When God created His universe, the first instruction He gave to man was to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:28 Why? Why did God instruct man to have lots of children and scatter over the face of the earth? Because God created man for His Own Glory. Isaiah 43:7 Glory is a great word! The Hebrew word for Glory is “kabowd” and refers to the substance of something, its weight, splendor or reputation. The Greek word is “doxa”, which means to give a correct opinion of something or to show an accurate estimate of something. God created man in His Own image. His plan was to fill the earth with men, women and children who were a picture of Himself. It brings God pleasure to receive Glory. Revelation 4:11
Whereas once God looked at His creation and declared that it was good, during the days of Noah He looked and saw something very different. He saw that everything man thought was evil—everything; all the time—only evil. The wickedness of man was so very much that it had consumed the earth. The Lord was grieved in His heart over the evil in the hearts of the people He had created. Children are supposed to look like, and be like, their parents. In this case, these children couldn’t possibly look any more different than their Father.
God took that ruined picture of Himself off the face of the earth by sending a flood of water that took the lives of men, animals, creeping things and even birds; everyone and everything except a graciously selected group of survivors--Noah and his family were the chosen human survivors. These humans would be the ones who would start the portrait of God once again.
After the flood, God gave Noah the same instruction that He had given Adam years earlier, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” He told Noah and his family to populate the earth again by having lots of children and scattering over the face of the earth; they were to spread out and fill it up! Genesis 9:7
You see, God was still planing to fill the earth with men, women and children who would bring Him Glory. That’s what He still planned on having--Glory for Himself! He wanted there to be plenty of people on the earth, so that when the Promised One, the Messiah, the Savior came—The Seed Who would bring Life (Genesis 3:15)—God would receive an abundance of Glory from so many of them.
After the flood, when God gave Noah instructions to multiply and scatter over the face of the earth, everyone spoke one language. At first Noah’s descendants traveled east—that was fine, part of scattering is traveling, but they made a terrible decision! They came to the plain of Shinar and decided that this was as far as they were going to go! They sent God a message, “No! We won’t obey You! We don’t want to make a Name for You or bring Glory to You!”
They even went so far as to blatantly admit that they were directly and defiantly disobeying God! They actually said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach unto heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” Genesis 11:4 God said to scatter, they said they wouldn’t scatter, but instead would build a city and stay there. God was their Creator and He was to be worshipped, but they chose to build a tower in their city to worship the creation instead of the Creator. Their created purpose was to bring Glory to God’s Name, but instead they wanted to make a name for themselves. Do you see that what they were doing was trying to rob God of His Glory? God, the high and lofty Creator, wanted His Name to be known through His creation! Man, the lowly creation, wanted to make a name for himself!
Lest you might be hearing Satan lying at this point and saying, “That is mighty prideful of God,” let me assure you that “That is mighty prideful of God!” Are you surprised to hear me say that? Let me explain. The reason it is wrong and sinful for humans to be prideful is because we don’t deserve to boast in ourselves. We are just the creation. It is not wrong at all for God, the Creator, to feel pride or to want praise because He is worthy of all praise! Isaiah 43:7
God will not give His Glory to another! Isaiah 42:8 Man is to bring Glory to God, not rob it from Him! As much as man would like to forget it, he needs to remember that the world does not rotate around him. Rather, the world, the universe and everything in it is rotating around the Lord God Almighty, Who was, Who is, and Who is to come!!!
God did not stand for man defiantly disregarding His command to scatter over the face of the earth! Man had said, “No! We won’t scatter!” God responded with, “Oh yes, you will scatter!” God divided the people to create nations. How? Well, before this time, there was only one people and they spoke the same language; He confused their language adding various languages so they couldn’t understand each other’s speech. They were forced to join up with others who spoke their same language because it was impossible to live together with those whom they could not understand. Each group became a nation, and each nation wandered off to their own particular place on the earth. Genesis 11:8 tells us that is what caused them to scatter over the face of the earth! It is only a secondary result that they stopped building the city, or the idolatrous tower in it.
Isn’t it interesting? We may have been taught that God was angry about the tower the people were building for one reason or another, and that was why He confused their language. I thought God was mad because it was so tall! I never understood it, but that’s what I was taught so that’s what I believed! That wasn’t it at all. God was simply exercising His sovereign will over mankind. God said to scatter—so they would scatter! If they wouldn’t do it of their own free will, God would superintend His divine will upon man. Man was going to obey whether he wanted to or not!!! God’s purposes can not be thwarted by anyone or anything! Job 42:2
In the Hebrew language, verse four of Genesis 11 reads “Let us build a tower whose top is unto heaven.” Many believe that the tower of Babel, the one built on the plain of Shinar, or Babylon, as its name is more commonly called, was a ziggurat, a tower built to worship the sun, moon and stars. Many even believe that the zodiac system had its beginnings right here.
In Babylon, we can observe the beginning of idolatry, false religion, false worship and the beginning of the city that still exists in Iraq today. Revelation 17 calls Babylon the “Mother of harlots.” It stands to reason that when God scattered the peoples living in her, they would have taken their pagan and idolatrous ways with them.
Remember that it was a tower built on a plain. If they had wanted to reach the heavens themselves, as is sometimes taught, why did they build it on a plain, rather than getting a head start in height by building it up on a mountain? It was never really about the tower; it was about man’s rebellion against God, their Creator. He had (and has) all rights over His creation, but man thought he had all rights over Himself—he still does. However, one day soon, very soon, God will ensure that His Word will be obeyed. He has said in Isaiah 45:23 “I have sworn by Myself, the Word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.”
Man did not obey God’s command to spread out and fill up the earth, but God’s will defied the defiance of man. Man does not worship God, but someday he will—all men, every man!
“Christ Jesus, Who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the Glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:5-11
Do you see it! What is the end result of all man’s rebellion? Man will bow His knee to His God and will no longer rebel against Him in any way! God will receive the Glory that is due to Him! It’s useless, and foolish, to resist—God will have His way! God will have His Glory!
Adapted from "HIStory—From Event To Event The Bible Is One Story"
