Day 5: The Fallout

God did not forget about Noah. The rain stopped and the waters decreased and ultimately dried up. Once the earth had dried, God spoke to Noah: "Go out of the ark…. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you…so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth" (Genesis 8:16-17). From Genesis 8 onward, the entire Bible is about life after the flood. 

Now there was a new social order on the earth. Man was given authority by God to oversee human culture and society. In chapter 9, government was established with the authority to enact capital punishment as a just response to murder. There was also a new physical order. The thermal blanket that God had protectively placed around the earth was gone; the environment was more dangerous and unstable. Human lifespan was dramatically shortened. 

Still, this was mankind's second chance, and God said to Noah and his household essentially the same thing He had said to Adam and Eve: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth" (Genesis 9:1). The Bible says that the entire earth was populated from Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth (see Genesis 9:18-19). Chapter 10 records the fruitfulness of Noah's descendants; seventy nations came from these three boys. Indeed, they were fruitful and multiplied. 

But God had also commanded them to "fill the earth"—to spread out. And they did exactly the opposite. In chapter 11 we find that mankind instead had coalesced. They all came together and built a kind of super-state in rebellion against God. "Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there" (Genesis 11:1-2). In verse 4, they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." This was the Tower of Babel.

The people were building a tower—a temple, really—toward the heavens. In fact, it was likely a seven-level temple that birthed the astrological worship from which Babylon later emerged. The tower was built by man, for man, to the exclusion of God, to elevate their own pride and power. It was a tower of defiance. Instead of looking to God and trusting Him for the future, they looked to themselves and to the stars. 

God saw their city, their tower, and, most significantly, their hearts. He said, "'Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.' So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city" (Genesis 11:7-8).

In the beginning, Adam had a choice. Noah's descendants had a choice. And you have a choice. You can either dwell in God's land, submit to His authority, and receive His promises, or you can dwell in the land of Babel in opposition to His instruction and suffer His judgment. Despite man's rebellion, God was faithful to His promise that a Messiah would come to conquer sin and the consequence of sin: death. He used four great men in Genesis to set in motion the fulfillment of that promise.