NOTES for Gen 10:32-11:9

The inhabitants of Sumer in the biblical parable of the Tower of Babel are haunted by the "achievements" of their ancestors who lived before the flood. They were the "giants" of whom the sacred writer speaks as "mighty men of old, men of name" (in the Synodal translation they are called "glorious," but the corresponding Hebrew word literally means "men of name," that is, "well-known," "people with a name"). And the inhabitants of the Sumerian valley mentioned in the parable (by which the Mesopotamian lowland is evidently meant) also want to "make a name for themselves," to "become people of name," so that they "may not be scattered over the face of the earth."

And they begin a "great construction project," the first, but by no means the last, in the history of fallen humanity, which will end as ingloriously as all those that follow (the irony of the parable, by the way, also lies in the fact that when it was written, and according to the data available today this was in Babylon during the years of exile, those who read it there in Babylon could see another tower like the one described in the parable). As is clear, the builders were driven not simply by a desire for fame; they wanted to build something that would unite them, that would become a symbol of national unity and state power. It is no accident that the prerequisite for the "great construction project" was precisely the unity of the inhabitants of that land: "one people and one language" in Akkadian usage (and here we evidently have a calque from Akkadian) meant one-man rule.

And so, in order to strengthen unity and, accordingly, increase state power, a grandiose project is undertaken, which in the end fails quite thoroughly. Why is that? Is it only because strong power that carries out projects of this kind always becomes repressive, violating all the laws given by God? No doubt, for that reason too. But perhaps not only for that reason. In the existence of every people, as in the life of every person, there is a meaning connected with God's design for that people or that person. But can that design be seen and understood if the goal is not that design, but greatness, power, and fame? The answer is obvious.

And the repressiveness of power generated by a society that is not seeking meaning is only a consequence. It is no wonder that such a society and such power are doomed. Here one can only ask God to minimize the consequences of the inevitable collapse.

As seen, for the "achievements" of their ancestors living before the deluge, the Sumerians of the biblical parable on the tower of Babel do not stay in peace. They were " the giants ", about whom the author of the biblical book speaks as " strong famous people of the antiquity" (in the English translation they are called "glorious", but the Jewish corresponding word means exactly "famous", which is "known", " people renowned"). And the inhabitants of the Sumerian valley mentioned in the parable (under which obviously means the Mesopotamian plain) want "also to make a name for themselves", "become famous" in order not to scatter abroad upon the face of the whole earth".

And begin "a great construction ", the first one, but certainly not the last in the history of the fallen humanity, which will end so ignominiously, as all the following ones (the irony of the parable, among others, still consists and of the fact that, when it was getting written, and this was according to the available data today, in Babylon in the years of captivity, there in Babylon, those who read it could see another tower like the one described in the parable. As seen, the builders were not guided simply by the desire to be famous; they wanted to build something which could unite them, which could become the symbol of the national unity and the power of the State.

It is not accidentally if the condition of a "great construction" had become particularly the unity of the inhabitants of that land: "one nation and one language" in the Akkadian word usage (and we have here in front of us, obviously, a copy of the akkadian) indicated the absolutism. And here, in order to strengthen the unity and therefore strengthen the power of the State, ambitious project is undertaken, which finally fails successfully.

Why is it so? Only or because a strong power, carrying out similar projects, always becomes repressive, violating all the laws given by God? Probably, and for that also. But, perhaps, and not just because of that.

In the existence of every nation, quite as in the life of every person, there is its meaning associated with the plan of God for this people or this person. But can one see and understand this plan, if the purpose becomes not Him, but greatness, power and celebrity? The answer is obvious. And a repressive power generated by the society, not seeking for meaning, is only a consequence. It is not surprising, that such a society and such a power are condemned. We can only ask God here to minimize the impact of the inevitable collapse.

People very often feel sympathy for the figures in this passage. Look, people tried hard, worked, and an unkind God suddenly ruined everything. Was He really begrudging them something?... The real question, however, is for what purpose the tower is being built. The Tower of Babel symbolizes a civilization built as a challenge to God.

For some reason it seems that God's intervention here is quite conditional. The undertaking was apparently doomed to failure from the beginning because of mutual incomprehension among the builders. Even if at first they did speak one language, acting solely in order to prove what fine fellows they were, each of them was thinking about himself, not about the others. In that situation incomprehension was bound to arise, and it turned out that everyone was already speaking different languages.

This is what any activity apart from God is doomed to. Later, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit will heal this wound and make understanding possible even among people who speak different languages.

The parable of the Tower of Babel resembles a parable less than the other parables of the Prologue of Genesis. This is understandable: it is a parable built on historical realities, not on mythological traditions, as in the case, for example, of the parable of Noah. Yet history is history, and we are still dealing with a parable, not because the realities are unreliable, but because history here becomes only the starting material for a generalization. That generalization is connected with the image of the Tower of Babel precisely as a historical reality. Today no historian doubts that the parable is speaking of ziggurats, stepped pyramidal temple structures that existed in the cities of Sumer as early as the third millennium B.C.

They could not fail to make an absolutely indelible impression on the Semitic nomads who first appeared in Mesopotamia around the twenty-fifth century B.C. From this came traditions about towers "up to heaven" that entered legends, and the legends about towers that had existed in complete reality became the basis of the parable. To complete the picture, it remains only to add that the chief ziggurat of Ur, the capital of the confederation of Sumerian city-states that existed in those times, was called Etemenanki, which translated literally from Sumerian means "foundation of heaven and earth."

This image of the Sumerian ziggurat, which entered legend, became the basis of the parable. Its meaning would be incomplete if we did not take into account that ziggurats were built not only in Sumerian cities, but also in the cities of Babylonia, which succeeded Sumer, and in particular in its capital, Babylon. A ziggurat existed there during the writing of the Book of Genesis; its first readers could see the Tower of Babel with their own eyes. Yet another tower. The parable of the Tower of Babel is a parable about a tower that constantly collapses and that people rebuild again and again with a persistence worthy of a better use. They rebuild it in order to "make a name for themselves," in order "not to be scattered over the earth."

So there would be something to hold together "one people of one language." The matter here is not linguistics, but politics: in Akkadian, the language of ancient Babylon, "to make one language" means to subject people to a single authority, while "to confuse languages" means to destroy such single rule. It is not God who destroys it, as it may appear at first glance. God merely comes near, and the languages are confused, and the tower is simply abandoned unfinished. This is understandable: a great construction project requires a great idea and presupposes a great empire, a strong state, and firm authority.

But God does not need empires; He needs a human being with whom He can communicate. When He is near, all the "great ideas" invented by human beings lose their value, great empires stagger and fall apart, and "great construction projects" remain unfinished. But fallen humanity cannot live without "great ideas" and "great construction projects"; for their sake, people are ready to endure the rule of great empires over them. That is why ever new towers of Babel are built. They are built and they collapse; this is how the history of fallen humanity flows.

By the sons of Noah, according to St. Augustine, entire peoples are meant. Here a genealogical table of these peoples is presented, grouped not so much on the basis of ethnic kinship as on the basis of historical and geographical proximity. The sons of Japheth inhabit Asia Minor and the islands of the Mediterranean Sea; the sons of Ham inhabit the southern countries: Egypt, Ethiopia, Arabia, and Canaan, probably in connection with Egyptian domination over it. In the territory located between the places where these ethnic groups settled, the descendants of Shem settled: Elamites, Assyrians, Arameans, and the ancestors of the Jews. Summing up his knowledge of the world around him, the sacred writer affirms the unity of the human race, descended from one ancestor. The scattering is presented, on the one hand, as a consequence of God's blessing and, on the other hand, as a consequence of the human choice that seeks power over a world in which there is no place for God.

The tenth chapter of Genesis is devoted entirely to describing the settlement of Noah's descendants throughout the earth. In a certain sense it resembles the pre-flood genealogies, but with one important difference: here there is still a certain geographical anchoring. At least we can speak of the Near Eastern region as the territory occupied by Noah's descendants. Such localization should not surprise us: the flood, although the Bible calls it worldwide, is in fact described as a more or less local event connected with that same Near Eastern area. And the whole Prologue of Genesis has primarily the Near East in view; the territory, for example, "east of Eden," where Cain goes after murdering his brother, in effect takes him beyond the bounds of God's world. Eden, if we follow the sacred geography of the Prologue of Genesis, is in Mesopotamia. The eastern border of Mesopotamia is already the border of God's world.

There is nothing surprising here: the point is not the earth as a whole, but a concrete inhabited world, a territory that the bearers of one civilization or another perceive as their own, so that on it they feel, if not at home, since an inhabited world does not have to coincide with state borders, then at least in their own familiar world. For a Jew of the sixth century before Christ, when Genesis as we know it today was written, the inhabited world was the territory from the Ionian islands in the west to the eastern border of Mesopotamia in the east, and from Asia Minor in the north to Egypt in the south. Everything beyond that was another world, alien and foreign.

If a catastrophe occurs on the scale of the inhabited world, for its inhabitants it becomes worldwide, perhaps even universal. There were quite a few such catastrophes in antiquity that affected the whole Near Eastern civilizational region; hence the traditions about a flood, naturally a worldwide one. And the settlement of the world after the flood also takes place on the scale of the Near Eastern inhabited world, which is entirely logical.

There in the Near East, beginning with the age of the first great civilizations, representatives of three large ethnic, and therefore linguistic, families really did live: Hamitic, Semitic, and Aryan. The last were speakers of languages of the Indo-European family, and even in the first half of the last century scholarly literature called them Japhethites. The world is populated anew after the flood, becoming different and at the same time remaining itself, as always happens after cataclysms and catastrophes.