We move on into Chapter 11 today to study the account of the tower of Babel.
"Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there." (Genesis 11:1-2) Shinar was somewhere within the borders of what would later be known as the kingdom of Babylon. In Daniel 1:2 we learn that when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon conquered the kingdom of Judah, he took articles from the Lord's temple at Jerusalem and placed them within a temple to his own gods at Shinar. Some of the newer translations of the Bible translate the word "Shinar" in Daniel 1:2 as "Babylonia", but this further backs up the supposition that Shinar lay within the borders of the kingdom of Babylon. Shinar's exact location is not known to us today.
After the flood survivors emerged from the ark, the Lord instructed them to multiply and fill the earth. Instead all they did was move down into the plains from the hill country. They didn't spread out in the manner in which the Lord instructed them. They are not trusting the Lord for their safety but appear to believe that there is safety in numbers. Clumping together gives them a sense of security. But when the Lord instructs man to do something, He intends to give man everything he needs to accomplish the task. If He tells man to spread out over the entire earth to occupy it, He is going to give man everything he needs to occupy the earth successfully. As the saying goes, "The Lord doesn't call the qualified; He qualifies the called." If the Lord tells man to do something, man's trust is to be in the Lord, not in himself. The Lord will enable the person to complete the task and will supply whatever is needed.
When watching some of the shows on TV about early man, we can tell that there is a persistent belief that early humans were exceedingly primitive. This belief persists in spite of the archaeological remains of astonishingly sophisticated cities and temples that were constructed in the very ancient past. These TV shows usually depict various "experts" walking about extremely old building sites shaking their heads in puzzlement over how people who didn't possess tools or fire could have accomplished such great tasks. The obvious answer is that ancient people did possess tools and fire. Right here in Genesis 11 we find ancient people using fire to bake bricks, so it's quite apparent that they had known how to build fires for some time, likely for the purpose of cooking food and keeping warm. Now they've discovered a new use for fire. "They said to each other, 'Come let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly.' They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar." (Genesis 11:3)
In the oldest cities on earth, the practice was to stack large stones on top of each other. People would often carve the stones in such a way that they fit together like puzzle pieces, so tightly that there was no need for mortar. This is why so many structures from ages past are still partly or mostly intact today. But this type of building took a lot of time and manpower. The invention of brick and mortar allowed man to build structures at a much more rapid pace and with fewer workers. One man could carry several large bricks in his hands at one time, or large stacks of bricks could be placed on a wooden pallet and dragged with ropes. In contrast, building a wall with giant stones took a lot of men to drag one stone at a time to the site. Then several artisans had to carve the stone into the proper shape. After that, a crew of men were needed to hoist the giant stone into place. It could have taken days or even several weeks to put just one stone into place. Building with bricks was faster and easier. Granted, ancient buildings fashioned with bricks have not been able to stand the test of time nearly as well as buildings fashioned with enormous stones. Most of them have not survived at all. But they served a valuable purpose in their time.
Kiln fired bricks are hard, though not as hard as stone. Most of the ancient walls and structures made of bricks have fallen, but quite a few of the bricks themselves remain in various areas of the world. The ancient city of Jericho, for example, contained kiln fired bricks believed to be at least 7,000 years old. Another area where very old kiln fired bricks have been found is within the borders of what was once the kingdom of Babylon, which is the supposed location of the plain of Shinar where people from our passage today have settled.
Before man learned to bake bricks with fire, he mixed straw and mud and formed the mixture into brick shapes and then allowed the bricks to harden under the hot sun. There are surviving examples of such bricks. But now that the people of Genesis 11 have learned to make more durable bricks by baking them in kilns, it seems to them that the sky is the limit. Literally. As we move on into Chapter 11 tomorrow, we find them attempting to build a tower that actually reaches the sky. They don't believe the Lord's promise to never again bring a worldwide flood, so they intend to construct a tower tall enough that they will be able to escape into the heavens the next time a worldwide flood comes. In tomorrow's passage we will find them refusing to obey the Lord's instruction to spread out over the entire earth. Instead they will state their intention to remain together in one place, to find their strength in their numbers, and to make "gods" of themselves.
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