing the Great Commission.

In addition to chapter 10’s list of the nations descended from Shem, chapter 11 includes a genealogy from Shem to Abraham, with detail similar to chapter 5’s genealogy from Seth to Noah. As with chapter 5, this genealogy is probably so detailed because it’s the line of the Messiah; Abraham is considered the father of the Jews.

How long does it take to build a nation? The chronology on the web page calculates Abraham was born a scant 292 years after the flood, if there are no gaps in the genealogy. How many people could be in the world by then? My calculations show with an average of 3 years between children, a puberty age of 16, and the longevity described in chapter 11, the population could be as much as 4.5 billion; there’s plenty of time to build nations. Nevertheless, although the wording in Chapter 11 is much like that in chapter 5, most scholars believe there are gaps in this genealogy. Go figure!

Peleg is the only name in the list we’ll mention; he was born 100 or more years after the flood, and the bible says: “In his time the earth was divided” (Gen 10:25 NIV). What does this mean? Some scholars claim this means the Tower of Babel incident occurred in his time. Others, who believe Noah’s flood was extensive but local, interpret this to mean there was major tectonic plate movement during Peleg’s time: mountains may have appeared where none were before and rivers reversed course, so the terrain of the Middle East became quite different from what it was at the time of the flood. “Dividing the earth” may also refer to the disappearance of land bridges between the continents. There is evidence the Bering Strait was once a temperate land bridge – which appeared and disappeared relatively suddenly – and this also happened to other land bridges about the same time. Scientific estimates of the dates for the land bridges are much more than 200 years before Abraham – which some cite as evidence of gaps in the genealogies.

Chapter 11 opens sometime in the middle of chapter 10 – surely no later than the time of Peleg, but we don’t really know. Assuming no gaps, the population would have been a thousand or so – a large but manageable number. It seems Noah’s descendants settled in a plain called Shinar – generally believed to be Mesopotamia: then called Sumer, later Babylonia, and today Iraq. The people decide not to spread out across the countryside, but to all live in one city and build a tower stretching to heaven. They don’t seem aware of the problems of food and water supply and sewage removal one big city will create, so the population can’t be that large!

They have two objectives: to “make a name for ourselves” and “not be scattered over the face of the whole earth” (Gen 11:4). Both objectives are sinful. By trying to all live together in one big city, they disobey God’s command to “fill the earth” (Gen 9:1). Making a name for themselves is prideful and pretentious; further, trying to build a tower to heaven leaves no doubt they have succumbed to Satan’s temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden: to “be like God” (Gen 3:5). They may be building a tower to heaven to protect themselves if God sends another flood of judgment; but this is an attempt to “be like God” by escaping the consequences of sin . . . and it disbelieves God’s promise to never again send a flood of universal judgment. The tower is a very sinful endeavor!

God can’t allow this to go on unchecked, or there will be unrestrained rebellion. God could just destroy the tower – but they would probably try to rebuild it. So God “confuse(s) their language so they will not understand each other” (Gen 11:7). And God “scattered them . . . over all the earth” so they had to “stop building the city” (Gen 11:8). How did God confuse their language and scatter them? The bible doesn’t say. But this is when man would have used the land bridges to migrate to other continents – presumably driven by some supernatural force instigated by God.

Is this story to be taken literally or figuratively? It could be either or both. Ruins of ancient Mesopotamia include what are called “ziggurats,” designed as staircases between earth and heaven. And linguists – now aided by computers – seem to be coming to the conclusion that all the world’s languages came from one common tongue, presumably spoken by Noah. Nevertheless, research that far back is difficult with so little to go on.

Another lesson from the story of the Tower of Babel concerns man’s rule vs God’s rule. The people of Babel want to create a one world government, competing with God. It’s ironic . . . most people today seem to think one world government would be a good thing, bringing an end to war by bring an end to nations. But if that world government is run by sinful man, it’s more likely to be a tyranny than a free democracy; justice is possible only through the rule of God. Hence when God scatters the people of Babel to form nations, He seems to make the point that wars among nations – though undesirable – are preferable to a one world government run by men seeking to be like God!

The people of Babel did succeed in making a name for themselves . . . but it’s a name of shame. And they were forced to scatter and fill the earth – which they did not want to do. Sin has its consequences; disobedience to God does not bring blessing, and elevating man to the position of God only leads to failure. So whether literal or figurative, the story of the Tower of Babel once again shows sinful people are not blessed – and it provides a sharp contrast with the story of Abraham, which begins at the end of chapter 11 and shows that faithfulness to God brings great blessing.

The story of Abraham begins with his father Terah, a descendant of Shem who lives in Ur, an important metropolis near the southern end of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Terah has 3 sons and at least one daughter. God’s commandments at Sinai have not yet been given, and humanity multiplies in a way we now call incest: Abraham marries his half-sister Sarai (cf Gen 20:12), and his brother Nahor marries their niece. The third brother dies young.

Terah decides to take most of his family from Ur to Canaan along the fertile crescent . . . so they caravan up the Tigris-Euphrates river valley. When they reach a place called Haran in what’s now Turkey, they decide to settle, rather than continue to Canaan. The bible gives no reason why Terah wanted to go to Canaan in the first place – nor why he stopped in Haran. Some speculate that Terah was called to leave the paganism of Ur and go where he could worship YHWH – but others dispute this.

The last verse of chapter 11 reads: “Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran” (Gen 11:32). That’s true, but it’s misleading; Terah remains alive for a long time after he settled in Haran; in fact, it’s possible Terah is still living there when Abraham sends a servant to the region to get a wife from his brother’s family for his son Isaac – but I’m getting ahead of the story!

This week concludes the first section of the Study Guide . . . and next week begins a focus on Abraham. The British Museum has lots of artifacts from Ur from the time of Abraham, and photos will be on the web site; let’s remember Abraham spent the first half of his life in Ur, so his formative years were all spent among these artifacts.