What was Wrong about the Tower of Babel?

The story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9) is often told as if the people were building a tower so that they could reach Heaven and gain direct physical access to God, but God confused their languages so that they would not be successful.

Of course, a person does not need to learn rocket science to know that God does not live physically in the sky. Long before the Russians sent the first monkey into outer space, we knew what things looked like beyond the clouds. Thankfully, (almost) no Christian today believes that God literally lives “up there”, which is why it seems ridiculous to think that God actually believed that man had ability to physically show up at his doorstep, and freaked out when they tried!

Genesis 11:5–7 says,

And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. ₆ And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. ₇ Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.” (ESV)

It might seem as if God responded specifically to the building of the tower. However, that is not the case. Whenever the tower is mentioned, it is always mentioned with the city first: “the city and the tower.” The emphasis is on the city as a whole, while the tower was the main feature of the city. So then, why was God so averse to the people building the city and the tower?

Let us look at the previous verse:

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” (ESV)

The word “heaven(s)” could refer to one of three things:

1. The physical sky where birds fly.
2. Outer space where the stars and planets are.
3. God’s dwelling place.

It would be a mistake to assume that the word “heavens” in this passage must refer to God’s dwelling place. Rather, in this context, it is more reasonable that it refers to the physical sky. The people wanted to build a tower so high that its top reached the sky. They had no intentions whatsoever of invading God’s dwelling place.

So, if the people did not build the tower with the intention of walking into God’s castle in the sky, then why did they build it? The word “lest” (v. 6) indicates that the action was done with the purpose of preventing a certain outcome. According to the text, the people built the city and the tower—not so that they could enter into God’s dwelling place, but so that they would not “be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

God’s will for mankind had been expressed in the cultural mandate to Adam: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subjugate it.” (Gen. 1:28) After the Flood, God re-affirmed this cultural mandate to Noah (Gen. 9:1). The people who built the city and the tower were among the first descendants of Noah and his sons, who had survived the Flood not too long ago. However, this whole “spread out” idea did not appeal to them; they preferred to stick together. By building the city and the tower, the people had essentially created for themselves a comfort zone from which they had no reason to depart. Their disobedience was what displeased God.

Once their languages became confused, the people eventually united themselves with other like-minded, like-tongued people and went their own ways, thus finally beginning to fulfil God’s plan for them. Verses 8–9 record,

So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. ₉ Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth. (ESV)

Therefore, the problem was not that the people were building a tower capable of reaching God’s dwelling place. Rather, the people’s intention for building the city and the tower was to defy God’s will for mankind to spread out all over the earth. Nonetheless, God always has his way of getting his way despite whatever the free-will choices of man might decide!